flash1

Animated Line
Animating lines can be done through Masking. You may find other alternatives down the road when using Flash. This was a big request so I’m going to show you how to do it. It can get as complex as you want, just depends how much masking work and time you want to put into it. I’ll show ya how to make a square look like it’s being drawn.

Select the Rectangle Tool. Make a rectangle or square on layer 1, frame 1. Black for Line color and no Fill color.

Right-click on frame 20 and choose Insert Frame, then make a new layer. On this new layer, draw a Filled rectangle over the lines. Make sure it covers up the lines on layer 1 so you can’t see them.

Click on the Filled object and go to Modify>Transform>Rotate. Hold down the Shift key and rotate the object to the left 40 degrees. Keep it selected.

Go to Modify>Transform>Scale. Now scale the filled rectangle so it covers the lines completely. Feel free to move the object around if you have to. Go ahead and Group the object when you are done – Modify>Group.

Right-click on Frame 20 and choose Insert Keyframe. Click on frame 1 and drag the object to the upper left, just passed the top corner of the stroked square.

Double-click on frame 1 and go to Tweening>Motion, then click OK.

Right-click on layer 2 and select Mask.
Press Enter to play the movie. The Filled object that is now a Mask moves over the stroked square revealing the lines little by little until it reached frame 20. Wherever the Mask is, that is where the object shows through on the layer below it.