Course Description
This introductory course provides designers and developers new to the Flash environment the knowledge and hands-on practice they need to create engaging interface using text, graphics, animations, video, and sound. It takes you from a novice with Flash to a professional in no time. Simple user interactions are added with built in ActionScript behaviours and Script Assist. In addition to teaching essentials, the course focuses on teaching best practices for creating Flash content.
The course is divided in to three days, where the first day focuses on the Flash user interface and the various different drawing tools available in Flash. You will learn how to draw professionally using the Flash tools. The second day focuses on animation with learning different animation techniques and how to create professional effective rich media web animations. And finally the third day focuses on the more advanced features of Flash including sound, video, collaborating with other Adobe applications and ActionScript for interactivity
Course Content
What is Flash?
History of Flash
Flash's uses in the industry
Flash Basics
The Flash user interface
Flash panels & tools
Adding, moving & removing panels
Creating panel groups
Panning & zooming
Context menus
Guides, grids & rulers
The Setup
The welcome screen
Create a new document
Flash preferences
Document settings
Document setup
Document size & dimensions
Drawing in Flash
Working with different graphic formats
Bitmap vs. vector
Importing bitmaps
Integration with Photoshop & Illustrator
Drawing tools
using the eyedropper
Object & merge drawing
Using colour in Flash
Use of swatches
Save & load swatches
RGB & hexadecimal colours
Creating gradients
Working with different blend modes
Duplicating graphics
Graphic symbols
Text in Flash
Adding & formatting text
single line vs. block text
Character & paragraph formatting
Alignment & justification
Static vs. dynamic text
Different anti-alias options
Adding input fields
Font embedding
Font best practices
Additional Drawing Techniques
Align, transform & info panel
Expand & soften edges
Filters, blur & outerglow
Combine, divide & union
Single shape grouping
Transform, envelope & distort
Bitmap vectorisation
Breaking apart shapes
Working with the bezier pen tool
modifying shapes using bezier
Applying blending modes
Working with stroke & fill options
Flash Animation
Animation theory
Understanding the timeline
Using layers and layer folders
Using scenes in animation
Key frames, frames & blank frames
Key-by-key animation
Defining the animation rate (fps)
Animating graphic & movie clip symbols
Shape tweening & hinting
Shape morphing & colour changes
Motion tweening
Conclusion
Questions & answers
Creating a web animation banner
Workshop & exercises
Advanced Animation techniques
Animating filters & effects
Animating using masks
Working with alpha & advanced parameters
Sketched animation techniques
Onion-skinning & multiple frame selection
Using motion guides & easing
Reversing & duplicating frames
Animation with movie-clip & graphic symbols
Using animation best practices
Graphic & Movie Clip Symbols
Graphic vs. movie clip
Working with the library
Creating and using symbols
Library property inspector
Organising your library using folders
Built-in Flash Symbol libraries
Symbol nesting
Adding Sound & Video
Importing different sound formats
Changing sound properties
Adding sound to the timeline
Sound compression (mp3) techniques
Embedding video into the timeline
Using the flvplayback component
the flv format & flv encoding
Sound & video best practices
Interactive Flash
Creating button symbols
Creating invisible buttons
Creating button Rollovers
Creating animated rollovers
Adding sound to buttons
Introduction to ActionScript 3.0
ActionScript 3.0 vs. ActionScript 2
Adding actions to frames
Adding behaviours to buttons
Loading external SWFs
Adding frame labels
Using ScriptAssist
Coding in ActionScript 3.0
Hyperlinking web pages
Adding interactivity to your animations
Using UI components
ActionScript 3.0 Animation
ActionScript 3.0 debugging
Publishing your movie
Using different publishing formats
Using publishing profiles
Adding flash player detection
Publishing for deployment
Side show presentations
Adding transition effects
Publication best practices
New Flash CS4 Features
Native Photoshop & Illustrator Import
Convert animation to ActionScript 3.0
Common Creative Suite 4 UI
ActionScript 3.0 development with debugger
Adobe Device Central
Enhanced new drawing tools
New & optimised ui components for AS3
Advanced Quicktime export
Sophisticated video encoding
Time-saving programming tools