FLASH NOTES

Introduction to Flash
Flash is an incredibly powerful program that has seemingly endless potential. Flash can be used for creating games, making presentations, animations, visualizations, webpage components, and many other interactive applications. Some of the Flash interface components will look familiar to you, as they have the same functionality as other Adobe applications. However, Flash requires a certain mindset to work in it properly, especially when animating with vector graphics and coding with actionscript 3.0.

Here is an overview of the Flash interface.

Stage: The stage is the main workspace of Flash, all your compositional elements (movie clips, buttons, graphics, and etc.) will be arranged here.. Content that is within the box in the middle of the stage will be visible when the Flash movie is output. The grey background area outside the box in the middle is 'off-stage'. You can animate content from off-stage onto the main stage area

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or use a background image that is larger than the main stage to move around as if the camera is panning across a background. The Stage has several context which are indicated along the top bar of the stage. It can present content that is in a Scene or can present sub-content such as objects from the library. You can show and hide the things that exceed the size of your stage by turning off/on Pasteboard (View>>Pasteboard)

Timeline: The numbers across the bottom correspond to the frames that occur as time progresses through the movie. You can navigate to any frame of your animation to perform editing. Also, Flash has layers just like many other Adobe applications. These appear along the left side of the Timeline.

Properties: The Properties tab changes depending on which tool on the toolbar you have selected or which object you have selected on the stage. Each object or tool has its own properties which can be adjusted in this tab.

When you have the Selection Tool selected and click the background of the stage, the Properties tab shows the Document Properties. Here you can set the size of your Flash file, background color, frame rate and exporting settings.

Library: The library tab will be your best friend in Flash. It holds all the symbol objects of each Flash file. You can organize your library like you did in your windows/mac directory. (i.e. created new folders for different types of elements, or nest one symbol in another)

Drawings & Symbols

There are two primary types in Flash, Drawings and Symbols. Drawings are created with the vector editing tools in Flash such as the Pencil, Brush, Oval, Rectangle, etc. Drawings have stroke and fill which can be reshaped via the Selection and Subselection tools as well as any other vector editing tools.

Symbols are a powerful feature of Flash in that you can draw an object once, save it in your library, and use it over and over. Symbols can be created from a Drawing, collections of Drawings and other Symbols, or external files (JPGs, PNGs for instance). Basically, symbols are like container for your visual/auditory elements. Instead of having hundreds of graphics, text,
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and other elements laying on the stage, you can create a symbol and use wherever you need it. If you want to change the appearance of every instance of that object throughout your movie you can directly edit the Symbol in the library. You can also break apart Symbols into their original objects to make derivatives of a Symbol.

Symbols: Movie Clips vs Graphic vs Button

There are three types of Symbols: a Movie Clip, a Graphic symbol, or a Button symbol. These symbols can have actions applied to them to dynamically load, disappear, trigger other events, and many other things (in actionscript). The fundamental distinction between Movie Clips and Graphic are that the former has it own independent timeline whereas the latter shares the same timeline with the stages timeline. Button symbols are simplified objects with special frames for a mouseover appearance, and a click appearance.

Library Structure
Once you start to work on a flash project, most likely you will have a lots different types of files(text, graphics, video, imported stock images), you want to have your library organized in a way that files of the same type should be placed together and give your folder recognizable names so when you need to find some elements you know where to look for it. It will save your time and hassle, also it will make your work flow better. This is very critical if you are working in a team, because when you pass the file you have worked on to other people; if the library is not well-structuralized; your co-workers will have hard time to simply start it.

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FLASH NOTES

Flash Project Properties

When you first create a new Flash project you are presented with the default properties page on the right side of the screen. These properties all have a significant impact on the movie and should only be adjusted at the beginning of a project or a significant amount of work may be required to correct the issues that arise.

FPS stands for Frames Per Second and is the frame rate of your movie which determines the smoothness of your animation. For fluid motion the frame rate should be left at 24-30 fps. If your animation doesn't have much movement or doesn't require this level of quality, reducing the frame rate can significantly the file size of your resulting movie. Note that while changing the frame rate does have an overall impact on the speed at which your frames play, you should never use the frame rate as a means to adjust the speed of your movie.

