Flash 5 F/X and Design with Cdrom
Authors: Bill Sanders
Venue:  (2000)

From the Book:Flash 5 represents both an evolution and a revolution. Although most of the work area and tools will be familiar to those who are familiar with Flash 4, many of the processes and some of the tools have changed and evolved. The most significant change has been the introduction of panels in Flash 5. The windows and dialog boxes in Flash 4 appear and disappear after parameters are entered, but the panels in Flash 5 stay in place, allowing the developer to see the settings of selected objects. Because so many settings need to be adjusted, having a set of panels on the screen helps you work more efficiently and reduces the chance of unwanted surprises. With the addition of the Bezier pen (the Pen tool) to the Toolbox, you now have an onboard tool to create vector graphics like those found in Macromedia FreeHand and Adobe Illustrator. For artists and illustrators, the addition of such tools makes it easier to create graphics in Flash 5 than in Flash 4. In addition, FreeHand 7, 8, or 9 graphics can be imported directly into Flash 5. Chapter 1 provides an in-depth discussion of the changes found in Flash 5, and throughout the book, features that are new to Flash 5 are discussed. These changes represent the evolution from Flash 4 to Flash 5. Flash 5 continues to provide tools to create stunning animation. It is revolutionary in that it gives you the ability to create motion graphics that can be sent over the Internet and around the world. I still find jaw-dropping animations on the Web created with Flash 3, and with the far more robust animation environment in Flash 5, I expect the revolution in motion graphics to take a giant leap forward. What was once possible only in multimillion-dollar animation studios can now be created on the desktop, and the animated movies created on the desktop can be sent around the world in the blink of an eye. Why Flash 5? There are actually two aspects to the question "Why Flash 5?" The first aspect involves updating from Flash 4 to Flash 5. The improvements in Flash 5 are considerable, as you will quickly see in Chapter 1. Flash 5 contains a powerful ActionScript language that has evolved from a few action statements to a full-blown scripting language on par with the latest version of JavaScript (see Chapter 8). If you are a developer who wants to keep up with the technology and enhance your skills, Flash 5 has enough new features to make it worth your while. A far more intriguing aspect of the question is "Why bother with Flash at all?" From the time our ancestors emerged from the primordial ooze (or Garden of Eden-your choice), motion has been a key to survival. As predator or prey, movement and the detection of movement draw our attention in ways that static objects do not. Static communication has been a matter of necessity more than a matter of choice. From the cave walls to this book, humans have attempted to translate what is in their memory or imaginations so that others can see what they see. However, the depictions have been only partial because language must select a motion and break it into parts using the static media of words. Even abstract concepts of fluid and moving environments (such as in quantum physics) have had to be described with words and formulas. Flash frees developers and designers from this static world. A final reason to consider Flash is a more practical one. Clients want Flash in their Web sites. Whether clients want an entertaining introduction to a Web site or a fully interactive site, the market for Flash talent is huge, growing, and pays very well. Everything from music videos to online games are made with Flash, and if you add Flash to your portfolio of talents, your clients will be better served, you will discover a new medium in which to express your creativity, and your bank account will thank you profusely. Who This Book Is For This is an intermediate-level book for two types of developers. The first type consists of Flash 4 users who want to move briskly into Flash 5. As such, the book begins by introducing the new key features in Flash 5. The menus are similar to Flash 4 menus. (They are summarized in the Appendix.) However, in Flash 5, you'll be working with panels instead of the array of dialog boxes and windows you worked with in Flash 4, so I've included a thorough examination of how to work with panels. I also introduce you to some shortcuts, the preferred way to accomplish most tasks. For example, I always use the F8 key to transform a drawing into a symbol rather than fumbling through a series of menus. Likewise, to cut and paste in Flash 5, and in just about every other computer application in the universe, I use the Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V (Cmd+C and Cmd+V on the Mac) keyboard shortcut. These shortcuts are preferred because using them is ultimately more intuitive than breaking up the work flow by opening menus and submenus to accomplish a task. However, some designers like the menu system and have their own rhythm that includes the menus, and so the menus are presented along with the menu sequences. The book is also for experienced designers and developers who want to include proficiency with Flash 5 in their array of skills. Designers and developers who are familiar with Web development tools and who understand graphic design, drawing, and the computer techniques associated with the artistic side of digital rendering do not need lessons in design and artwork. This group needs to understand what Flash 5 can do and how to get things done with the work environment and tools provided in Flash. The text, illustrations, and examples all show how to start from the beginning in Flash 5 and create movies. I have included design considerations