Intro to Flash

Soon you will be familiar with Stage, Timeline window, Tools and Properties panel as we learn about Flash. Choose Classic mode as might be your preferred one or the Designer one.

One of the first things we can do is to change the size to what we want by clicking on Edit on the properties panel to change the size.

To fit the recording format better we might want to change the height to 300 px. To collapse any of the panels you can double click on the grey bar. Double click on the bar again to open it up again.

You can also click on any icon like the colour one below to open it. Click anywhere else on the stage to close it. You can drag the panels the tabs and rearrange the screen layout anyway you like.

Click on Window menu option to have other windows open, for example to open the History window, click on Widow, Other Panels then choose History and grab and place it where you want.

Once you have picked how you want the layout to be you can save it and give it a name and next time you can choose those setting if you want. Check the zoom in and zoom out, CTRL + and CTRL

The Tools
Click on the hand tool to select and move the entire stage, Black arrow for selection and White arrow for subselection Now to do some drawing: Choose the pencil tool to create vector objects making sure you pay attention to the colour that appears next to it as this will be the colour of the line that we will be drawing. Click on the box that is next to the pencil to open up the colour palate so that you can change the colour to whatever you want. Now try the black arrow, the selection tool, and click on any section of your curve.

Also below the box appears the settings option for the pencil tool which you can change. Make sure to start with to have the icon on the left, object drawing , set to be off which should be grey otherwise if it is on it will look darker. Now try the pen tool, change the colour and try it. You can do that by clicking at various points anywhere you like. To create a curved line click and keep you finger on the mouse and drag. Use the handle to control the curve. Click on the sub selection tool then click any empty area on the stage to deselect. Now click on any section of the curve this will show you the points that were used to create the line and if you click on the point it will reveal the handle. This allows you to grab it and drag it out to reshape your curve. Compare the lines you created using the pencil with those using the pen tool. Both will have the points that were used to create the curve but using the pencil tool these points will get created for us. 2

If you click on the selection tool, then click once on the line, you will see that only part of the line will get selected.

To grab the whole curve then double click, once selected you can grab it and move it around. You can also on the smooth button to smooth the line. When the curve is deselected then when hover the mouse on any part of the curve then you will get a little arch just below the cursor now you click on any part of the curve and drag it any direction to reshape it any way you want.

You can click on the snapping tool if you want the ends of two lines to meet. . Also check the property panel for the line in order to make changes for example its thickness.

Try the fill tool and notice that it is a separate object from the outline around it.

Try the brush too for a similar effect to Fill tool. Next the shapes tool, you will notice that they make Fill and stroke objects at the same time. The Free Transform tool is used to change the shape of an object which you have created using other tools. Need to select the object first and you will see a box around it with handles to scale the object as well as rotate it and move the centre point to rotate the object around any position you want.

You can skew the object too when the cursor is between two handles. Drag along a group of objects you will able to use the Free Transform tool to reshape all the objects selected in one go. 3

How an object interacts with other objects

If you select an object by clicking on it then use the pencil tool to draw a line across the object then click on selection tool, you will notice the original shape or object has broken into pieces where the new line intersects the old line. This is drawing in merge mode which caused objects to split where they intersect with each other.

Now if you try to single click to select the Fill of an object and try to move so that it intersects with both the line and the fill of another object. Now click away from it to deselect and you will notice that the two shapes are merged into One and if you try to move the oval it will cause a hole in the other shape. This is how Flash works. If you use the selection tool to select a number of objects you could cause something like below when trying to move the selection.

One way to prevent this is to use Groups. Double clicking on any object then press Del button will remove it both the line and the Fill. To use Group, select the shape and from the Modify option select Group.

Notice the blue box around the shape and try to move the shape around and notice the difference. Also notice how even if it interacts with other shapes and you then move it, it does not cut though other shapes. While applying the group you can only change the size and the position of the group otherwise if you want to change the colour, etc you will have to double click the group to edit. By doing that you will notice you are working with your scene but with your group. You will notice all the other shapes are dimmed out. Now you can edit the shape any way you like, once finished click on Scene 1 or the blue arrow next to it.

Object drawing mode

When you select the pencil tool and click on the object drawing mode that takes you out of merged mode which is another way of preventing the objects from interfering with each other. You click on it to be in object drawing mode. Now if you draw anything it will be automatically grouped.

Setting up a Flash Scene

Start a new project using Action Script 3, if you check the Properties panel you will notice that the set up is for Player 10 and Action Script 3. You can change that by clicking on the Edit button to target your project to work with any previous version. Here also you can change the size of your stage, change the Height to 300 and centre the stage.

Also it is a good idea to turn off the Snap to objects tool

Now to create the Scene, start with the pencil tool and draw the hills. Remember to use the Smooth tool if needed by selecting the object first then click few times on the Smooth icon. Reshape the line too to make the hill look better. With the pen tool start creating the shape of the river.

Use all the tools you need to make your creation looks better. Copy the river line to make the bank on the other side. Select the option then press the Alt key and left mouse to copy and drag. Make some rearrangements. 5

Now to colour, use the fill shape. Use the pencil tool to draw a line around your drawing so far to make enclosed areas. Select Paint Bucket tool and select the colour you want, green for the hills

And blue for the river.

Now we dont need the lines, so if you double click on any section of the lines it will select the whole thing. Press del key to get rid of the lines and you will end up with only the fills.