Flash Profesional 8 Tutorial

By Denise Etheridge

Click here to download a free Flash Player. Then click on the Start Movie button to view my Flash 8 movie.


In this tutorial I take you step-by-step through the process of creating this Flash Professional 8 movie. You will learn how to create graphics, work with layers, and add motion, sound, and text to your movie.
You will need Flash Professional 8 to take this tutorial. If you do not have a copy of Flash Professional 8, you can download the trial version by clicking here.

Getting Started

To begin, open Flash Professional 8. You will be presented with the screen shown here.

Click Flash Document. The screen shown here appears:



The upper left corner of the screen displays the Tools palette, which contains tools you can use to create or modify graphics and text. You select a tool by clicking on it. Tool modifiers for the selected tool display below the Tools palette. You use modifiers to set tool options.

The Timeline appears in the upper portion of the screen. You use the Timeline to lay out the sequence of your movie.

The Stage displays in the center of the screen. You create your movie on the Stage.

Movie Properties

You start creating your movie by setting the Frame Rate, Dimensions, Background Color, and Ruler Units.

Frame Rate
The speed of the movie

Dimension
The size of the Stage

Background Color
The color of the Stage

Ruler Units
The unit of measure the ruler displays


You set these properties in the Movie Properties dialog box. To set the properties for the movie you are going to create:

1. Choose Modify > Document from the menu. The Document Properties dialog box opens.



2. Type 400 px in the Width field.
3. Type 400 px in the Height field.
4. Click the Background color box and choose white as the background color.
5. Type 12 in the Frame Rate field.
6. Choose Pixels from the drop-down menu in the Ruler Units field.
7. Click OK.

The Grid
In the exercises that follow, you will be creating graphics. When creating graphics, the grid is often helpful. To turn on the grid:

1. Choose View > Grid > Edit Grid from the menu. The Grid dialog box opens.



2. Click the Color box and select gray to have the grid lines display in gray.
3. Choose Show Grid to cause the grid to display.
4. Choose Snap to Grid to cause the edges of your graphic to align with the grid lines.
5. Set the Horizontal field to 20 px to separate horizontal lines by 20 pixels.
6. Set the Vertical field to 20 px to separate vertical lines by 20 pixels.
7. Set the Snap Accuracy to Normal.
8. Click OK.
Continue to Next Tutorial