St.

John American School

Name : ……………………………………..

Class : …………….

Term : ……………..

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Grade 11 Term 2 Lesson 1 Macromedia Flash MX

Using the Movie Explorer

The Movie Explorer is a special panel that displays all the items in your
movie, as well as your movie’s structure. You can use it to find a specific
item, or to see an item’s relationship to other items in the movie.

To display the Movie Explore, open the Window menu and select Other
panels and then Movie Explorer.

The Show buttons along the top of the Movie Explorer let you filter the
items displayed in the list. If you move your mouse over a button, a
yellow pop-up tells you what filter is applied when the button is selected:

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Clicking the button lets you customize the items displayed using the
Movie Explorer Settings dialog:

So, The Movie Explorer displays items hierarchically, first by scene,

then by layer, and then by frame. Expand and collapse nodes in the tree
by clicking the plus or minus sign next to the name of the item you want
to expand or collapse:

options

If you’re searching for a particular item, you can use the Find field to
enter its name. Once you’ve located it, you can right-click it or click on
the Options button in the top right corner of the panel to see a list of
options. One of the handiest is Go to Location, which selects the item
on the Stage:

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As your movies grow, the Movie Explorer can become an invaluable tool
for sorting through the seeming mess of objects, layers, and movie clips.

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Grade11 term2 Lesson2 Macromedia Flash MX
Macromedia Flash 8 Section 2: Creating Graphics in Flash

In this section, you learned about:

• Creating graphics in Flash

• Importing graphics

Creating Graphics

Importing Graphics

While you can create simple graphics in Flash, more often than not, you’ll
import the graphics you want to use into your Flash document. Flash
supports a large number of graphics formats, including .gif, .jpg, .wmf,
.pct, .tiff, .wmf, and Freehand, Illustrator and Photoshop image files.

To import a graphic into your document:

1. From the File menu, select Import.

2. From the submenu, select Import to Stage or Import to Library.
Importing a graphic to the Stage places the graphic directly on the
Stage, on the currently selected layer and frame, while importing to the
library adds the graphic to the library. From the library, you can drag
the graphic to the Stage whenever you need it.
3. In the Import dialog box, navigate to the graphic you want to import,
select it
4. and click Open.
5. The graphic appears either on the Stage or in the library:

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On the Stage, you can position the graphic by dragging it where you
want :

You can also use the Free Transform tool to scale or skew the
graphic:

The Free Transform tool can be used on any image you place on the
Stage—still or motion—Flash doesn’t care.

Creating New Graphics in Flash

Flash’s drawing tools are similar to those you’ll find in other programs,
with a few differences. First, the drawing tools are fairly limited in
number, with the basic pen, pencil and brush tools, a line tool and only
three preset shapes: oval, rectangle and polystar. Second, Flash

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treats the stroke and fill as separate objects; both need to be selected in
order to work with the object as a whole.

Flash creates vector art, which relies on geometric data (lines, curves
and points). While vector graphics are generally smaller in file size than
raster graphics and can be resized without loss of resolution, they aren’t
appropriate for displaying complex color variations.

Note: The main thing to keep in mind is that Flash is not a drawing
program. Most often, you’ll want to create your images in drawing
programs like Macromedia Freehand or Fireworks or Adobe Illustrator
and then import them into Flash. You can, however, use Flash’s drawing
tools to quickly create simple buttons or background areas. The tools are
located on the Tools panel, which by default appears vertically along the
left side of the Flash window:

The drawing and selection tools are located at the top of the panel. When
you select a tool, any options available for that tool are displayed at the
bottom of the panel, under Options. For example, when you click the
Brush tool, the following options appear:

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Buttons with down arrows like the Brush Mode button shown above
open menus containing several options:

The Brush Mode menu lets you select where you want the paint to
appear in relation to other objects on the Stage:

• Paint Normal paints over anything on the layer that the brush
touches.
• Paint Fills paints fills and empty areas without painting over existing
lines.
• Paint Behind paints the empty areas behind objects on the current
layer, without painting over existing lines or fills.
• Paint Selection applies a fill to a selected object.
• Paint Inside paints inside the lines of an object, preventing you from
painting over the lines.

Next to Brush Mode, the Lock Fill button is used for extending a
gradient across the Stage, so when you select a gradient fill with the
Brush tool, the paint you apply on one part of the Stage will differ in
color from the paint you apply on another part of the Stage.

The drop-down menus at the bottom of the Options section let you
select a brush size and shape.

