Some notes on my recent online Flash training. Thank you Lynda.com

Flash Notes

1. F4 clears toolbars
2. Object drawing mode – prevents flash automatically combining shapes when you put them over each other.
3. Similiar obejct model to maya, in that 2 selection types component and subcomponent
4. Animation – motion tween, shape tween are main choices depending if you want to morph or a move
5. Shape hints can help you control how the shape morphs
   Tweening via the right mouse button isn’t a very good way to do it, better to just set the tween type property which sets it up.
6. When trying to shape tween text – you will need to use ctrl-b shortcut which breaks the letter up into a shape
7. When changing a animation the multi frame editor is invaluable – it’s a little button just below the frames area
8. Symbols are objects that you can instance to save memory and space. When editing symbols it’s better to
   double click the object itself rather than clicking on the symbol withing the library toolbar. This lets you see
   other items within the stage whilst editing your symbol. F8 creates a symbol from your current selection.
9. Motion path’s are important for realistic animations. They are curves which your object sticks to whilst moving. You set this in the layer properties, set the layer as a guide layer.

Then drag the moving object onto the guide layer… the rightmost little grey line is the right place to drag to.

10. Break apart tool is very useful trick for breaking up text into component letters, modify distribute between layers is
    also very useful after doing this to split the letters over layers.
11. Ease property when animating is how you affect the accelration and deceleration of objects in your animations.
12. Timeline effects: usually added to a symbol – enable cool effects blurs, transform, expand explode – play to see the power!
    Expand – or the opposite squeeze are very useful here.
13. Masking – opposite to photoshop, make a shape of what you want to be viewable through the mask.

Need to set layer type to mask layer and masked layer.

14. Text blocks. Set a text box to be fixed width (wrappable) by dragging the hollow circle at the top right of the selection
15. F9 actionscript shortcut, time based actionscript should be added to a seperate layer in your timeline.
16. User event actionscript is added to the object the user interacts with.

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