Adobe Flash Professional Cs6 Essentials

William Heldman is the Computer Science and Game Development instructor at Warren Tech (www.warrentech.org), a Career and Technical Education (CTE) high school in Lakewood, Colorado. He is the author or coauthor of several Sybex books, including the CompTIA Project+ Study Guide.

CHAPTER 1 Before Jumping into Flash: Rich Media Design

Principles and Practice 1

Working with Clients to Create Rich Media Projects  1

What Is Rich Media?  2

Viewing Great Rich Media Examples 3

Identifying Your Content’s Purpose and Audience 7

Choosing the Best Media Types  10

Addressing Accessibility Issues in Rich Media 12

Designing for People Who Are Blind  14

Designing for Low-Vision Viewers 18

Designing for Hearing-Impaired and Deaf Viewers  23

Designing for People with Physical Limitations  27

Designing for People with Cognitive Limitations 28

Designing for People with Photosensitive Epilepsy  28

Understanding Project Management 101 28

Identifying a Project 29

Creating the Project Plan 29

Creating the Project Schedule 31

Properly Closing Out the Project 32

Understanding Copyright Issues When Using Others’ Work  32

Understanding Text Copyright 33

Understanding Music Copyright  34

Understanding Video Copyright 34

Understanding Animation Copyright 34

Understanding Trademarks  35

CHAPTER 2 Getting Acquainted with Flash 37

Opening Flash for the First Time 37

Using Flash Panels  40

Frequently Used Panels  41

Other Handy Panels  43

Understanding Flash Workspaces 45

Understanding Flash File Types 47

FLA  48

SWF  48

HTML  49

CHAPTER 3 Drawing Shapes in Flash 51

Drawing Standard Shapes  51

Understanding Merge vs. Object Drawing  58

Creating Objects in Merge Drawing Mode  58

Creating Objects in Object Drawing Mode  60

Drawing Primitive Shapes  62

Drawing Polygonal or Star Shapes with the PolyStar Tool 65

Making Artsy Shapes with the Deco Tool  66

Drawing Other Shapes  68

Working with Color in Flash  75

Using kuler  75

Saving a Color Set  77

Working with Color Gradients 77

CHAPTER 4 Getting Started with the Timeline 81

Becoming Acquainted with the Timeline  81

Adding Different Frame Types to Your Animation  83

Copying and Deleting Frames  88

Frame Names  90

Organizing Your Work with Layers  91

Creating a UFO Scene  92

Hanging the Moon  96

Organizing Your Layers: Using Layer Folders 98

Working with Special Layer Types 102

Aligning Objects with Snapping 105

CHAPTER 5 Adding Flash Text and Fonts to Your Creat ions 109

Understanding When You Can Use TLF Text Fields 110

Flash Player  110

ActionScript  111

Flash Builder  112

Picking the Best Font  112

Choosing Serif or Sans Serif 112

Embedding Your Font  114

Using Placeholder Text 116

Checking Your Spelling  116

Using Classic Text 117

Deciding to Use Classic Text 117

Inserting Classic Text Boxes 117

Using Text Layout Framework  120

Deciding to Use TLF 120

Inserting TLF Text Boxes 121

CHAPTER 6 Working with Flash Symbols 129

Creating Graphic Symbols  129

Converting Assets to a Symbol 130

Grouping Assets  132

Using the Library  134

Using the Symbols from the Library 134

Implementing a Library Naming Convention 135

Grouping Common Objects in the Library 135

Creating Button Symbols  136

Manually Creating a Button  138

Turning the Button into an Instance 140

Editing a Button 140

Using a Prebuilt Button  143

Creating Movie Clip Symbols  144

Creating and Editing Symbol Instances 146

Understanding ActionScript Linkages 148

CHAPTER 7 Developing Simple Flash Animations 155

Developing Storyboards to Describe Your Animation155

Creating a Storyboard for Cow Abduction  156

Animating the Cow Abduction  159

Creating a Frame-by-Frame Animation  165

Differentiating between a Stage Animation and a Movie Clip 171

CHAPTER 8 Using Tweens 175

Creating Shape Tweens 175

Making Changes to a Shape Tween 178

Adding Shape Hints  181

Creating Motion Tweens  183

Rotating Objects 185

Using Parallax Scrolling 186

Applying Granular Changes with the Motion Editor 189

Making Animations More Realistic with Easing 190

Using Motion Presets  192

Understanding Classic Tweens 194

CHAPTER 9 Techniques for Creating More Technical Animations 199

Creating a Bicycle with Rotating Wheels 199

Drawing the Crank Arms 200

Creating the Pedals  202

Repeating the Process for the Three Arcs 204

Creating the Sprocket  206

Creating the Tires  207

Creating the Bike Frame  209

Assembling the Bike 211

Setting Different Speeds Using Parallax Scrolling 213

Creating the Buildings 213

Adding Some Clouds  215

Assembling the Scene  216

Adding a Highway  217

Creating a Bouncing Ball with Color Gradients, Motion Presets, and Eases 218

Creating the Basketball Court’s Floor 218

Adding Pizzazz with Custom Color Gradients  219

Creating a Backboard by Combining Motion Tweens 222

Tweaking the Animation  225

Adding Perspective to the Basketball Scene with 3D Tools 225

CHAPTER 10 Creating Characters with Inverse Kinematics 231

Boning a Character  231

Snapping a Photo as a Base 231

Tracing Your Picture  233

Inserting Bones into Your Character  237

Constricting Animations  240

Animating IK’d Objects  242

Creating the Bicycle Animation 242

Creating Bouncing Movement Using IK Springs 244

CHAPTER 11 Working with Audio 251

Creating a Rich Media Project with Audio 251

Creating the Drum Set  253

Drawing the Bass Drum  254

Drawing the Bass Drum Hoops 254

Making the Drum Head  255

Moving the Back Hoop into the Back of the Front Hoop 256

Creating the Drum Shell  257

Drawing and Placing the Lugs and Rods 258

Creating the Tom-Toms and Snare 260

Making the Cymbals and Cymbal Stands  261

Drawing the Cymbal Stand 261

Drawing the Scissor-Style Brace for the Cymbal Stand Legs  263

Creating the Cymbal  266

Creating the High-Hat Stand and Cymbals 267

Adding Sounds to the Drums 268

Importing the Sounds and Preparing for ActionScript 268

Creating the Buttons  269

Adding a Hit Zone to the Cymbals  271

Compressing Audio 272

Using the Sounds Supplied with Flash  273

Putting a Sound on the Stage  274

Controlling a Sound with a Code Snippet  274

CHAPTER 12 Working with Video 279

Understanding Supported Flash Video File Types  279

Converting Non-supported File Types 281

Using the Import Video Wizard  282

Setting Up ActionScript Cue Points  289

Adding ActionScript Cue Points to Your Video 289

Adding Parameters to Cue Points  292

Adding the Buttons  293

CHAPTER 13 Working with ActionScript 299

Getting Started with ActionScript  299

ActionScript Basics  300

Working with Dynamic Text 303

Programmatically Adjusting a Text Object’s Coordinates and Formatting 304

Testing Your Work  305

Programming ActionScript to Calculate Your BMI 308

Writing the Code to Declare Variables and Hide Dynamic Text Fields  310

Garnering User Input 312

Calculating and Outputting the Results  314

Publishing Your Work 317

APPENDIX A Adobe Rich Media Communication Using Flash Professional CS6 Objectives 323

APPENDIX B Next Steps 327

Index 331