>>> Introduction
-Are you struggling with Macromedia Flash, or just want to learn. If you just want a few tips and tricks, skip down a few sections. But for some of you out there who want to learn, this should be a good tutorial for you.
-First off you need Macromedia’s Flash 5 (Flash MX is a newer version) in order to follow me. So, with that, lets get started, shall we?
>>> Summary
-Getting started with Flash is rather easy. Start the program; it should already display a new movie. If not, File > New.
-Frames are all the little boxes on the top.
Each frame is like a picture, when you play the movie (enter) it displays each frame in order. OK, lets really start making movies. Whenever you hit F6, you create a key frame. This frame makes a duplicate of the frame before it. Just a regular frame is activated by F5. It basically creates one big frame. If you have a frame you need to lengthen, or create a tween, here’s where this comes in. Create a frame and press F5. Now drag the second frame you created to the number 10.
-Tweening is real fun. Instead of animating frame by frame, you can tell an image to start and end at a certain place, the computer does the rest. Start out with a circle. Say we wanted it to float across the screen. Make a circle and press F5.
Now right click on the stretched frame, and right click “Create Motion Tween”. Your frame should to turn color and a dotted line through it. Now click your circle and drag to the other side of the screen. Press enter.
- Symbols are also handy tool. Click your circle and go to Insert > Convert to symbol. Create it as a graphic and name it: circle.
Now that our circle is a symbol we can do a variety of different things.
- Effects are something that only symbols can do
Alpha: Controls the transparence of an object
Tint: Controls the color an object possesses
Brightness: controls brightness and contrast
Advanced: advanced controls
Click the last frame of the tween. Now go down to effects and click tint, make it red.
Now hit enter. It should change the color while traveling.
Lets make it even more cool. Open Window > Library. Right click “circle” and select Behavior > Movie Clip. Now righ click on it and press edit. Spin the circle, press F6, spin the circle, press F6…ect. Do that for about 5 frames. Now go back to the original movie (Scene 1). Select Control > Test Movie. See how the ball is moving.
-Motion Guides are a line or direction that a Motion Tween follows. If you wanted a circle to swirl or zig-zag, this is what you’d use. After you have a tween, go to Insert > Motion Guide.
Take the pencil tool and draw a squiggle line. Click your circle and place it on the top of the line. Click the last frame of the tween, and drag the circle to the bottom of the line.
-Layers is a tool that can be rather helpful. Lets say you need to have a background and a character in front, this is possible. Insert > Layer. You can drag and drop the layers according to how you want them.
- The paint tool can be used in almost any situation. Click it and you will see other options below it.
- Adding sound to sound to your animation is rather easy. First File > Import and select any wav or mp3 format. If you get a error saying: “could not import because one or more files could not be read”, the file types where wrong. Open your library and see your sound. Drag it into the page. Click your Frame. Press F5 and drag it as long as it needs.
- Publishing and Exporting is the way to put your movie out there. If you want to publish it, the setting typically sends it as a swf file. It will most likely publish it to the Macromedia folder on your C: Drive. I also like to export it as an animated GIF. File > Export Movie > Animated GIF. Don’t do it as a GIF Sequence, that will put it as a each picture.
>>> Conclusion- [I hope this improved your skills with Flash 5, and learned a lot. The next step is Action Scripting, but now animating is easier, you’ll have fun.
PS: I’d like feed back from this tutorial.
