Chapter

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Introduction to Flash

What is FLASH? What is FLASH?

Flash 8 is a powerful tool created by Macromedia which was originally created in an effort to realize colorful animations for the web as well as to create animated GIFs. Flash Professional 8 is the latest version of the application that has moved from being a simple Web animation tool to a powerful media content delivery platform.

Advantages of FLASH 8 Advantages of FLASH 8

Attractive Designs: Flash 8 allows the using of visual effects that will ease the creation of animations, presentations and forms more attractive and professional. Font Optimization: It also includes some readability options for small sized fonts. Consolidated Libraries: Now you can search any object existent in our movies faster, browsing our open libraries from a single panel. Figure 1.1: Flash 8 Logo More powerful animation: Flash 8 allows much more control of the interpolations setting a new edition mode form which you will edit the velocity the rotation, shape, color and movement are applied. More powerful graphics: Avoid the unnecessary representation of vectorial objects setting an object as a bitmap. Although the object is converted to a bitmap, the vectorial data remains the same, so, in every moment, you can convert it again to a vectorial object. Improvements in video importing: It eases the working with video formats, Flash 8 provides high-quality new independent codec.

Metadata Compatibility: Include your SWF files in searching engines defining a title, description and/or keywords.

Uses of FLASH Uses of FLASH

Create animations Add streaming audio and video to Web sites Create Internet applications for e-learning or e-commerce

Creating a FLASH Document Creating a FLASH Document

Flash documents, which use a FLA extension, can contain text, audio, video, animations, and other materials. Flash can create seven specific kinds of documents: Flash Document It uses the file extension FLA and can incorporate content such as text and images, media assets such as audio and video files, and the ActionScript code. Flash Slide Presentation Flash Form Application ActionScript file ActionScript is Flashs coding language. It can be written to a separate document in Flash and can then be linked to a FLA file. ActionScript Communication file It is used for media streamed into a Flash SWF file through the Flash Communication Server MX. Flash JavaScript file It uses the JSFL extension. It is a very advanced aspect of Flash. Flash Project It allows you to create an index for grouping related files and managing version control.

1. Double-Click on the Flash 8 logo on your desktop. This will open the

Flash 8 opening menu.

Figure 1.2: Flash 8 Opening Screen

2. Select Create New, and then choose Flash Document to open the

Flash Interface.

The FLASH Interface The FLASH Interface

The interface is divided into a number of discrete areas: a. Main Menu It is the control center for the Flash interface. You can also customize your working environment and you Flash documents here.

The Menu Bar

To make the access to different program features easier. It is similar to any other web or graphic designer program, although it has some particularities.

File: It allows creating, opening and saving archives Import has exceptional power; it inserts to the current movie nearly all types of archives (sounds, videos, images and even Flash movies) or the Publication Settings option from which you can modify the characteristics of the publications. It also enables to configure the printing pages, print them, etc

Edit: It is a classic menu that allows you to Cut, Copy, Paste objects or as well images or frames; it also allows you to customize some of the most common options of the program.

View: Apart from, typical Zooms, it allows you to move the frames and scenes. It also includes the possibility to create a grid and some guides. These ones can be selected from submenu Grid and Guides from where you can configure its options.

Insert: It permits you to insert objects into the movie, as well as new frames, layers, actions, scenes Modify: The option Transform permits one to modify the graphics existing in the movie, and the option Draw Bitmap allows to modify current graphics in vector maps (this theme will be studied further). Other options allows you to modify characteristics of the animation elements Smooth, Optimize or of the same movie (Layer, Scene).

Text: Its contents affect the edition of text. It will be further handled in more details Commands: Allows administrating the Commands (group of saved sentences that allows to emulate what user can introduce to the edition environment) that we had saved in our animation, to obtain other news from the Macromedia page or execute what we already have. Control: From here you modify the properties of the movie reproduction Play, Rewind, Test Movie ....

Window: In addition to the classical options of distributing the windows, this menu includes shortcuts to ALL the Panels.

Help: From here we can access to all the help that Macromedia offers to us, from the current manual up to the Action Script, going through tutorials, guided lections etc

b. Stage The Stage is the workspace for composing the individual frames in the movie. You can draw directly on the Stage or arrange imported artwork. It is the area the user sees when the Flash movie is playing. c. Timeline The Timeline is a grid where you coordinate the timing of the animation and assemble the artwork. The Timeline window displays each frame in the movie. Each layer appears in the Timeline as a separate row. It contains the frames that compose a Flash movie or animation. d. Panels The Panels are command sets grouped according their function. Its function is to simplify and facilitate the commands use.

