Basic Flash Things I Wish I Knew: Part One

Currently I am outlining the things I would like to cover in blogcasts/tutorials. Which might seem odd since I'm still learning my craft. However there are things that I've discovered that I've not found mentioned in books or other tutorials, at least not any of the ones I've found.

I'll touch on these things in the tutorials as well. Well, I guess I'll demonstrated these things in the tutorials. Right now I'm just going to start with one of the most basic things in flash....

SYMBOLS!

Symbols are the building blocks of flash, nearly everything that enters your project will be a symbol. There are three flavors. The two most fitting for animation, at least what I do. Are Graphic Symbols and Movie Clips, the third being Buttons.

You can also place symbols inside symbols, inside symbols. An awesome "feature" which can, and in my case did for sometime, lead to confusion. Organization is an important thing.

Graphic Symbols. Graphic Symbols, are the "least fancy" of the two. However, if you're simply doing frame-by-frame animation, and you don't need the object to do much else, Graphic Symbol is a good choice.

Graphic Symbols, unlike movie clips, have the advantage of playing any animation you do inside the symbol(examples to come) when you scrub or play the timeline. UNLESS! You've added animation to a Graphic Symbol inside that one, then you won't see that animation at all. Also you won't see the animation loop of a Movie Clip, but you will when you test your movie.

A SPECIAL NOTE ON GRAPHIC SYMBOLS

To see any animation inside a Graphic Symbol, you have to make sure your main timeline spans the same number of frames or more.

A SPECIAL NOTE ON SYMBOLS IN GENERAL

Any change you make to a symbol on the stage, will change it in your library, and any other symbol it is in. My book never told me that.

Movie Clips. Movie Clips are the symbol of choice when you need to do "fancy" things. Things such as, to loop continuously regardless of the number of frames in your timeline. The animation in a Movie clip loops independent of the main timeline. You can have one frame in your main timeline and 100 in your Movie Clip, it will still play. This is great for things that have persistent motion, such as a fire or a pulsing light.

Movie Clips, will not show animation when you scrub the timeline. So if you need to see how a symbol is animating in relation to the background or anything else in the scene, don't choose a Movie Clip.

Movie Clips do have the added benefit of being able to apply filter effects to a symbol. Such as glowing, blur, drop shadow. Depending on your needs filters can be a fun effect.

That's a good start for now. Next up will be tweens and comps. Stay Tuned!