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FLASH NOTES
This property page also allows the adjustment of the size and color of the stage. The stage determines the output size of the movie, while the size can be adjusted in the player, you achieve your best quality setting your stage to the maximum size you expect for your final output.

Timeline & Frames

In Flash we place all content in layers just like in Photoshop. The same tools exist to create a new layer, delete a layer, and create folders for layers. The primary difference is that content must be placed into a Keyframe on the timeline. Keyframes are frames in the timeline that contain information (content or script). Keyframes without content are denoted by an empty circle, keyframes with content have a filled circle. You can right-click on the timeline for a specific layer and select 'Insert Blank Keyframe' to begin adding content (when you create a new layer there is always a blank keyframe at frame 1). Click a blank or empty keyframe in the timeline to add content to that frame. A keyframe only lasts for one frame (if your movie is 30 frames per second a single keyframe is 1/30 of a second). To extend the length of a keyframe, right-click onto a frame further down the timeline and select 'Insert Frame'. You can also select, drag, copy and paste frames. Note that in order to perform any operation on a frame you must select it first.

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FLASH NOTES
How to create simple flash animations using Motion, Shape, Guided Tweening and Frame-by-frame Animation
While working in Flash you will find it necessary to create simple animation sequences. In this tutorial you'll learn how to create simple animations in Flash. In Flash animation can be done in four basic ways:

Motion Tween Shape Tween Frame-by-Frame Animation Guided Motion Tween

A. Creating Motion Tween in Flash

1. Draw a vector using any of the drawing tools in Flash, say a small circle and convert it into a symbol (F8) by selecting the Graphic option and name the symbol say 'ball'. 2. Click the 20th frame in the Timeline and insert a frame (F5). 3. Now right-click the 20th frame in the Timeline and select Create Motion Tween (or Motion option from the Tween panel of the Properties inspector) and insert a Key Frame (F6). 4. Select the 10th frame and insert a Key frame (F6) and move the ball to a different position say, above the current position to create a motion sequence (automatically tweened by Flash). 5. Save your work and test the Movie (Ctrl + Enter). That's it you have created simple animation using Motion Tween.

Fig: Timeline of Motion Tween Note: Use the Color Panel of the Properties inspector to reduce the Alpha value from 100 to 32 for the 1st and last frames to produce Simple Alpha Tweening as shown in the Example.

B. Creating Shape Tween in Flash

1. You can create Shape Tweened animations using Shape option from the Tween panel of the Properties inspector. Draw a vector using any of the drawing tools in Flash, say a small circle and remove its border. By: Sandeep kaur Grewal

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2. Click the 10th frame in the Timeline and insert a Key Frame (F6). Now draw another shape say a diamond using the rectangle tool without a border. 3. Now right-click on any frame in between these two Key Frames and select Shape option from the Tween panel of the Properties inspector. 4. Save your work and test the Movie (Ctrl + Enter). That's it you have learnt how to create Shape Tween in Flash.

Fig: Timeline of Shape Tween Note: Only vectors can be Shape Tweened (Not for Symbols). Note both the Tweens have different colors along the Timeline as shown above. Make sure that the line is smooth without being broken to ensure correct Tweening.

Fig: Timeline of Broken Tween

C. Frame-by-Frame Animation

1. Create a vector/plain text using any of the drawing tools in Flash, say a text with 'Animation' typed as shown in the example and break it using Break Apart (Ctrl + B) to separate the alphabets as shown below:

Fig: Showing Text after Break Apart

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2. In Frame-by-Frame animation we create the object for each frame so as to produce an animation sequence. 3. Insert Keyframe (F6) and move the alphabets so as to produce an animation sequence. 4. Repeat the above step as far as desired to create Frame-by-Frame animation as shown in the example. 5. Save your work and test the Movie (Ctrl + Enter). That's it you have created an animation using Frame-by-Frame animation.