Align Panel: It places the objects like we indicate to it. It is very useful. Color Mixer Panel: Using this panel we'll create the colors that we like more. Color Swatches Panel: It allows us to select a color quickly and graphically. Info Panel: It shows the size and the coordinates of the selected objects, with the possibility of modification. It is very useful for exact alignments.

use. objects

Scene Panel: It modifies the attributes of the scenes that we Transform Panel: It scales, shrinks, rotates... the selected

Actions Panel: It is very helpful when you use Action Script and associate actions to our movie. Behaviors Panel: They allow one to assign to certain objects a series of characteristics (behaviors) that later could be stored to be applied to other objects fast and efficiently.

Components Panel: It allows us to access to the already constructed and ready to be used Components that Flash provides. The components are "intelligent" objects with characteristic properties and many utilities (calendars, scrolls etc...)

Strings Panel: Flash 8 contributes multi-language base to our movie through this panel. Help Panel: Macromedia gives us help and accessible advises from this panel. Properties Panel: With no doubt it is the most used panel and the most important. It shows us the properties of the object selected at this moment: border, background color, line type, characters size, typography, objects properties (if there are interpolations...), coordinates, size etc...

Movies Explorer Panel: It allows us to access to all the movie contents easily and quickly e. Tools Panel It contains the drawing and the text tools. f. Property Inspector It provides you the tools to modify documents and objects. To toggle the Property Inspector ON or OFF, just press CTRL+F3.

Figure 1.3: The Interface

g. LAYERS

Think of layers as a stack of acetate transparencies. You can separate your graphic elements in layers for easier (and safer) modifications and handling. You can use layers generously because they do not make your Flash file significantly larger. The stack of layers for one frame of your animation is called a cell.

The standard View of a layer is the one that shows the image.

Insert Layers : As its name indicates, it is used for Inserting layers in the present scene. It inserts normal layers. Add Guide Layer : Insert a kind of guide layer. It is discussed in detail the following point.

Erase Layer : Erase the selected layer. Change Name: To change Name: of a layer, it is enough to double click the current name.

Layer Properties: If we double click the icon , we'll be able to access a panel with the properties of the layer we've clicked. We'll be able to modify all the options that we've previously commented and some more of lesser importance.

Show /Hide Layers : This button allows us to show and hide all layers of the movie. It is very helpful when we have many layers and we want only to see one of them. In order to activate the view of a concrete layer (or to hide it) it is enough to click the corresponding layer in the point (or in the cross) that is under the icon "Show/Hide layers"

Block Layers : It blocks the edition of all the layers, so we'll not be able to edit them until unblocking them. In order to block or to unblock a concrete layer, we'll proceed like in the previous point, clicking on the point or icon "Lock" located in the current layer under the icon "Block Layers". Show/Hide layers as outlines : This button show / hide the contents of all the layers as if they were composed only by borders. Facing numerous set of objects

in this way, we'll be able to distinguish all of them easily and to see in what layer each of them is. There are many types of layers, as you can see in the general properties of a layer:

Normal Layers : This are the layers of Flash by default, and they have all the properties described in the previous points. They are used most commonly and for almost everything: to place objects, sounds, actions, and helps...

Guide Layers : This are layers for special or specific content. They are used in the animations of objects movement and its only aim is to set the trajectory that this object must follow. Because its mission is to represent the trajectory of an animated object, its content usually is a line (straight, curve, etc). Mask Layers : These layers can be seen as groups that keep the unmasked layers off.

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Name: ________________________ Year/Sect: _________ Name: ________________________ Year/Sect: _________ Instructor: _____________________ Date: _____________ Instructor: _____________________ Date: _____________

Score: Score:

Activity Number 1:

Introduction to Flash

I. TRUE OR FALSE _________1. Flash 8 was created by Adobe, from whence its perfect integration with Photoshop came. _________2. Flash began being a program to create simple web animations, animated gifs ... and it has turned into the referent software for creation of web interactive applications. _________3. Flash 8 results to be easier in handling than its previous versions, since it contains new handling features. _________4. The animations or movies generated by Flash 8 will have a performance generally better than ones created with previous versions. II. LABEL THE PARTS. Label the parts and give its function.

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1. ______________________________________________________

______________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________ 2. ______________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________ 3. ______________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________ 4. ______________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________ 5. ______________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________ 6. ______________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________ 7. ______________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________ 8. ______________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________ 9. ______________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________ 0. ______________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________ III. Create a simple graphic Flash Presentation of PLP
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