Saint Mary's College - Notre Dame, Indiana

Instructional Technology Resource Center - Saint Mary's College - Notre Dame, Indiana
  
 

Flash Traing Guide:

Flash is an extremely powerful vector graphics program that allows you to create dynamic animated content to create everything from basic linear animations to entire web sites. You will learn the skills in this course to become familiar with Flash, so that you can create simple yet impressive animations that you can add to web sites or publish as self-running Flash Player files.

Objectives:

  • Create and format text
  • Import artwork from other programs for use in a Flash project
  • Manipulate objects on the Stage, including selecting, moving, copying, deleting, and transforming them
  • Navigate in the Flash environment to build your projects efficiently
  • Perform frame-by-frame and tweened animations
  • Publish projects for use on the Web
  • Use Flash's drawing tools to create simple and complex objects
  • Utilize object interaction on a single layer to combine and segment objects

General Prerequisites:

Basic familiarity with the operation of personal computers Some experience working with graphics

Table of Contents

LESSON 1: The Flash Environment and Basic Drawing and Painting

  • Vector vs Raster Graphics
  • Introduction to the Flash Environment
  • Basic Drawing Tools
  • Applying Fills and Strokes to Shapes
  • Creating Custom Colors, Gradients, and Line Styles

LESSON 2: Objects on a Single Layer

  • Manipulating Objects
  • Single Layer Object Interaction
  • Transforming and Grouping Objects
  • Editing Shapes
  • Working with Bitmaps

LESSON 3: Working with Multiple Layers and Working with Text

  • Working with Layers
  • Mask Layers
  • Aligning Objects
  • Creating Text Labels, Text Blocks, and Text Fields
  • Breaking Text Apart

LESSON 4: Basic Animation and Publishing

  • Frame-by-Frame Animation
  • Animation with Shape-Tweening
  • Motion-Tweened Animations
  • Guide Layers
  • Publish Settings
  • Publish Preview

Advanced Flash Training Topics:

You will work with Flash's advanced features to create interactive Web content, from simple animated buttons to complete interactive web sites. You will work with symbols and instances, actions, sound, and Flash's testing capabilities to create professional and eye-catching interactive content. (Prerequisites: Introductory Flash 4 Training)

Specific Objectives:

  • Add sound to Flash movies.
  • Apply advanced ActionScript techniques to create interactive forms, evaluate the position of an object, and dynamically set properties of an object.
  • Create animated sequences using frame-by-frame and tweened animations.
  • Implement the three types of symbols and instances as a development short-cut and as a method for optimizing file size.
  • Use ActionScript to create basic interactivity, such as image rollovers, GoTo frame actions and GetURL actions.
  • Use the testing environment to optimize Flash movies, and publish and export Flash movies.

LESSON 1: An Animation Review and an Introduction to Symbols and Instances

  • Creating frame-by-frame animations
  • Creating shape and motion tweened animations
  • Understanding symbols and instances
  • Creating Javascript buttons
  • Editing symbols and instances

LESSON 2: Interactivity in Flash

  • Introduction to interactivity
  • Using Stop and GoTo actions
  • Linking from Flash
  • Using drag and drop within Flash
  • Using the If Frame Is Loaded action

LESSON 3: Working with Sound and Advanced Interactivity

  • Adding sounds to the timeline
  • Triggering sounds; importing and editing sounds
  • Sound optimization
  • Working with form fields and variables
  • Using ActionScript to set variables
  • Using string operators to format variable display
  • Evaluating the position of an object
  • Dynamically setting properties

LESSON 4: Testing and Publishing

  • Evaluating download performance
  • Importing and exporting movies