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The Brush tool has more options than any other in Flash. For example,
the Pencil tool has only one menu button under Options, which lets you
select a straight, smooth, or ink stroke. There are no options for the Pen
tool, which is used to create lines and curves using points.

Using the Polystar Tool

Working in much the same way as the Oval and Rectangle tools, the new
Polystar tool allows you to easily create complex vector shapes. You can
use this tool to create polygons and stars with up to 32 sides. Choose
between creating a polygon or a star. Both styles have characteristics that
can be adjusted in the Property Inspector before you draw the shape. Both
the polygon and star style can have up to 32 sides, with the star style
having an additional star point size that can be set. Experiment with
several options to get the kind of shape you want.

Draw a Polygon or Star Shape

1. Select the layer and frame on the Timeline where you want the
drawing to appear.

2. Click and hold the Rectangle tool in the Toolbar, and then point
to Polystar Tool.The pointer becomes a crosshair that you can drag
anywhere on the Stage.

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3.For the shape, use the Property Inspector to define the appearance of
the stroke (the lines, or border).

4.Clicking Custom opens the Stroke Style dialog, which provides a

variety of stroke styles and patterns:

5.click the Options button the Tool Setting will open

6.Click the Style popup, and then select Polygon or Star.

7.Enter a value for the number of sides. You can create an object with up
to 32 sides.

8.For the Star style, you can specify an additional option for your point
size. You can enter a value ranging from .10 to 1.0 points.

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9.Click OK.

Understanding Selection:

1.Click and drag on the Stage to create the drawing. Below, a rectangle
is being drawn with the Rectangle tool:

Once you’ve drawn an initial object, you can use the Selection tool

to select and move it, the Sub selection tool to change the object’s
shape by dragging the points (or nodes) along its path, and the Free

Transform tool to scale or skew the object.

For example, to see how Flash treats stroke and fill, draw a simple

rectangle, click the Selection tool, and then click the bottom edge
of the rectangle (only one click):

Only the bottom line of the rectangle is selected:

Now drag the line away from the rectangle:

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The line is separated from the rest of the object:

Flash treats the fill of an object the same way—that is, as a separate
entity on the Stage. Click and drag inside the rectangle to separate the
fill from the stroke:

The stroke and fill can be moved, modified, and deleted independent of
each other:

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To select both the stroke and fill of an object, you must use the
Selection tool to click and drag a boundary box around the entire
object:

Selected elements are represented by a dotted pattern, as shown below:

You can then move the object as a whole by dragging the selection:

At first glance, this seems an over-complicated way of working with

simple graphics, but the flexibility of Flash’s selection and drawing tools
makes it easy to quickly transform a simple brush stroke or shape into a
completed graphic.

For example: the simple circle shown below was painted on the Stage
using the Brush tool. The Sub selection tool was then used to select
the points along the inside of the circle (by clicking once just at the inner
edge):

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Clicking and dragging the points using the Sub selection tool modified
the interior shape of the object:

The Ink Bottle tool was then used to apply a black stroke along the
outside of the object:

When you click near the edge of an object using the Ink Bottle tool,
Flash automatically selects and changes the stroke to the selected stroke
color, even if the object, like the brush stroke in our example, was drawn
using only a fill.

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The Paint Bucket tool works the same way. With the tool selected, we
chose a green fill from the Colors section of the Tools panel and then
clicked once inside the empty area of our object:

Again, it’s important to remember that Flash isn’t a drawing program—

any complex graphics need to be created in another program and then
imported into Flash. But the drawing tools Flash does include work well
together to allow you to create simple graphics quickly.

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 Grade11 term2 Lesson3 Macromedia Flash MX
In this section, you learned about:

• Using color effectively

• Creating a color swatch

Using Color Effectively

In Flash, there are three ways to select a color for an object:

1-you can use the Colors section of the Tools panel,

2-the Property Inspector

3- the Color Mixer panel.

The Color Mixer panel provides more options than the others, and
should be used for creating gradients and entering opacity (Alpha) values
for a color. If the Color Mixer panel isn’t already displayed, open the
Window menu and select Design Panels and then Color Mixer. By
default, the Color Mixer panel appears near the top of the vertical panel
group:

To define a color, you can enter RGB (Red, Green, Blue) or HSB (Hue,
Saturation, Brightness) values, or you can enter a hexadecimal
value into the field below the large color box at the bottom of the
panel. If the large color box isn’t visible, click the small white arrow at
the bottom of the panel to expand it.

