Creating a simple Flash document

Creating a symbol and adding animation

You can turn your new artwork into a reusable asset by converting it to a Flash symbol. A symbol is a media asset that can be reused anywhere in your Flash document without the need to re-create it.

1. Click the Selection tool in the Tools panel.

    

   

   Figure 5: The Tools panel with the Selection tool selected.

2. Click the circle on the Stage to select it. A crosshatch pattern appears over the circle.
3. With the circle still selected, choose Modify > Convert to Symbol.
4. In the Convert to Symbol dialog box, type my_circle into the Name text box. Notice that the default behavior is set to Movie Clip.
5. Click OK. A square bounding box appears around the circle. You have now created a reusable asset, called a symbol, in your document. In this case, you created a movie clip symbol.
6. If the Library panel is not open, choose Window > Library. The new symbol appears in the Library panel.

Animating the circle

Now that you have some artwork in your document, you can make it more interesting by animating it to move across the Stage.

1. Drag the circle to just left of the Stage area.

    

   

   Figure 6: The circle shape moved to the left of the Stage area.

2. Click Frame 20 of Layer 1 in the Timeline.

    

   

   Figure 7: Selecting Frame 20 of Layer 1 in the Timeline.

3. With Frame 20 still selected, choose Insert > Timeline > Keyframe. A keyframe is added in Frame 20. A keyframe is a frame where some property of an object is explicitly changed. In this new keyframe, you will change the circle's location.

    

   

   Figure 8: Inserting a keyframe in Frame 20.

4. With Frame 20 still selected in the Timeline, drag the circle to just right of the Stage area.
5. Select Frame 1 of Layer 1 in the Timeline.
6. In the Property inspector (its default location is at the bottom of the Flash application window), choose Motion from the Tween pop-up menu.

    

   

   (+) view larger
   Figure 9: Choosing a motion tween in the Property inspector

   An arrow appears in the Timeline in Layer 1 between Frame 1 and Frame 20.

   

   Figure 10: The Timeline with an arrow indicating a motion tween.

   This step creates a tweened animation of the circle moving from its position in the first keyframe in Frame 1 to its new position in the second keyframe in Frame 20.

7. In the Timeline, drag the red playhead back and forth from frame 1 to frame 20 to preview the animation by scrubbing the Timeline.
8. Choose Control > Test Movie to test the FLA file.
9. Close the Test Movie window.

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