The Flash Opening Window1481

7/28/2019 The Flash Opening Window1481

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The Flash Opening Window

Flash Tutorials:

The Timelineorganizes and controls a documents content over time in layers and frames. Like films, Flash documents divide

lengths of time into frames. Layers are like multiple film strips stacked on top of one another, each containing a different image

that appears on the Stage. The major components of the Timeline are layers, frames, and the playhead.

Layers in a document are listed in a column on the left side of the Timeline. Each object on the stage should have its own layer.

Frames contained in each layer appear in a row to the right of the layer name. The Timeline header at the top of the Timeline

indicates frame numbers. The playhead indicates the current frame displayed on the Stage. As a document plays, the playhead

moves from left to right through the Timeline.

The Timeline status displayed at the bottom of the Timeline indicates the selected frame number, the current frame rate, and the

elapsed time to the current frame.

Note: When an animation isplayed, the actual frame rate is displayed; this may differ from the documents frame rate setting if

the computer cant calculate and display the animation quickly enough.

Timeline

Layers

Instance

Symbol Library

Toolbox

Properties Panel

Stage


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Parts of the Timeline

The Timeline shows where animation occurs in a document, including frame-by-frame animation, tweened animation, and motion

paths. Controls in the layers section of the Timeline let you hide, show, lock, or unlock layers, as well as display layer contents as

outlines. You can drag frames to a new location on the same layer or to a different layer.

Frames

Function Key -- F5 insert frame; F6 insert keyframe

Just About All You Ever Wanted To Know

Frames in the Timeline

When the Timeline opens:

It displays one layer with hundreds of little boxes.

Each box corresponds to a single frame.

You can make those frames bigger or smaller by clicking the pop-up box at the end of the line of frame numbers(it has what looks like a little Frankenstein scar).

In the single layer, the first box is outlined in black and contains an empty circle. That first box is a blank

keyframe. The rest of the boxes are outlined in gray. Boxes with gray outlines are called "protoframes" - they're

placeholders. Every fifth protoframe is tinted gray; the rest are white. A frame with an empty circle means it is a blank keyframe with nothing in it. Put something in it, and the empty

circle changes to a black circle, which indicates a keyframe.

An exercise that explains this:1. Open a new Flash document. This default Timeline appears - one layer and one blank keyframe in Frame 1.

1. Click on the gray protoframe for Frame 10.2. From the Insert menu, choose Timeline > Blank Keyframe (right-click the mouse and select Insert Blank

Keyframe from the menu). An empty rectangle appears in Frame 9, and a black line separates Frame 9 fromFrame 10. The rectangle indicates the last frame of content for the previous keyframe, and the black line shows

A. Playhead

B. Empty keyframe

C. Timelineheader

D. Guide layer icon

E. Frame View pop-up menu

F. Frame-by-frame animation

G. Tweened animation

H. Scroll To Playhead button

I. Onion-skinning buttons

J. Current Frame indicator

K. Frame Rate indicator

L. Elapsed Time indicator


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where content from one keyframe ends and another begins. Notice that the gray-outlined protoframes 2 through9 are white.

3. Click on Frame 1 and, on the Stage, draw a ball (in the tools bar, select the circle tool). Notice that the emptycircle in Frame 1 changes to a black circle, and Frames 1 through 9 - the in-between frames - are tinted gray.This means that Frame 1 has a keyframe with content, and the shading means that the content appears in all theframes from Frame 1 through Frame 9. The empty rectangle signals the last frame that displays Frame 1'scontent. Frame 10 still has a blank keyframe that indicates it's empty. Click on it to see what happens on theStage.

4. Now, click on Frame 5 and insert a Blank Keyframe. This removes all the content from that frame, and all the

frames in-between Frame 5 and Frame 10. This shows that when you insert a keyframe, you're changing whatcomes before and what comes after, not just the individual frame that you've clicked on.

Note: There are two commands for creating keyframes. When you Insert a Blank Keyframe, you make akeyframe that's empty so that you can change the contents of the Stage completely. When you insert aKeyframe, it duplicates the content of the preceding keyframe.

5. Click on Frame 3 and choose Insert > Timeline > Keyframe. The contents of Frame 1 are duplicated in Frame 3.The empty rectangle in Frame 4 signals that it's the last frame in which the content from the previous keyframein Frame 3 appears.

6. Click on Frame 1 and delete the ball.7. Click on Frame 3. The ball's there. When you create a new keyframe as you did in Frame 3, the content becomes

completely separate from the previous keyframe's content. What you do in Frame 1 does not affect the content inFrame 3.

