Introduction to Macromedia Flash 8

Flash Workspace
Tools panel Timeline Panels Current scene Layers

Workspace Stage Property inspector

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Stage You compose movie content on the Stage. Set Stage size to match a specific browser size
Display Area in Microsoft Internet Explorer 620 x 318 780 x 438 1004 x 606 1260 x 862

Screen Resolution
640 x 480 800 x 600 1024 x 768 1280 x 1024

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Tools Panel
Tools create the content of a movie.
Tools: Draw, paint, create text, select objects, modify objects, and erase objects

View tools: Zoom and pan

Color tools: Set stroke and fill colors Options: Modify the currently selected tool

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Panels
Panels provide additional tools for creating and editing movies.
Click the options menu to view additional options for the current panel.
You can hide or show panels by using the options on the Window menu.
Options menu

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Timeline
You can organize and control the content of a movie over time.
Playhead Frames

Layers

Frame rate

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Frames and Keyframes

Frames: Like films, Flash movies divide

lengths of time into frames, which are organized on the Timeline.

Keyframes: Frames that define a change

in what is displayed in a movie or include frame actions to modify a movie. When you open a new blank movie document, it contains one layer with one blank keyframe.

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Frames and Keyframes

Keyframe with content

Empty frames

Blank keyframe

Empty slots for new frames

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Layers
Layers are like multiple film
strips stacked on top of each other, each with a different element that appears on the Stage.
Graphics Animations Text Sounds Buttons Frame actions

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Symbols and Libraries

Symbols are elements you reuse within a
movie to reduce file size.

Types of symbols include graphics, buttons,

movie clips, sound files, and text.

A library is where you store and organize

symbols.

When you drag a symbol from a library to the

Stage, you create an instance of the symbol.

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Advantages of Using Symbols

Easy editing: If you change the symbol

in the library, all instances of the symbol are updated automatically.

Smaller file sizes: Symbols are

downloaded only once, regardless of the number of instances youve included in the movie. This reduces the size of your published movies and decreases download times.

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Animation with Tweening

Tweening: A series of frames that change
incrementally to create smooth movement or change over time.
You can set the beginning and ending frames and have Flash automatically create the frames in between. Flash has two types of tweening: shape tweening and motion tweening.

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Shape and Motion Tweening

In Flash, a shape is a vector-based object. You
create a shape by using the drawing tools or by importing a vector drawing from another program.

Use shape tweening to animate one shape into

another. You cannot shape-tween grouped objects, bitmaps, text that has not been broken apart, or symbols.

Use motion tweening to animate symbols,

groups, and text blocks.

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Shape and Motion Tweening

Shape
Shape Tween Motion Tween yes no

Group
no yes

Symbol
no yes

Text Block no yes

Brokenapart Text yes no

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Sound
First, import a sound file
into the library.

Add sound to a movie by

dragging an instance of the sound into a frame.

To minimize file size, loop

shorter sounds (to make them repeat).

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Actions

ActionScript statements instruct a

movie to do something while it is playing.
Frame action: An action attached to a frame is triggered when the movie plays that frame. Object action: An action attached to an object is triggered when the viewer interacts with the object, such as moving the pointer over a hotspot or clicking a button.

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