ArtBistro

Hey everyone!

Eric here with some things you need to know about flash in order to become successful in using it.

First off, symbols! A symbol is a reusable object used/created in Flash. These are the blocks of a flash project. You have three types:

1.Movie Clips - Movieclip symbols are reusable pieces of flash animation consisting of one or more graphic/button symbols - thus they are flash movies within your flash movie. They have their own non-restricted Timeline (any number of layers and frames - just like the main timeline) that plays independent of the main movie's Timeline. The best thing about using movieclips is that you can control them from actionscript - you can change their dimensions, position, color, alpha, and other properties and can even duplicate and delete them.

2.Buttons - Button symbols are used for timeline navigation. They add interactivity to the movie and respond to mouse clicks, key press or rollovers/rollout, and other actions. You define the graphics associated with various button states (Up/Over/Down/Hit), and then assign actions to the instance of a button. They have 4 frames in their timeline - one each for the up, over and down states, and one to define the hit area of the button.

3.Graphics - Graphic symbols are reusable static images that are used mainly to create animations. Any drawn vector/plain text/imported bitmap (photo), or combinations of these, can be converted into a single controllable object: as a graphic symbol. They have only one frame in their timeline.

You need to know when to properly use what symbol at what time. Personally, i only use Grpahic symbols for.....well Graphics. Buttons i use for when i need a button that doesnt need to be to fancy and only is navigating within my flash project. MovieClips are amazing! I use them for everything really. I can use them to create a movie or a button. MovieClips are more flexible then buttons and graphics. They can be manipulated with actionscript which can come in handy.

WHAT TYPE OF ACTIONSCRIPTING TO USE:

Right now, Actionscript 2.0 and 3.0 is being used. If your using CS3, it doesnt matter which one you use. Which ever one your more familiar with but if you dont know any A.S then i would recommend AS 3.0 cause thats the improved language.

If you are using CS4, then use A.S 3.0. Reason behind that is that A.S 3.0 has scripting that supports the new CS4 features....A.S 2.0 doesn't.

Major differences in languages are that like stated before, 3.0 supports new features like z-axis and other 3D features. Also 3.0 is more organized and uses Event Listeners (if you dont know what that means thats ok). In 3.0, actionscript can not be applied to objects on the stage like the old version. All code is placed in the keyframes. That is the major differences.

FLASH IS VECTOR BASED:

Basically, flash doesnt use pixels to store data of the image (unless you imported a .jpg,.gif, or .png). Everything created in flash can be sized differently and still keep the same quality of image.

If you have any questions just post below :-)