How to Add Frames

It's easy - and depends on whether you want to add a few frames, or a whole bunch of frames.

An Exercise that explains this:1. Open a new Flash file.

1. Insert a Keyframe in Frame 10. (Flash automatically inserts a Blank Keyframe, because there's no content inFrame 1.)

2. Click on Frame 1, and draw a ball on the Stage.3. You want to increase this movie by one frame, so click on your arrow tool and then click on one of the in-

between grey frames, and choose Insert > Timeline > Frame. The empty rectangle moves to Frame 10, andthe empty circle moves to Frame 11, indicating that this movie clip grew by one frame. A short-cut is to hit F5 asmany times as you want frames.

4. Another way [useful for increasing a span by many frames at a time - say 10 or more -- rather than just a few]:Say you wanted this span to grow by five more frames. Click and drag five in-between frames (DON'T include akeyframe or blank keyframe).

5. Choose Edit > Timeline > Copy Frames.6. Click outside the frames on the Timeline to deselect the frames you copied.7. Click on one of the in-between frames. Choose Edit > Timeline > Paste Frames. The span of in-between

frames is increased by five frames. If you want to add five more, just Edit > Timeline > Paste again. If you didthis to one of a series of spans, for example, all the other spans would be pushed along the timeline. In otherwords, making one span grow doesn't decrease the length of the othersit just shoves them along the timeline.

8. Flash automatically inserts a keyframe at the insert point. If you don't want it, click on it and choose Modify >Timeline > Clear Keyframes.

How to Delete Frames

Note: Flash has two ways to delete frames - Clear Keyframe and Remove Frames. They're a little confusing. The way tofigure out which one to use is to ask yourself why you want to eliminate a frame.

If you want to eliminate a frame because you want to reduce the length of the movie, then select a frame, and chooseEdit > Timeline > Remove Frames, or Shift-F5.


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If you want to remove the status of a keyframe (and therefore, its content), and keep the movie the same length, thenselect a keyframe or blank keyframe and choose Modify > Timeline > Clear Keyframe (or hold down the mouse andselect Clear Keyframe from the menu).

Clear Keyframe changes a keyframe or a blank keyframe into an in-between keyframe. It removes the content itcontained. The new in-between frame displays the content of the previous keyframe.

An Exercise that explains this:1. Open a new Flash file.

1. Insert a Keyframe in Frame 10.

2. Click on Frame 1 and draw a ball on the Stage. All the frames between Frame 1 and 9 contain the ball.3. Click on Frame 5 and insert a blank keyframe. Only the frames between Frame 1 and Frame 4 contain the ball

now.4. With Frame 5 still selected, draw a square on the Stage. Play the movie, and see a ball in the first four frames,

and a square in the next five frames.5. But you've decided that you don't want that square after all. You only want the ball to appear in all the frames.

Click on Frame 5, then choose Edit > Timeline > Remove Frames. The keyframe doesn't disappear; themovie clip just shortens by one frame.

6. So, click on Frame 5, then choose Modify > Timeline > Clear Keyframe (or hold down the mouse and selectClear Keyframe from the menu that appears)_. The keyframe and its content disappear, the frame becomes an

ordinary in-between frame again, and picks up the content from the previous keyframe (Frame 1).

You can, of course shorten a movie clip by removing several frames at once by clicking and dragging over the in-betweenframes to be deleted, then choosing Edit > Timeline > Remove Frames. (You can't do this by choosing Edit > Cut Frames- that just inserts a blank keyframe and a bunch of empty frames.)

You can also eliminate a particular graphic or image altogether by including the keyframe and all of its associated in-between frames by selecting them all and choosing Edit > Timeline > Remove Frames.

About tweened animation

Flash can create two types of tweened animation:

In motion tweening, you define properties such as position, size, and rotation for an instance, group, or text block at

one specific time, and change those properties at another specific time. Convert object to a symbol (movie clip). You

can also apply a motion tween along a path.

In shape tweening, you draw a shape at one specific time, and change that shape or draw another shape at another

specific time. Do not convert to a symbol. Flash interpolates the values or shapes for the frames in between, creating

the animation.

Note: To apply shape tweening to groups, instances, or bitmap images, break these elements apart (^B). To apply shape

tweening to text, break the text apart twice (^B)(^B) to convert the text to objects.

