PE 6_Flash

Wow, 7, wait, wait, about 14 grueling hours later here I stand...or should I say sit. That Flash tutorial was the longest thing I've ever sat through, but I learned a lot. I took a total of 31 pages of notes. Yes I said 31!!! See...

I am thoroughly exhausted. Here is major run through of the things I learned that I thought were really important:

Symbols: Symbols are essentially buttons, movie clips, or graphics you've created. You can then use these symbols with animations in them and do a host of other things. Symbols take up less file space. You can work in something in 3D after converting it to a symbol. To convert something to a symbol you just click the item --> choose modify in the toolbar menu --> then select convert to symbol.

Layers: Layers allow you to separate out different elements that you are working with on the stage. By keeping everything separate you can easily manipulate things without changing others. You can also copy and paste layers. One really good tip I learned is how to lock all layers except the one I am working on. To do that I use OPT + the layer I want to work on. This locks the inverse. Simple. 

Text Layout Framework: Text Layout Framework is something new for Adobe Flash. It only works in Flashplayer 10 or higher and with Actionscript 3.0. It is possible to use the classic text function, but this functionality in this version makes it much easier. I learned what leading, tracking, and kerning are, as well as ant-alias, which allows you to control how smooth the text is. You can create text boxes that are fixed with by dragging the box to the size you want or creating variable width text boxes by clicking create text box and just start typing. You can connect text through multiple fields by clicking the red arrow in the red box and hovering it over the next text field you want to have the text continue into. Very cool. This will be helpful in making newsletters and the like. If you are worried about your text not showing up on someone else's computer because it's not common, you can embed the font, which does slightly increase the file size, but guarantees the viewer will see the final presentation as intended.

Differentiating Symbols from Instance: Symbols are stored in the library and if you edit them you will edit all the instances of the symbols in your project. Instances are "copies" in a sense of your symbol on the actual stage. You can scale instances and rotate them without effecting the symbol stored int the library. You can apply colors and transformations to instances to give a project in which you are using multiple instances of a symbol some variety. You can also swap and nest symbols inside other symbols.

More to come...