Fig: Timeline of Frame-by-Frame Animation

D. Creating a Guided Motion Tween in Flash

1. Create a vector/plain text using any of the drawing tools in Flash, say a text with 'Flash' typed and break it using Break Apart (Ctrl + B) as done in the previous example and put each alphabet in different layers and name the layers as shown in the picture below. 2. Insert a guide layer by right-clicking the topmost layer and select 'Add Guide Layer' (Insert->Timeline-->Motion Guide), draw any path using the pencil tool in the guide layer as shown in the example. 3. Now create Motion tween by selecting the object in the 1st frame and snapping its registration point to one end of the path. 4. Snap the object in the last frame to the other end of the path in the guide layer. 5. Repeat the same for all the objects (alphabets) by snapping their registration points to the path in the guide layer.

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6. Save your work and test the Movie (Ctrl + Enter). That's it you have learnt how to create motion along a guided path.

Fig: Timeline of Guided Motion Tween

What is a Flash Symbol?

A symbol is a reusable object used/created in Flash. A Symbol can be reused throughout your movie or imported and used in other movies. There are three types of symbols: Graphics, Buttons, and Movieclips. A copy of a symbol used in the movie is called an Instance, which can have its own independent properties (like color, size, function, etc.) different from the original symbol. All symbols used in a flash movie are stored in the Library from where you can drag-and-drop new instances of the symbols into your movie. When a symbol is edited all of its instances get updated, but changing the properties, effects or dimensions of an instance of a symbol does not affect the original symbol or other instances.

Importance of using Flash Symbols

Using flash symbols is very crucial to the file size of your Flash movie. The Flash file size depends largely on the size of all the graphics and texts used in the movie (both symbols and non-symbols) - here the major advantage of using symbols is that a symbol's size is taken into consideration only once even if it is used a hundred times - this is the true power of Flash. Unused symbols in your library are not counted in the size of your movie. Important Tip: Get used to using symbols in flash right from the beginning and name them neatly for easy maintenance. It is a very tough job optimizing your file size if you don't use symbols from scratch!

The Three Types of Symbols

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Graphic symbols are reusable static images that are used mainly to create animations. Any drawn vector/plain text/imported bitmap (photo), or combinations of these, can be converted into a single controllable object: as a graphic symbol. They have only one frame in their timeline. Learn how to create a graphic symbol. Button symbols are used for timeline navigation - They add interactivity to the movie and respond to mouse clicks, key press or rollovers/rollout, and other actions. You define the graphics associated with various button states (Up/Over/Down/Hit), and then assign actions to the instance of a button. They have 4 frames in their timeline - one each for the up, over and down states, and one to define the hit area of the button. Learn how to create a button symbol. Movieclip symbols are reusable pieces of flash animation - consisting of one or more graphic/button symbols - thus they are flash movies within your flash movie. They have their own non-restricted Timeline (any number of layers and frames - just like the main timeline) that plays independent of the main movie's Timeline. The best thing about using movieclips is that you can control them from actionscript - you can change their dimensions, position, color, alpha, and other properties and can even duplicate and delete them. Learn how to create a movieclip symbol. The three symbols appear in the flash library similar to the three symbols the above image. Let's look at how to create these three types of flash symbols now.

Creating Graphic Symbols Creating Button Symbols Creating Movie-clip Symbols

How to create a graphic symbol in Flash

Please carry out the following steps in Flash to create graphic symbols. 1. First create/import the object(s) to be converted into a graphic. You can import bitmaps onto the stage using Ctrl+R. 2. Select the object(s) and then press F8 (or Modify >> Convert to Symbol). 3. Select the Graphic Behavior and name the symbol, say 'g_home'. 4. To edit it at a later point, double-click the symbol in the library (Ctrl + L) or any of its instances on the stage to switch to its symbol-editing mode as shown below. The name of the symbol will appear near the scene name ('Scene 1' by default, as shown below). 5. Make the necessary changes and click 'Scene 1' to exit from the symbol editing mode and go back to view the main movie's time-line.