To switch between RGB and HSB values, click the Options button at the
upper right corner of the panel and select RGB or HSB.

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Enter the values for the stroke (displayed in the top left color box) or the
fill (displayed in the bottom left color box) into the fields. Or, click a color
box and select a color from the palette that opens. To match the color to
an object on the Stage, click the stroke or fill color box, and then move
the mouse over the object on the Stage. Flash, using the Eyedropper
tool, automatically identifies a matching color when you click the object.

The Alpha field lets you define an Alpha, or opacity, value for a color.
The lower the Alpha value, the more transparent the color. As you
change Alpha values, the resulting color is displayed in the preview box
on the Color Mixer panel:

You can use semi-transparent colors to add interesting effects to your

movies. For example, the blue box below, when set to an Alpha value of
50%, creates a blue film over the underlying photo:

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The drop-down menu on the Color Mixer panel lets you select a gradient
style for a fill:

When you select a gradient, a bar appears on the panel with pointer
buttons you can move and delete to adjust the gradient:

To move a pointer, just click and drag it. The gradient appearing in the
bar adjusts to match. For fewer levels in the gradient, drag pointers off
the panel. To add a pointer, click just under the gradient bar where you
want it to appear:

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To add a color to the gradient, click a pointer to select it and then select
the color from the palette below:

Use the slider on the right to adjust the color’s brightness:

Colors you define on the Color Mixer panel are applied to selected
objects on the Stage and to the selected tool. The colors remain on the
panel until you define new ones.

Creating a Color Swatch

To preserve a color or gradient you’ve defined on the Color Mixer panel,

create a color swatch:

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1. Click the Options button at the upper right corner of the Color Mixer
panel. From the menu that appears, select Add Swatch.

Flash creates the color swatch. The swatch appears at the bottom of the
color palette when you select a fill:

2. To apply the Swatch to a selected object or a tool, click the fill box on the
Color Mixer panel, the Property Inspector, or the Colors section of the
Tools panel. Then select the Swatch from the color palette.

Exercise:

Create a graphical Symbol which will use as the basis of the animation.
As you see in the picture:

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The steps:

1-click insert then New Symbol or CTRL+F8

2-write the name of the symbol for example: Graphic Shape

3- Select Graphic

4-click OK

5- select ovel tool then draw it on the stage

6-from the properties of the shape choose the color, size, outline color
and the shape of the outer.

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 Grade11 term2 Lesson4 Macromedia Flash MX
In this section, you learned about:

• Layering Flash elements

• Masking content

Layering Flash Elements

Layers are transparent sheets on which you add buttons, text, movie
clips, and other objects that form your finished Flash movie. Layers can
be envisioned as pieces of tracing paper laid on top of each other. They
let you work with each distinct group of elements in your movie
separately, and can be named, rearranged, deleted, and made visible or
invisible.

When you create a new Flash document, it contains one layer. You can add
more layers to organize the artwork, animation, and other elements in
your document. The number of layers you can create is limited only by
your computer’s memory, and layers do not increase the file size of your
published SWF file. You can hide, lock, or rearrange layers.

The layers in your movie are displayed in the Timeline. Each new Flash
document starts with one layer, called Layer 1 by default:

To rename a layer, double-click on it and then type a new name:

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It’s good practice to create a layer for all the different types of elements
in your movie, including animations, text, buttons and actions. To create
a new layer, click the Insert Layer button at the bottom of the Timeline:

Double-click inside the name of the new layer and give it a new name:

When you add a layer, Flash adds a blank keyframe to the first frame of
the layer. If you add an object to the Stage with the first frame of the new
layer selected, the object will appear in the movie at the same time as
those objects placed in the first frame of the other layers. As the Timeline
moves forward through the frames, objects on all the layers will appear
and disappear depending on their frame locations. Layers, therefore, are
primarily used to organize the objects on the Stage; using separate layers,
you can easily control distinct animations without interfering with the other
animations and objects on the Stage.

To further organize your layers, you can create folders to group them. To
create a folder, click the Insert Folder button at the bottom of the
Timeline:

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Double-click inside the folder’s name and type a new name for it:

You can add layers to the folder by clicking and dragging each layer into
the folder:

You can rearrange layers the same way—by clicking and dragging them
to new positions in the list. Layers are stacked so that objects on the
bottom-most layer in the Timeline appear beneath the objects placed on
layers higher in the list.

Exercise:

To see how this works, we’ll add a couple of objects to the Stage—each
on a different layer. Whenever you add an object to the Stage, you must
select the layer on which you want the object to appear. A pencil icon
indicates the active layer.

