2. FLASH Flash was originally designed to be a tool for creating animations with your computer. Flash (or Future Splash, as it was once called) introduced frames and keyframes to the computer world and made it possible for millions of people all over the world to try their hand at animation. But as Macromedia began adding more and more features to Flash, it eventually became much more than a simple animation application. With the addition of ActionScript, Macromedia made Flash into a more interactive solution for the web. Flash designers and developers could now create cartoons, slideshows, and even full-fledged websites. Flash still has a lot of very exciting features for designers and animators. In fact, many animated television commercials, and even some Saturday morning cartoons, are created in Flash.
3. How Does Flash Work? There are two sides to the Flash development environment: the Flash Player, which is a simple browser plugin that allows the end users to see Flash files, and the Flash authoring environment, which is an application available from Adobe that allows developers to create Flash content. The Flash authoring environment also ships with an FLV encoder that allows you to import video files from other formats and convert them into FLV files.
4. Flash Animation Flash makes use of an innovative timeline that consists of frames and keyframes. In order to create a simple animation, for example, of an object moving across the stage, the Flash animator would create two separate keyframes. The first keyframe would store the beginning location of the object, and the second keyframe would contain the ending location. A motion tween would then be applied to the frames in between the two keyframes. With a motion tween, Flash looks at the beginning and ending keyframes, calculates the distance in between, and then creates all of the frames in between. This functionality also works for animating size, opacity (or transparency), and even color.
5. ActionScript ActionScript is Flash's native programming language. ActionScript allows you to make your Flash files more interactive. With ActionScript, you can add interactivity to buttons, create slideshows that run on a timer or interact with the user, create fully customized video players and audio players, or create fully functional websites that contain animation, music, etc. Using ActionScript, you can also tie Flash to XML files, or even to an entire database, in order to make truly dynamic web applications. In order to communicate with databases, Flash must interact through an intermediate server-side scripting language, such as PHP or ASP.
6. FLASH Flash can create two types of tweened animation using timeline: Motion Tween & Shape Tween Creation of Motion/Shape tween using timeline is the basics of Flash.Motion tween is nothing but tweening a Symbol's movement from one position to another. To implement Motion Tween all that you have to do is, provide Flash with Symbol's initial position and the end position.
7. PRACTICE Open a new flash file (Ctrl+N). New Document window will appearSelect General panel and choose Type: Flash Document . Press OK. If your timeline window is not open, press (Ctrl+Alt+T). Now you can see a single Layer called "Layer1" in your timeline Window.Select the first frame. Import your image onto stage, upon which you would want to implement motion tween. File>Import>Import to Stage, or just press (Ctrl+R). Or you can even draw your own object, you can either choose Rectangular tool or Oval tool from the tool box and draw your desired shape. Now select your object on the stage and press F8 to convert this image to a Symbol. Convert to Symbol window will pop-up. Name your Symbol what ever you like.Select Graphic behavior and press OK.
8. PRACTICE Right now your Symbol is in frame1 of Layer1. Select frame 20 and press F6 to insert a new keyframe. Still keeping playhead on frame 20, move your Symbol to any other position other than the present one. Select any frame between, 2 to 19 and select Motion from the tween pop-up menu in the Property inspector. Now your Layer will look something like the one shown below. Now press (Ctrl+Enter) to view your motion tween.