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How to create a button symbol in Flash

Button symbols are used for timeline navigation. The button symbols add interactivity to the movie and respond to mouse clicks, key press or rollovers/rollout and other actions. You can define the graphics associated with various button states (Up/Over/Down/Hit), and then assign actions to the instance of a button. There are 4 frames in their timeline -one each for the up, over and down states, and one to define the hit area of the button. Please carry out the following steps in Flash to create button symbols. 1. First create/import the object(s) to be converted into a button. Import bitmaps onto the stage using Ctrl+R. 2. Select the object(s) and then press F8 (or Modify >> Convert to Symbol). 3. Select the Button Behavior for the symbol and name the symbol say, 'btn_home'. 4. Double-click the instance of 'btn_home' on the stage to switch to its symbol-editing mode. The Timeline header changes to display four consecutive frames labeled Up, Over, Down, and Hit as shown below.

Fig: Symbol-editing Mode of completed flash button 'btn_home' 5. The first frame displays the drawn vector/plain text used for creating this button, now insert a Key frame (F6) in the frame labeled Over (Flash automatically duplicates the contents of the Up frame). 6. Now change the color of the object in the Over frame to create a rollover effect in the button. 7. Insert frames (F5) for the Down frame and the Hit frame (only defines the area of the button that responds to user action and is not visible at runtime).
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8. Save your work and test the Movie (Ctrl + Enter). That's it your simple button is ready!

Flash MovieClip Symbols

How to create a movieclip symbol in Flash
Movieclip symbols are reusable pieces of flash animation - consisting usually of one or more graphic and button symbols - thus they are flash movies within your flash movie. They have their own non-restricted Timeline (any number of layers and frames - just like the main timeline) that plays independent of the main movie's timeline. he best thing about using movieclips is that you can control them with ease - you can change their dimensions, position, color, alpha, and other properties and can even duplicate and delete them. Thus any object that needs to be controlled using flash actionscript (no matter how simple or complex it might be) needs to be a movieclip with an instance name that is called in the actionscript code. Please carry out the following steps in Flash to create movieclip symbols. 1. First create/import the object(s) to be converted into a movieclip. Import bitmaps onto the stage using Ctrl+R. 2. Select the object(s) and then press F8 (or Modify >> Convert to Symbol). 3. Select the Movieclip Behavior and name the symbol, say 'mc_fade'). 4. Double-click the instance of 'mc_fade' on the stage to switch to its symbol-editing mode. Now create an animation sequence (you can use simple Tweened Animation or Frameby-Frame Animation)

Fig: Symbol-editing Mode of completed flash movieclip 'mc_fade' 5. The above figure shows the Timeline of the Movieclip symbol. Click Scene 1 to exit from the symbol editing mode. 6. Save your work and test the Movie (Ctrl + Enter). That's it your movieclip is ready! Its that simple.

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FLASH NOTES

Onion skin
Frame-by-frame animation can be difficult when you're working on one frame at a time with no reference for the previous or next frames. In traditional animation, this problem is solved by the use of light desks or light tables, which let you see through multiple layers of paper as though they were transparencies, with the ink/pencil lines standing out clearly laid atop one another. Thankfully, Flash has an equivalent of this effect--known as onion-skinning, an option that you can turn on that shows a range of frames both before and after your current frame, progressively fading them out as if they're layered on translucent paper on top of each other, or "onionskinned". By dragging the edges of the greyed out block in your timeline you can expand or reduce the number of frames displayed in onion-skin mode, to let you better follow and track your animation. The buttons for onion-skin mode can be found at the bottom of the timeline, to the far left before the division marking the layer control area. There are two buttons--one for onion skin, and to the right of that, one for onion skin outlines. Onion skin mode displays the solid images layered on top of each other (see the left-hand side of the image to the right of this page for an example), while onion skin outlines (on the right side of the image) only shows the outlines of the objects on each layer. Outline mode is recommended for long or detailed animations, as it's easier to render and scrub in realtime.

How to Use the Onion Skin

You can display the path an object will take by clicking one of the onion skin buttons in the Controller toolbar. This is handy if you have several objects that move.

Get the controller toolbar: Window->Toolbars->Controller and then click on either the Onion Skin or the Onion Skin Outlines icon.

