Morphing vs Tweening

Tweening !

Short for in-betweening, the process of generating intermediate frames between two images to give the appearance that the first image evolves smoothly into the second image. Tweening is a key process in all types of animation, including computer animation. Sophisticated animation software enables you to identify specific objects in an image and define how they should move and change during the tweening process.

Tweening in Flash is the process of creating an animation based on the start frame and end frame. For example, In the start frame, if you have and object at position A and in the end frame you move the object to position B and ask Flash to create a Tween, Flash will automatically generate the intermediate frames to show a smooth animation of the object moving from position A to B.


Morphing and inbetweening (tweening) are special techniques in animation using flash that have become very common these days. Of the two, people are more aware of morphing but it is inbetweening, commonly known as just tweening that is creating a buzz because of the ability to allow the user to create intermediate frames when he is moving from one image to another. There are many similarities between the two techniques. However, there are some differences that this article will harp upon to clear the doubts from the minds of the readers.

What is Morphing?

If you ever watched the Michael Jackson’s Black or White video in which faces changed to one another, you must have wondered how it was possible. It is done through morphing which has come of ages since then. It is possible to start with your face and end up with the face of a terrorist or some celebrity. This special effect of face changing is so smooth that one is left blinking his eyes how he turned into someone else. The technique involves marking the important features or the contours of the face which has to be changed and the same facial features such as the place of nose and mouth are marked on the face into which the first face has to evolve. Computer software then distorts the first face to take the shape of the 2nd face while fading both the faces. Morphing has totally taken over the earlier cross fading technique that was used earlier for transition between two scenes in TV shows.

What is Tweening?

As described above, tweening is the technique of producing intermediate frames so that one image transforms gradually into another. These frames are slightly different from one another shifting gradually in shape and appearance to the final image that the producer wants to show. This technique is the basis of all kinds of animations as it makes possible motion of animated characters. This is how circles are turned into squares, letters turn into stars and a rabbit turns into a leopard. Both shape tweening and motion tweening is achieved with the help of flash which is an important tool in making animations. The major difference between shape tweening and motion tweening is that motion tweening operates on groups whereas shape tweening works for objects that can be edited. Tweening allows the graphic designer to not only effect changes in the shape of the object but also introduce changes of color and location. Thus shape tweening has become very important in designing flash web site designing.

In brief: • Morphing and tweening are two techniques of effecting changes in an object and its motion. • Morphing refers to the procedure where one face changes into totally different face in a smooth manner • Tweening enables graphic designer to allow for changes in animated character and also its size, color and location. • Tweening has become an integral part of animation using flash as the tool.