Today’s Topic…Flash! w00t.
This lab will work a little differently. We’ll be doing part one as a class so that we can all follow the same steps together and ask questions along the way. Before we get started, here are some terms you should know:
Tween: In animation, it is used to describe intermediate frames often added by an assistant animator or by computer. See tweening.
Motion Tween: In animation, refers to movement of an object along a path.
Shape Tween: In animation, refers to changing the shape of an object.
Export Movie: With Flash, when you save your movie, you are actually saving a file that allows you to open the movie again and edit it later on. If you want the flash movie to be viewable on the web, you must export the movie (which essentially saves it as a .swf file). To export a movie, simply click File > Export > Export Movie, select the folder you want to save the movie in, then click the Save button.
How do you turn in your movies?
Here’s what you need to do:
- create a movie folder in your Home folder on your M:Drive
- create your movies and export them in your Home folder on your M:Drive. (don’t use spaces or punctuation in the name of the file).
- Make a new post on your blog for this lab and create links for each of your movies. The link would be: http://oz.plymouth.edu/~username/movie/movie_name.swf
Obviously, replace username with your myPlymouth username, replace movie with the name of the folder you created in your Home folder, and replace movie_name with the name you gave the movie.
Lets get to it!
Lab (part 1): Moving Objects along a Path
In this tutorial you will learn how Flash allows us to to gain further control of the movement of an object by the use of guide layers. This method enables to you to draw a complex path or guide which the object will follow.
Lab (part 2): Creating Animations with Shape Tween
In this tutorial you will learn how Flash can also ‘tween’ the shape of an object. This allows the shape to change between keyframes.
This one is optional! If you have a desire to learn more about flash and do some pretty cool stuff, do these tutorials:
Lab (part 3): Working with Graphics in Flash
In this section, you will learn:
* Creating graphics in Flash
* Importing graphics
* Using color effectively
* Creating a color swatch
* Layering Flash elements
* Masking content
* Organizing content in Flash
* Reusing graphics as symbolsNOTE: This tutorial starts on page 12 of a whole series of tutorials and continues on to page to 26