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FLASH NOTES

Onion skins for the moving cat

Please carry out the following steps: 1. Create a new document in Flash 2. Go to "Insert - New symbol"(Ctrl-F8) to create a new symbol.

3. In the new pop up window type "Animation" in the name field and make sure to select "Movie clip" as type.
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4. In the first frame of layer 1 just draw a random drawing. This is what we're going to animate.

5. Insert a new frame in Layer 1 (F6).

6. Turn on onion skin.

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7. If you try to change the drawing you can see the traces of the last frame to help you animate.

8. You can drag this marker to select how many frames you want to see in onion skin mode.

You can tweak the onion skin settings at the bottom of the timeline tab. The first icon toggles onion skin on or off. The second will set onion skin outlines only. If you set the third one you will be able to edit all frames you have selected at once.

The fourth option down there gives a few choices when selected. What this does is just to set the number of frames to "onion skin" to either the last 2, 5 or all.

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Rotating animations
Instead of moving an object from point A to point B, you also can rotate it around point A. A good example would be hands in a clock. Step 1 - create the object to animate

Create a separate layer for the object you want to rotate. Draw the object (and don't make any new keyframes yet) Transform it into a symbol (right-click and select graphic symbol).

Step2 - move the center point

Then with the free transform tool move its center point somewhere else if you want. E.g. to rotate an hour hand for clock move it towards and end (the center of the clock).

Move the center point of the hour hand - Rotating clock Step 3 - make a motion tween

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Make a new keyframe, i.e.hit F6 in a new frame. You can leave the object where it is (depends on the aim of your animation) Then create the motion tween (right-click anywhere in between the two keyframes) Now in the parameters panel select Rotate = CW (clockwise) as in the example shown in the picture. Btw ""CCW" would mean "countclock wise" If you want to rotate it more than once during the animation time, enter "XX times". E.g. we entered 12 for the minute hand in the clock animation.

Motion tween around a center - Rotating clock

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FLASH NOTES

FLASH SOUND Sound types

Flash can handle several sound formats:

AAC (Advanced Audio Coding): AIFF (Audio Interchange File Format) - Mac only ? MP3 (Moving Pictures Expert Group Level-Layer-3 Audio) AVI (Audio Video Interleave) WAV (Waveform Audio Format) AU (Sun)

To import sound file

File->Import->Import To library (or drag and drop).

Attaching sound to a frame

Step 1 - Create a new layer and import sound to a frame You can attach sound to any frame via the properties panel

Create a new layer for this sound (not mandatory, but good practice) Insert a keyframe (F7) where you want the sound to start Select a sound from the sound pull-down menu in the properties panel. Configure it in the same panel (see next)

Ideally, each sound should have its own layer. This way it is much easier to control fade in/outs, when to stop etc.

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Flash sound layers You also can see exactly how far the sound will extend on the timeline. Hit F5 or F7 (if you later want to stop the sound) somewhere to the right.

Flash sound layers (full picture) Step 2 - Configuration of sounds

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In the configuration panel you can change certain parameters and also edit a bit. Sync: Will defined how sound is synchronized with the timeline.

Event: Sound plays until it is done (independently of the rest). It has its own "timeline". Also, if this sound is triggered again (e.g. a user enters the same frame), a new sound will play even if the old one is not over. Start: Similar as event. Will play the sound when the frame loads but will not play it if the old sound is still playing. Note: This doesn't always work as expected. Probably best to use together with the Stop (see below). Stop : Will stop the sound of a layer at this frame (therefore include it after a sound frame). Insert a new keyframe (F7) where you want it to stop and just edit the properties. Stream: Will try to match the length of sound with the other layers, e.g. 20 frames of sound should play during animation of 20 frames. After that it should stop. Sound as stream should not be looped. Use this for example for comic strips (talking characters).

Repeat:

You can repeat the sound as many times as you like (or even have it loop forever).

Effect:

You can choose from various fade in/out and left/right options, but you probably want to do your own custom fades (see next).