such as color combinations, object arrangements, and use of all the tools Flash 5 offers to create art, not to demonstrate how to create certain kinds of artwork, but to show you how to use Flash 5 tools to accomplish your own design and artistic goals. Some materials may appear too basic and others too advanced, but like Goldilocks, my goal is to find the level of materials deemed "just right." Because the skills of intermediate Flash users are quite varied, feel free to skip around and focus on the materials that best fit your needs. Getting Started If you are new to Flash, look at the section in Chapter 1 that explains the mind-set required to use Flash effectively. It's an explanation of how to think about using Flash as a tool. I included this section because, initially, most people don't quite grasp what Flash really is. Once you get the concept of Flash straight, learning how to use it effectively is much easier. The idea of using frames, layers, timelines, and objects needs to be grasped clearly before forging ahead. It's not difficult to learn, but it is necessary. For those of you who regularly use Flash, you can skip the conceptual material, but do go over the sections in the first chapter on using the panels and other new features of Flash 5. The use of panels requires that you approach Flash differently than you approached the earlier versions. I believe what you will find most useful are the descriptions of how Flash 4 tools have changed in Flash 5. For example, the instance name of an object is entered into the Instance panel instead of a dialog box, and all tweening is now accomplished in the Frame panel. So although you may know Flash 4 well, look to see what the step up to Flash 5 involves so that you can get back to work producing great Flash movies. Once you have the basics down, play with Flash 5. Don't be afraid to experiment with different tools just to see what happens. In the long run, the most productive use of your time will be to play with Flash 5 to discover what you can do with it. I tried to have fun with every example movie and project the book contains, and you should too. (Consider the alternative.) The Projects and CD-ROM The examples, learning utilities (little movies that show you how some feature of Flash 5 works), and projects used in this book can be found on the CD-ROM. You can use them in any way you want, but they are intended to show you how to accomplish different tasks with the different parts of Flash 5. Each example focuses on one of the many Flash 5 features. The learning utilities are little projects that are designed to show you how elements of Flash 5 work together, and the projects are sample applications you may have occasion to use in your own work. You might want to take a shortcut when you're working with the learning utilities and projects. If you open a movie from the CD-ROM as a library, you'll get all the symbols and sounds you need for your movie. Then you can just focus on developing the movie without having to create movie files and many of the objects. Just select File|Open As Library from the menu bar. If you have a Macintosh, you may find that some of the SWF files are in QuickTime format and do not do what you would expect them to do. If you do experience that phenomenon, load the FLA file for the movie into Flash 5 and press Cmd+Return to create a Mac SWF file. All of the files were developed jointly on an iMac DV SE running on OS 9 and a Dell with an 866 Pentium III running on Windows ME just to make sure both platforms run the movies as advertised. Screen shots are made up of both Mac and Window images, and the differences are miniscule. The Windows version of Flash 5 has an additional icon toolbar running just beneath the menu bar and a status toolbar along the bottom, and although I found these additional toolbars nice to have, they weren't crucial to anything in the book. Also, in tests with OS X on the Mac and Windows 95/98 on the PC, everything seemed to work and look pretty much the same. Mac OS X takes up more memory than OS 9, and I would suggest getting 256MB of memory for the larger files. If you are one who is especially partial to your Mac or Windows PC, here's a piece of advice: Get over it! To paraphrase Will Rogers, "I never met a computer I didn't like." In this day and age of cross-platform development and the Internet, you should respect both Windows and Macintosh platforms (not to mention Linux and Unix platforms). If your client's customers cannot read a Web page with an embedded Flash movie because they have a Windows PC or a Mac, that's a customer your client has lost. In addition to checking the movies on both major OS platforms, I also checked the movies on the latest versions of Internet Explorer (IE) and Netscape Navigator (NN). As this book was being written, IE was in version 5.5 and NN version 6 had just come out of beta. So, you should have no problem using either platform or browser with the movies on the CD-ROM or in the book. You may have to upgrade your browser plug-in to Flash 5, but that's easy and free at www.macromedia.com. This Book Is for You With the aid of capable editors, I wrote this book in expository English. I never have been a great fan of so-called technical writing, and I have reservations about whether anything should be written that way. (My engineering friends tell me otherwise.) So, you will find no special jargon except the terms that Macromedia has imparted on the elements in Flash 5. My goal in this book, and every other book I've penned, is to clarify technology. All of the examples, the steps, the tips, and asides have been to help you get as much out of Flash 5 as I have. If you have any questions or comments, you can contact me through my Web site at www.sandlight.com. And I hope to hear from you.