Tweened animation is an effective way to create movement and changes over time while minimizing file size. In tweened

animation, only the values for the changes between frames are stored.

To quickly prepare elements in a document for tweened animation, distribute objects to layers.

For video tutorials about Flash animation, see the following:

Creating shape tweens:www.adobe.com/go/vid0124

Creating motion tweens:www.adobe.com/go/vid0125
http://www.adobe.com/go/vid0124http://www.adobe.com/go/vid0124http://www.adobe.com/go/vid0124http://www.adobe.com/go/vid0125http://www.adobe.com/go/vid0125http://www.adobe.com/go/vid0125http://www.adobe.com/go/vid0125http://www.adobe.com/go/vid0124


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Publishing your movieFile -> Publish Settings

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Manage frames and keyframes in the Timeline

You can perform the following modifications on frames or keyframes:

Insert, select, delete, and move frames or keyframes.

Drag frames and keyframes to a new location on the same layer or on a different layer.

Copy and paste frames and keyframes.

Convert keyframes to frames.

Drag an item from the Library panel onto the Stage to add the item to the current keyframe.

Flash offers two different methods for selecting frames in the Timeline. In frame-based selection (the default) you selectindividual frames in the Timeline. In span-based selection, the entire frame sequence, from one keyframe to the next, is

selected when you click any frame in the sequence. You can specify span-based selection in Flash preferences.

Insert frames in the Timeline

To insert a new frame, select Insert > Frame.

To create a new keyframe, select Insert > Keyframe, or right-click (Windows) the frame where you want to place a

keyframe, and select Insert Keyframe from the context menu.

To create a new blank keyframe, select Insert > Blank Keyframe, or right-click (Windows) the frame where you want to

place the keyframe, and select Insert Blank Keyframe from the context menu.

Select filename and location --

swf file is for plugging-in toweb page -- html creates a

new web page with the flash

movie. Check the desired box.

Then Publish
http://localhost/var/ProgramData/Adobe/Flash%20CS3/en/Configuration/HelpPanel/Help/UsingFlash/WSd60f23110762d6b883b18f10cb1fe1af6-7ec7.html#WSd60f23110762d6b883b18f10cb1fe1af6-7ec5http://localhost/var/ProgramData/Adobe/Flash%20CS3/en/Configuration/HelpPanel/Help/UsingFlash/WSd60f23110762d6b883b18f10cb1fe1af6-7ec7.html#WSd60f23110762d6b883b18f10cb1fe1af6-7ec5http://localhost/var/ProgramData/Adobe/Flash%20CS3/en/Configuration/HelpPanel/Help/UsingFlash/WSd60f23110762d6b883b18f10cb1fe1af6-7ec7.html#WSd60f23110762d6b883b18f10cb1fe1af6-7ec5


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Use movie clip symbols to create reusable pieces of animation. Movie clips have their own multiframe Timeline that isindependent from the main Timelinethink of them as nested inside a main Timeline that can contain interactive controls,

sounds, and even other movie clip instances. You can also place movie clip instances inside the Timeline of a button symbol

to create animated buttons. In addition, movie clips are scriptable with ActionScript.


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Select objects with the Selection tool

The Selection tool lets you select entire objects by clicking an object or dragging to enclose the object within a rectangular

selection marquee.

Note: To select the Selection tool, you can also press the V key. To temporarily switch to the Selection tool when another tool isactive, hold down the Control key

To select a stroke, fill, group, instance, or text block, click the object.

To select connected lines, double-click one of the lines.

To select a filled shape and its stroked outline, double-click the fill.

To select objects within a rectangular area, drag a marquee around the object or objects to select.

To add to a selection, hold down the Shift key while making additional selections.

To select everything on every layer of a scene, select Edit > Select All, or press Control+A. Select All doesnt select

objects on locked or hidden layers, or layers not on the current Timeline.

To deselect everything on every layer, select Edit > Deselect All, or press Control+Shift+A

To select everything on one layer between keyframes, click a frame in the Timeline.

To lock or unlock a group or symbol, select the group or symbol, and then select Modify > Arrange > Lock. Select

Modify > Arrange > Unlock All to unlock all locked groups and symbols.

Select objects with the Subselection tool

When you select a shape, line, or fill with the Subselection Tool, it allows you to see and edit the paths that make

them up, including the individual vector points and their "handles". You can select one or more vector points and

drag them about, or you can select a single vector point and by dragging the "handles" about, adjust the curves toeither side of the point to change your shape.

Documents

The Flash Opening Window1481