Editing sounds
Editing sound with the Edit Envelope editor

Click in the sound layer in some frame where you have sound In the Properties Panel, Click the Edit ... button next to the Effect: field This opens the Edit Envelope sound volume editor.

Manipulation of the sound envelope

You can drag left/right Time In and Time Out controls in middle pane. I.e. you can cut off sound from the either the beginning or the end of the sound track. You can drag down volume controls (black lines on top) for the left and the right stereo channel o Click to insert a new distortion point for these volume controls o Up: means louder / maximum sound o Down: means more silent / no sound Use the arrow (down left) to test At bottom right there are zoom buttons and a switch that either shows seconds or frames.

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Flash CS6 Sound envelope editor

Attaching sound to buttons

You can attach sounds to buttons in the same manner as above.

Double-click on the button in the library panel Edit the button's timeline (e.g. the mouse over, down and hit frames ) For each sound you want to attach, create a layer Then insert a new keyframe (F7) and attach the sound You may try to stop a sound (insert a new keyframe)

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FLASH NOTES

Flash Sound Button

Include sound files in Flash buttons
While working with Flash buttons you will find it sometimes necessary to use sound files in them. You must have read our tutorial on creating advanced Flash buttons. In this tutorial you'll learn how to make yet another advanced button by including sound in a button's timeline.

Flash Sound Button

Follow the steps given below to create a flash button with sound:

Including sound files in Flash Buttons

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1. Create a simple Button and enter into its symbol-editing mode. The timeline header changes to display four consecutive frames labeled Up, Over, Down, and Hit as shown below.

Fig: Symbol-editing Mode of Button 2. Insert a Keyframe (F6) in the Over frame to duplicate the contents of the Up frame and change the color of the object in the Over frame. 3. Import the sound file (Ctrl + R), add a new layer for sound and select the imported sound file from the Sound Panel of the Properties window.

Fig: Button showing sound in a Layer 4. Now insert frame (F5) for the Down frame and the Hit frame (this frame is not visible, but only defines the area of the button that responds to mouse events). 5. Save your work and test the Movie (Ctrl + Enter). That's it now your button can play music during mouse-overs.

Shape Hint Flash Effect

How to create a smooth Flash shape tween using shape hint

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FLASH NOTES
In the following Flash tutorial you'll learn to create smooth shape tweens by adding a shape hint to the Shape. Steps to create the above shape hint effect:

Insert the movie clip 'mc'. Create a layer in the layers panel and name the layer as 'Text'. In the 1st frame of the 'Text' layer select a Text Tool(T), write a letter say 'A', and press (Ctrl+B) to break the text. Go to the 10th frame in the 'Text' layer, press F7 or (right click >> Insert Blank Key frame). Now we are in the 10th frame of the 'Text' layer and write another letter (as you like) we have written 'T', again press (Ctrl+B) to break the text. Select any frame in between frame 1 - frame 10 of the 'Text' layer, then go to Properties Panel, select shape from Tweening. Now go to frame 1 of the 'Text' layer, then go to (Modify>>Shape>>Add Shape Hint). Place the hint (red color circle) where you want regarding how you change the shape over another text. Go to scene 1, drag 'mc' from library. Save and test the movie press (Ctrl+Enter).

Optimizing Masking Animations

How to optimize animations when masking pictures
In the following tutorial you'll learn how to optimize animations when masking pictures using Flash. As your expertise of Flash increases you will realize that all complicated animations are built up from many basic carefully created animations that work together to create a quality effect. This tutorial helps to learn some Flash optimization techniques when using photos. Here we have used 2 different masking effects.

Import more than one image to the library, set canvas size according to the image dimension. Name the first layer as images, select 2 frames on this layer then press F7 or (right click >>Insert Blank Keyframe). Drag the images one by one at frame 1 and frame2. Then add new layer above 'images' layer name this layer as 'pic'. Select 2 frames from the 'images' layer and paste it over the 'pic' layer, (right click>>Reverse Frames). Go to (Insert >>New symbol...), from that popup, select graphic, name it as 'square', click ok. Draw 10px X 10px linear rectangle, and then reduce that opacity like what we shown below.