With our Background layer selected, we’ll use the Brush tool to
swipe some paint across the Stage. We’ll then add a rectangle to the Art
layer:

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Because the Art layer appears above the Background layer in the
Timeline, the rectangle appears on top of the paint stroke. If we
rearrange the layers so the Background layer appears higher in the
stacking order than the Art layer, the rectangle appears behind the paint
stroke:

Note that when you select a layer in the Timeline, Flash automatically
selects all the objects on that layer. Because our Background layer is
selected, our paint stoke appears as a selection, represented by the
dotted shading.

When you have a number of objects on a number of layers, you can

temporarily hide layers you don’t want to work with. To do so, click the
Eye column next to the layer you want to hide. A red X indicates that the
layer is hidden:

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When our Background layer is hidden, only the rectangle appearing on

the Art layer is visible on the Stage:

To restore the visibility of the hidden layer, click the Eye column in the
Timeline again:

You can lock layers to prevent them from inadvertently being modified
when you’re working with another layer. To do so, click the Lock column
next to the layer:

The objects on the layer remain visible, but they can’t be selected or
modified.

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The last column in the layers list is the Outline column. Clicking the
Outline column for a layer displays the contents of that layer as
outlines:

This is a kind of compromise between displaying and hiding a layer—you

can see where objects are positioned, but you can also see behind them.
You can also display a layer as an outline when you want to use objects
on the layer as guides for painting.

A few additional layer properties are available in the Layer Properties

dialog, which you can open by double-clicking a layer (away from the
name of the layer).

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Using the Layer Properties dialog, you can specify such properties as
the layer type, the lock and visibility setting, the outline color and the
layer height.

To copy a layer:
1. Click the layer name to select the entire layer.
2. Select Edit > Timeline > Copy Frames.
3. Click the Insert Layer button to create a new layer.
4. Click the new layer and select Edit > Timeline > Paste Frames.

To copy the contents of a layer folder:

1. Click the triangle to the left of the folder name to collapse it, if
necessary.
2. Click the folder name to select the entire folder.
3. Select Edit > Timeline > Copy Frames.
4. Select Insert > Timeline > Layer Folder to create a new folder.
5. Click the new folder and select Edit > Timeline > Paste Frames.

To delete a layer or folder:

1. Select the layer or folder.
2. Do one of the following:
■ Click the Delete Layer button in the Timeline.
■ Drag the layer or folder to the Delete Layer button.
■ Right-click (Windows) or Control-click (Macintosh) the layer or
folder name and select Delete Layer from the context menu.

Note: When you delete a layer folder, all the enclosed layers and all their
contents are also deleted.

Using guide layers

For help in aligning objects when drawing, you can create guide layers.
You can then align objects on other layers to the objects you create on
the guide layers. Guide layers do not appear in a published SWF file. You
can make any layer a guide layer. Guide layers are indicated by a guide
icon to the left of the layer name.

You can also create a motion guide layer to control the movement of
objects in a motion tweened animation. See “Tweening motion along a
path” in Using Flash.
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Note: Dragging a normal layer onto a guide layer converts the guide
layer to a motion guide layer. To prevent accidentally converting a guide
layer, place all guide layers at the bottom of the layer order. Using the
Tools panel

To designate a layer as a guide layer: • Select the layer and right-

click (Windows) or Control-click (Macintosh) and select Guide from the
context menu. Select Guide again to change the layer back to a normal
layer.

Masking Content

You can mask portions of the movie you don’t want visible by adding a
mask layer. Objects on mask layers can be animated so the graphics on
the underlying layers are revealed as the Timeline progresses.

To create a mask layer, simply add a new layer over the layer in the
Timeline that you want masked, name it “mask” and then define it as a
mask layer:

1. Add an object you want masked to a new or existing empty layer.

2. Insert a new layer and name it “Mask”. Make sure the mask layer
appears over the layer you want masked in the Timeline.

3. On the mask layer, draw an over the Stage that you want displayed.
Objects that appear outside this layer will be masked, or hidden.

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4. Right-click the mask layer in the Timeline and, from the shortcut menu,
select Mask.

The mask is applied to the underlying layer:

Note that the mask layer now appears in the Timeline with a distinct
icon, which is also applied to the layer being masked. The layer being
masked now appears indented beneath the mask layer. Both layers are
automatically locked.

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You can unmask a layer by right-clicking it and selecting Mask again
from the shortcut menu:

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