Flash For Beginners

This tutorial will take you through the basics of Flash, and even show you how to make your first animation

- When you first open Flash it can be quite overwhelming. There are lots of tools and windows with lots of information thrown at you. This tutorial will help you to understand the concept of Flash, as well as what the tools are for, how to customise your Flash experience, and it will even help you make your first basic animation.

- Depending on what version of Flash you have, the menus might be in different locations. They are usually in similar places, so if I am referring to something that you cannot find, look around and you are sure to find it. This is only likely to occur if you are using an older version of Flash, as this tutorial is based on Flash Professional 8, which is the newest version, as of this week.

Macromedia Flash is software for creating animations, games, cartoons, website graphics/effects, text effects and special effects. While it may seem like you're in over your head, it's a fairly simple program to work with. Open Flash and you will see several distinct areas which are; your stage, tools, lower windows, and side windows.

In fact, when you open Flash you'll see a mainly white screen. If you have your windows closed, anyway. The main area in the middle is the stage. This is where you will create your animation, or whatever it is you are developing.

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The timeline is effectively the brain. Well actually, Actionscript is probably the brain, but as a beginner, I doubt you'll be getting into coding. So, for the sake of simplicity the timeline is the brain. This is where you set the project into frames and keyframes and decide the order that things play in. You can create layers and much more advanced things that you don't particularly need to know about yet.

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The tools are located on the left hand side along the side. These are the main tools used to create your project. These range from a text tool, which allows you to type text on to the stage with various fonts, to a brush tool for drawing. The best way to learn these tools is to experiment with them. The icon is pretty self explanatory, and you'll learn exactly where everything this over time.

The windows are located below your stage and along the right hand side of the screen. These can be customized so you have certain windows open that you use more frequently. The windows that default around your stage are the following:

Actions - To set Actionscript on your symbols etc
Properties - The most commonly used. For standard settings like size, frame rate, etc.
Color - For mixing colors that you assign to shapes, text etc.
Library - Where all your active files are listed for easier access.

Properties:

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Various Side Windows:

With this in mind. We're going to create a very simple animation. It is going to be a very crude cartoon head that rotates. A very simple premise, but hopefully it will capitalise on some important tools that you will be using throughout your Flash career.

So start by drawing a circle on your stage. To draw a circle, click the Oval Tool. Hold shift while dragging the circle tool so the shape stays perfectly round. Next, draw some teeth on your character. There's not much need in going into detail, but if you want to then fine.

Once you've finished your cartoon face, rename the layer. This is not absolutely necessary, but it is good practice for future animations, in which it may be crucial. To rename a layer, simply double-click where it says "Layer 1" and replace the text with "Face".

Now you will need to insert a keyframe on your timeline. You already have one on the first frame, because it automatically appears when you first put something on a new layer. To insert a new keyframe, select the white area underneath the number and select Insert Keyframe as shown below.

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You can put the keyframe on whatever frame, but I chose 15 because it means the animation won't end too soon, or take too long.

Right click anywhere between Frame 1 and your end frame with the keyframe on, and select Create Motion Tween. This is a very basic motion tween which allows the head to spin. Tweens are usually implemented so the developer does not have to fill the in between frames in, as Flash can do it for them.

Finally, you need to select a rotation from the Properties window. To do this, select CW from the Rotate drop down box.

Now you're done. The head will spin around when you test the movie with Alt + Enter. It's a nice little animation for your first development with Flash. I hope this has helped you to get used to Flash and what it has to offer.

Final Animation