Adobe Flash CS4: Introduction

Prerequisites:

To gain the most from this class, students should be familiar with the web and its terminology.

Course Description:

This is an introductory course that provides designers and developers new to the Flash environment the knowledge and hands-on practice they need to create rich Flash content. Students will produce an engaging interface using text, graphics, animations, video, and sound. Simple user interactions are added using built in ActionScript behaviors and Script Assist. In addition to teaching essentials, the course focuses on teaching best practices for creating Flash content.

By the time students have finished the course they will have know how to create an Adobe Flash document, set up a Adobe Flash document, import and create graphics, use Adobe Flash drawing tools, create and use symbols, produce motion and shape animations, import sound and video, use Scipt Assist and Behaviors to add simple interactivity and publish an Adobe Flash Document in one of several formats.

This course includes the following modules:

Flash essentials

• The Adobe Flash interface
• Customising the interface
• Creating a new Flash document
• Setting stage dimensions
• Working with panels and panel layouts
• Custom panel sets
• Setting preferences
• Identifying the development cycle
• Testing a file

Vectors and bitmaps

• Object and shape draw modes
• Vector draw tools
• Alignment
• Rules, guides and grid
• Working with layers
• Masking techniques
• Gradient colours
• Importing and saving swatches
• Deco tool and custom presets
• Importing bitmaps
• Importing from Photoshop and Illustrator

Using text effectively

• Using the text tool
• Adding and formatting static text
• Anti-alias options
• Font properties
• Breaking text apart
• Text effects and filters
• Text masks
• Static, input and dynamic text
• Embedded vs device fonts

Creating animations

• Working with the Timeline
• Using keyframes, blank keyframes and frames
• Cell animation
• Shape tweens
• Classic tweens
• Classic motion guides
• Motion tweens
• Easing
• Motion presets

Motion editor essentials

• Custom eases
• Symbols: graphic, MovieClip and button
• Library best practice
• The 3D rotation tool
• The 3D translation tool
• Understanding Inverse Kinematics using the Bone tool

Adding sound and video

• Importing sound
• Changing sound properties
• Adding sound to a timeline
• Embedding video in a timeline
• Using the FLVPlayback component

Interactivity

• About ActionScript
• Applying Actions with ScriptAssist
• Frame labels
• Create linear navigation
• Loading external SWF's

Publishing Flash Documents

• Using different publishing formats
• Using publishing profiles
• Adding Flash Player detection
• Publishing for deployment
• Adobe Device Central