Flash 101 - Part 2: Lights, Camera, Flash!

Framed!

Each layer is composed of one or more frames, which come in two types - the "regular" variety and the "keyframe" variety. A keyframe is a frame in the animation at which some change occurs - for example, movement of an object from one point to another, or a shape morph.

You can distinguish between keyframes and regular frames by the black dot that appears at the bottom of every keyframe.

Keyframes can be added at any point in the Timeline via theInsert->Keyframe command on the shortcut menu. Regular frames Insert->following a keyframe will be identical to that keyframe.

Just like layers, you can copy, move and delete frames and keyframes. When you delete a keyframe, the frames around it remain unchanged. You can convert a keyframe to a regular frame via the Clear Keyframe option on the shortcut menu that appears when you click it.

Speaking In Symbols

One of the most interesting things about Flash is its use of "symbols".

In Flash jargon, a symbol is an object which can be re-used over and over again at different points in your movie. Each "instance" of the symbol can be manipulated independent of the original symbol, and of other instances of the same symbol in the movie - however, since you're using instances of the same symbol over and over again, the size of your Flash file remains unaffected.

In other words, symbols are a Good Thing and should be used wherever possible - especially if you find yourself using the same object(s) over and over again in a single movie.

A symbol can be of three types - graphic, button or movie clip. For the moment, I'll be dealing only with graphic symbols - the others will be covered as we progress through this tutorial.

Once a symbol is created (I'll be showing you how to do that as well in a bit), you can edit it, just as you would any other object, or create multiple instances of it for use in your movie. You can manipulate instances of a particular symbol without affecting the parent symbol; however, changes made to the parent symbol will affect child instances.

You can create as many symbols as you like for a single Flash movie - and Flash even offers you a mechanism to store and view all the symbols available in the current movie through its Library tool. The Library can be activated via the Window->Library menu, or with the keyboard shortcut Ctrl-L.

The Library allows you to preview each symbol, and can provide you with information on the symbol name and type, the number of times the symbol has been used so far, and the date on which it was last edited. It also allows you to categorize symbols into folders for easy access, in a manner similar to the Windows Explorer. Libraries can be shared between different Flash movies, and Flash also comes with a number of built-in libraries containing frequently-used symbols.

Copyright Melonfire, 2000. All rights reserved.