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Effect1: How to smoothly reduce alpha value

Go to insert, create movie clip symbol 'effect1'. Drag 'square' from library. Press F6 or (right click >> Insert Keyframe) on 10th frame and extends that width up to your image width, select alpha from property panel then reduce that alpha to 0. Go to any frame between 1 to 10, (right click>>Create Motion Tween). Add new layer do the same process till your height of the image to be ended. Add 'action' layer above all the layer then press F6 or (right click>>Insert Keyframe) on 15th frame. Then press F9 ActionScript window will appear.Then copy and paste the following code: _root.play(); Then press F5 or (right click>>Insert frame)on 15th frame for all the layers.

Effect2: How to make colored effect from the same graphic symbol

Go to insert, create 'effect2' movie clip symbol. Drag 'square' from library. Go to property panel, select tint from color pop up and change what color you want, select Advanced setting from that same pop up, then increase the alpha value like what we shown below.

Then do the same process what explained in 'effect1'. Go to scene 1, add new layer 'mask' above that 'pic' layer. Drag 'effect1', 'effect2' from library at frame 1 and 2 respectively. Duplicate the 'mask' layer as 'movie' layer.

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Add 'action layer' above the 'movie' layer, then press F9, copy and paste the following code: stop(); Apply mask for 'mask' and 'pic' layer . Save and test the movie press (Ctrl+Enter).

Outline Effect in Flash

Create an attractive outline effect using pen tool and masking
The following tutorial shows you how to create an attractive outline effect over a bitmap image in Flash. Steps to create this attractive outline effect over the bitmap:

Create two layers name the layers as 'image' and 'outline' respectively in your timeline. Import your image to the 'image' layer. Now click on the 'outline' layer and move the 'outline' layer above the 'image' layer and using Pen icon, draw the outline over the image as you see in the above flash movie. Make sure you have drawn outline in the 'outline' layer. Now select the outline and Press F8 or (right click>>Convert to symbol...), convert the outline into movie clip, named it as ('line_mc'). Double click on the 'line_mc' movie clip. Now the 'line_mc' movie clip will open in new symbol editing mode. Select the outline from the 'outline' layer, then goto (Modify>>Shape>>Convert Lines to Fills). Insert a new layer in the 'line_mc' movie clip, change the name of the layer2 into 'Mask'. Make sure that mask layer is below the 'outline' layer. In the mask layer draw a linear rectangle using rectangle tool. Press F6 or (right click>>Insert Keyframe) in the 20th frame in the mask layer. In the 'mask' layer, click on the 20th frame and select the linear rectangle. Now move the rectangle from downwards to upwards (shift+up arrow). Click on any frame in-between 1-20 then go to the Properties Panel and select Tweening combo box and select Shape. Select the 'outline' layer, right-click on it and select 'Mask' from the context menu to convert it into a mask layer. Save and test the movie press (Ctrl+Enter). Now you have made a flash movie where lines running through the veins of the leaf

Get to know how to use the 3 types of Textboxes - Static, Input & Dynamic in Flash.

Static Text
1. Drag a Textbox of Fixed-width on the stage using the Text tool and select Static Text Type from the Properties window.

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2. The Static textbox has a rectangular handle in the upper right corner, which can be used to adjust the size of the Textbox.

3. The various Text properties such as the Font, Font-size, Font-style, Font-color, Align etc. can be set using the Properties inspector as shown above.

4. Expanding-width textboxes can be created by selecting the Text tool and clicking once on the stage without dragging it, and start typing the text in it. Note that the expanding textboxes have a round handle as shown above.

Input Text
1. Drag a Textbox on the stage using the Text tool and select Input Text Type from the Properties window.

2. The Input textbox has a rectangular handle in the lower right corner, which can be used to adjust the size of the Textbox. 3. Apart from the normal Font properties of a Static textbox, the Input textbox has more options like, Single Line to display the text as one line, Show Border Around Text to indicate the boundaries of the text field with a visible border. 4. A variable name can also be given which can be used to store user input.

By: Sandeep kaur Grewal

FLASH NOTES

By: Sandeep kaur Grewal