Flash 101: Evening & Weekends

Day 1 Introducing Flash

Introducing Flash

• launching flash


• resetting the workspace


• exploring the welcome screen


• the flash files explained


• creating our first flash file


• the panels


• modifying the movie properties


• saving the file

Getting to Grips with Drawing

*strokes

• the line tool


• using the black mouse pointer to manipulate the line


• changing the stroke’s properties


• the colour panel and selecting the right options


• the pen tool


• the pencil and its crafty modes

Getting to Grips with Drawing, fills

• the basic shapes


• watching out for the stroke/fill conundrum


• manipulating shapes


• the color panel and fills solid, bitmap and gradients solving classic problems

Shape Interaction

• working in a single layer causes its problems


• accidental fill on fill but this can be useful, compound shapes and slicing shapes up


• stroke fill interactions

Working in Layers

• building new layers


• locking previous layers to prevent modification


• hiding and showing layers


• outline view as an alternative to visibility


• adding shadows to our design

Spelling it out

• the text tool


• checking the properties before you type


• adding our text


• back to black


• changing the properties


• discussing the anti-alias options


• working with large blocks of text


• an example of text orientation


• breaking apart text and applying a stroke

Enhancing the Design with Images

• a simple import to stage


• let’s take a look at workflow, decide upon the size, resize in fireworks, using image preview to manipulate the quality, exporting the image, import to library and use the symbol in the movie


• a workflow for transparent content, open the image in fireworks, export as PNG32 to maintain transparency, import to library and explore the bitmap properties


• working with ‘vector’ artwork, tracing line-art drawings, is it worth it?, some nice examples

Being Symbolic?

• the concept


• convert to symbol, shape, text and image


• compare and discuss the symbol types


• look at colour effects


• look at filters


• reuse is the key


• blend modes

Using the Mask

• importing an image


• creating a new layer


• using the grid fill deco tool


• turning it into a mask


• locking layers and preview

Tweening Time

• steps to happiness


• tweening different properties, movement, alpha, scale and rotation


• putting it into practise,let’s build a banner


• the magic staircase


• animating images


• cache as bitmap


• exploring easing and breaking up a tween

Publishing your Movie

• a quick look at publish settings


• publishing the movie


• reviewing the output

Day 2 Getting all interactive

Back to Banners

• banner advert sizes


• let’s build a banner to brush up our skills


• alphas, movement, scale, blur


• placing backgrounds and borders on our banner


• advertisement text


• transparent corners


• creating movieclips in retrospect


• masking revisited


• using a mask in an animation


• shape tweening and the spray brush


• how to add a simple link and let’s copy and paste the code

The Building Blocks of a Simple Microsite

• building a button, separating shape and colour, creating a button symbol, bevel filters and tint effects, adding audio to the click and adding some dummy text


• duplicating symbols, duplicating our button and modifying the text


• bringing the buttons together, grouping the buttons using a movieclip and giving everything a name


• using a movieclip for the background, building the symbol off the stage and it’s not the size that’s important


• sketching out the design, a quick storyboard, identifying extra elements, rounded corners and 9-slice scaling

Building our first page

• the home page, layers and layer names, adding our library content, adding text and applying formatting, getting gradient text using masks, image import and workflow revisited and lorem ipsum as a cheat

Building the other pages

• Using scenes to separate our pages


• getting the content in the same place


• duplicating the title symbol and then swapping it out


• swapping out the image


• modifying the layout


• naming our scenes


• modifying behaviour with a sprinkling of script


• adding some code to make the buttons work


• sneaking in a simple preloader


• adding labels to our frames as anchors


• changing our publish settings to enable the anchors


• reviewing the movie and fixing any problems

Publishing the Microsite

• Publish settings and the flash player version


• Reviewing our result

Adobe Certified Associate in Flash

• Preparation


• Practice exam


• Official exam