Denver Flash Design and Flash Training

General Flash workflow
To build a Flash application, you typically perform the following basic steps:

Plan the application.
Decide which basic tasks the application will perform.

Add media elements.
Create and import media elements, such as images, video, sound, text.

Arrange the elements.
Arrange the media elements on the Stage and in the Timeline to define when and how they appear in your application.

Apply special effects.
Apply graphic filters (such as blurs, glows, and bevels), blends, and other special effects as you see fit.

Use ActionScript to control behavior.
Write ActionScript code to control how the media elements behave, including how the elements respond to user interactions.

Test and publish your application.
Test to verify that your application is working as you intended, and find and fix any bugs you encounter. You should test the application throughout the creation process. Publish your FLA file as a SWF file that can be displayed in a web page and played back with Flash Player.

Depending on your project and your working style, you might use these steps in a different order.

For video tutorials about the Flash workflow, see the following:

Flash workflow: www.adobe.com/go/vid0132

Creating your first interactive Flash file: www.adobe.com/go/vid0118

For a text tutorial about creating an application, see Create an Application on the Flash Tutorials page at www.adobe.com/go/learn_fl_tutorials.

Building a Flash Slide Show

  1. Open Macromedia Flash.  Flash is a popular authoring software developed by Macromedia.  It is used to create vector graphics-based animation programs with full-screen navigation interfaces, graphic illustrations, and simple interactivity.

 

  1. Create a new flash document         File > New > Flash File
  1. Set Canvas Size

 

  1. File > Import > Import to Library…
  1. Select all images in the library

 

  1. Drag selected images to the stage
  1. Set X & Y Coordinates

 

  1. Modify > Timeline > Distribute to layers
  1. In turn, select each layer or key frame (you have to do this individually)

 

  1. Push the F8 key to convert the selected image to a graphic symbol
  1. You have to name each symbol different than the image name

(It helps to keep the names similar for reference purposes)

  1. Repeat step 9

 

 


  1. Demonstration: create key frame (F6) for each layer

 

 

 

  1. Demonstration: Create a motion tween for transitions between layers.

 

 

 

 

  1. Demonstration: drag each layer into position on the timeline

 

Some important keyboard commands   

 

Symbol           Any object or combination of objects, animation, or a Web button. When you create a symbol, the objects (or animation) become one symbol. The difference is that Flash stores the definition of the symbol in the Library. From the library, you can now effortlessly insert multiple copies of the symbol into your movie. Each copy is called an instance.

Tween          An animation technique in which the frames "in-between" 2 keyframes are automatically created by Flash. 1. Motion tween Motion tweens can change the following properties of an instance of a symbol: position, scale, rotation, skew, brightness, tint, and alpha. 2. Shape tween Shape tweens are used to morph between 2 simple shapes. Shape tweens do not work on symbols or grouped shapes.

F5                    Creates a new frame
A single graphic image in a sequence of graphic images.

F6                    Creates a new key frame
An animation key frame is a single still image in an animated sequence that occurs at an important point in that sequence; key frames are defined throughout an animated sequence, in order to define pivotal points of motion before the frames in between are drawn or otherwise created to "tween" the motion between the two key frames.

Tween means "in-between" two keyframes and is used to create dissolves or cross-fade effects.

SHIFT-F5       Removes a frame