LOCK YOUR LAYERS

That’s right folks, Lock your layers. Click on the dot under the lock symbol on your layer and lock it. Why do that ? I hear you say. Well. In flash it gets a bit messy with heaps of layers, so if you lock all the other layers than the one you are currently working on, then you don’t go selecting all the wrong bits of other Graphics. They are all locked so they cant be selected and you are safe working on that particular object on that particular layer only.

Now for our next layer. Create another layer in Flash and name it before we do anything else. Lets call it red square. Make sure that your green circle layer is locked before you do anything else !!11!!

Draw a red square on our new layer. Drag select the whole object using the SELECTION TOOL, and hit key (which key ?) F8. Tick the Graphic radio box and name it redSquare_gr. Click on frame 20 , redsquare layer and hit the key to make a keyframe. Which key was that again ? Remember these keys , they are very important. F6.

Revision Time

F8 – Convert to Symbol

F6 – Insert A Keyframe

But I digress, again! Now where were we? Oh yeah. We had just clicked on frame 20 and inserted a keyframe. Now move the red square Graphic on frame 20 to where we want it to be. Is the Green Circle in the way? Well hide it by clicking on the dot under the eye symbol in the layers palette. Doing that in Flash will make the layer invisible so that other object don’t get in the way and you can see what you are doing properly on the layer you are working on.

Right click on somewhere between frames 1 and 20 on the red square layer and select “Creat Motion Tween”. Hit Enter key to see it run. They both should move independently. If they don’t, start again and make sure you have all the steps correct. Follow the instructions to the letter and practice the steps until you don’t have to think about it. Flash Work Practices must be ingrained so you don’t think about them.

That can be rule number the next.

HIDE THE LAYERS THAT YOU ARE NOT WORKING ON.

Summary

So to reiterate everything I have said so far.

Make sure that you use the drag select tool to select your objects and make them into Graphics or a Movieclips.

Use the Keystroke functions such as F6, F8, F5 etc rather than using the mouse and selecting menu items. The key shortcuts are heaps faster and more professional. Lamers only use menu items for common commands.

Make sure that you only have one object per layer.

Lock your layers that you are not working on.

Hide the layers you are not working on so that you can see what you are doing on the layer you are working on.

MovieClips

That is it for Graphic objects. When it comes to MovieClips in flash it is pretty similar. Let me go through a process of creating a movieclip in flash.

Step the first. Make a separate layer and name it car. Draw a car on that layer. Make sure all your other layers are locked. After you have drawn your car, drag select the whole lot and hit key F8 . Tick RadioBox “MovieClip”. And name it car_mc. Click ok.

When you are taken back to the timeline, make sure that your movieclip is selected and open your Properties window (I always have my properties window open). In the Instance name textbox, give the MovieClip an instance name. Type in “mycar_mc”.

This is very important that you give your MovieClips an instance name , otherwise you will not be able to control them with Actionscript. They are useless unless they have an instance name, They are in a vacuum, unusable, a waste of space.

So rule the number the very next..

GIVE YOUR MOVIECLIPS AN INSTANCE NAME STRAIGHT AWAY.

About The Author

Steve Happ is a Flash Developer and Tutor. Go to his site at www.video-animation.com  for Flash and Web Development Tutorials

Written by: Steve Happ