Flash MX is the version of Flash
that preceded Flash 8. In European School 3 Brussels we have version 8,
but most of the techniques of Flash MX are still valid in Flash 8 so I
have left this tutorial on my site. You may sometimes need to make
adjustments to make these lessons work with Flash 8.
This lesson introduces the Flash MX authoring environment, including
the Stage, Library, Timeline, and the floating Panel sets. You'll learn
how to navigate and use the Flash tools and menus and to customize the
environment to fit your personal needs. We'll discuss Layers and Scenes
and how to set up your movie's width, height, playback speed, and
background color. Then we'll cover the basics of vector art creation and
learn how to import a variety of externally created graphic files.
assignment: work with properties
In this lesson, you learn how to create frame-by-frame and tweened
animation. We'll explore the Timeline in greater detail and learn the
difference between frames and keyframes. You'll discover the multiple
ways Layers and Scenes are used to set up animation, as well as the
processes of creating motion tweening and shape tweening. By the end of
this lesson, you'll have created animation -- the illusion of movement
-- and the basis of a great Flash Web site.
assignment: try shape tweening
In this lesson, the all-important Button symbol is explained and
you'll build a highly interactive navigation bar. You'll also learn how
to script Symbol instances for advanced interaction, either by placing
them on the Stage or dynamically controlling them via ActionScript.
Finally, importing and using Sound files for background music or button
clicks and converting audio to MP3 format is covered with the
introduction of the Sound Object.
assignment: begin a navigation bar, add music to your movie
Even if the thought of programming scares you, by the end of this
lesson, you'll have written advanced ActionScript to develop complex and
simple interactivity within Flash movies. For simple Frame scripts in
the Timeline that control the movie's pace or Button scripts that jump
the user from place to place, using the ActionScripts window and the
Reference panel correctly will have you programming your Flash objects
in no time.
assignment: work with ActionScripts
There's a lot to learn in this lesson. We explore the Movie Clip
object, and you learn how to create and program mini-Flash movies called
Movie Clips. We also discuss Flash MX's exciting new type of Movie Clips
called Components, which are highly interactive controls and widgets,
such as scrolling text fields and HTML-style Submit buttons. You learn
how to import and control digital video into your Flash Web site, and
you can even target and load a video clip into a specific Movie Clip and
create VCR-like playback controls.
assignment: create movie clips, add digital video clip to a
web site
In this lesson, you'll use everything discussed so far to author a
feature-rich, interactive Flash movie. We'll also look at the Shared
Object, Flash MX's new cookie object that lets you store and retrieve
information on a user's computer. Then we'll cover techniques for
optimizing and publishing a Flash file and support files.
