Macromedia Flash 3

The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group
Macromedia Flash 3
Bernadette Houghton
bernieh@iaccess.com.au

These days, users expect Web pages full of graphics, animation, sound and dazzling special effects, as well as intuitive navigation. At the same time, they want pages to download quickly. Macromedia's Flash 3 is a drawing and animation package that aims to meet these seemingly conflicting criteria. To get some idea of the truly stunning effects possible with Flash, have a look at some sites created with it:

Flash includes most of the painting/drawing tools found in other graphics programs. Unlike most paint programs, however, the resulting objects are stored as vector graphics and capable of being re-sized and otherwise manipulated. There are some very nifty tools; for instance, the Paint Bucket fills broken areas. Lock Fill ensures fills and gradients remain seamless if you later modify an object. Pencil straightens lines or smooths curves while drawing. Alternatively, you can correct your drawings afterwards, controlling the degree of correction by repeatedly applying the appropriate command. Flash can also turn rough drawings of triangles, ovals, arcs and rectangles into geometrically precise shapes. You can convert bitmaps to vector graphics, break them apart or use as object fills. Since Flash supports both vector and bitmap transparency, you can also control the extent to which the background shows through the top layers.

You may find that some of Flash's tools work differently to what you've learnt to expect from other programs. For a start, objects don't have selection handles, being highlighted instead with black and white hashes which are often hard to see. You reshape objects by simply pulling away at them; there are no Bezier handles. To rotate or re-size objects, you must go through the menus to display the handles; no simple double-clicking as offered by most other programs. You can easily lock layers to protect them from changes, but simply selecting the layer again automatically unlocks it, making it far too easy to inadvertently edit the wrong object.

The traditional way to create animations is frame-by-frame; you can still do this with Flash, but tweening is much easier. With tweening, you create the beginning and ending frames, and Flash automatically adds all the frames in-between. This feature is easy to use, quick and flexible--you can tween shapes, motions or colours, control motion along a path and have multiple animations going on at the same time. To build up a complete animation, you basically associate actions or sounds with specific layers and frames using the Timeline (Figure 1).

One of the drawbacks of tweening is that the intermediate frames sometimes look nothing at all like the starting and ending shape. To overcome this problem, you can identify corresponding points on shapes so that they change independently of the rest of the animation. For instance, if you're tweening a face, you could link the eyes on the starting and ending frame, so the eyes tween separately and remain recognisable.

You can use any graphic or symbol as a button. Buttons have four states, representing the mouse position--Up (normal state), Over, Down and Hit (the active area). You can assign different animations or actions to each state (Figures 2 and 3). For instance, highlight the button when the cursor enters the "hit" area, play a sound and open a new URL when clicked, or play a short movie clip when the mouse is in the Over state. You can also create multi-purpose buttons; for instance, a single button to stop and start a movie.

Figure 3 Assigning actions to a button

Figure 4 Adding sounds to a movie

Figure 5 Exporting a Shockwave flash movie

You can synchronise sounds to an animation, or have it play continuously in response to an event. In the first case, Flash begins playing the sound as soon as enough data for the initial frames has downloaded. In the latter case, Flash begins playing once the whole sound file has downloaded. Apart from associating sounds with button clicks or mouse position, you can choose to have sounds fade in and out, and manipulate the quality and file size of the final product (Figure 4).

The Flash file format (*.swf) is supported by a variety of Internet standards and platforms, including ActiveX plug-ins, Flash Player Java Edition, animated GIF, RealPlayer and WebTV. Macromedia is currently making the Flash format available as an open Internet standard, so you can expect to see more Flash-based animation in the future.

When you've finished creating a Flash movie, you can export it in Shockwave Flash format and add it to your Web page (Figure 5). Alternatively, you can export your movie in any of several other formats such as animated GIF. Any Web browser equipped with the Shockwave Flash Player can view Shockwave Flash files, but the Player is also available for free downloading from the Macromedia web site (www.macromedia.com). You can also choose to bundle your movie with the Flash Standalone Player and distribute it on floppy or CD-ROM. Possible uses include marketing presentations, tutorials or greeting cards.

Bundled with Flash is Aftershock, a separate application that enables you to control how your Flash movies display in a browser (Figure 6). For instance, you can choose the window size and position, opt to open your movie in a separate window, or have it loop continuously. You can also use Aftershock to create scripts to detect when the Shockwave Flash plug-in or ActiveX control is missing and take alternative action. Aftershock outputs HTML files which you can incorporate into your Web pages.

One of the surest ways to send Web users beetling off to someone else's site instead of giving your own a good looksee is graphics that take forever to download. Flash incorporates several features to minimise file sizes, speed up downloading and optimise your movies.

For a start, vector graphics create relatively small file sizes compared to pixel-based graphics, and Flash also supports TrueType fonts. You can optimise curves in your drawings by reducing the number of control points, and hence file size. Flash files store single instances of a master sound, symbol or graphic, all of which you can use multiple times in whole or in part, and in various guises without adding overhead. Streaming files mean that Flash movies play while still downloading; you can check their are no bottlenecks by viewing a visual representation of the streaming (Figure 7)

If you're new to Flash, you'll find it awash with learning aids. A Guided Tour introduces the essentials, interactive lessons help you learn the basics, and there are sample files which you can dissemble (Figures 8 and 9). A hard copy manual is a useful aid, and there is a browser-based online help which includes lots of graphics and animated demonstrations. While I found this useful and easy to navigate, I also found it sometimes frustratingly slow.

Some of Flash's tools work a little differently than you're probably used to, and certain effects take a little more work to achieve compared to other drawing programs. However, I liked Flash and found myself oohing and aahing over many of its tools, particularly tweening and shape recognition. Tweening, in particular, means you can experiment with different looks and outcomes with very little effort, and create eye-catching Web pages. And the relatively compact file size of Flash movies shouldn't add too much overhead to your pages.

RRP: $549; or $189 to upgrade from any previous version pf Flash or FutureSplash

Reprinted from the June 1999 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia