Flash

LEARN ABOUT FLASH by Distance Learning

This course provides a comprehensive introduction to Flash MX.

It assumes the student has no knowledge of Flash at all but they must have access to a computer with a CDROM drive and Flash MX installed. As with all our computer courses, students are able to purchase the software required (MX) at a heavily discounted price (academic pricing). More information can be obtained about this from the school.

By the end of the course, the student should be able to easily understand all the major aspects of Flash MX and use it to produce their own Flash applications.

Lesson Structure

There are 12 lessons in this course:

1. Introduction to Flash
   • Introduction, Vector graphics, Bitmap graphics, Streaming, How flash works, Upgraded features
2. Using the Flash MX editor
   • Creating a new document, Setting preferences, Editing, Clipboard, Action script editing, Zooming, Scenes, Objects, Moving the stage, Grids,Guides, Rulers, Timeline, Keyframes, Layers, Frame labels, etc.
3. Drawing & Colour
   • Toolbar, Basics of drawing in flash, Pencil tool, Drawing lines and shapes, Brush tool, Masks, etc
4. Working with objects & symbols
   • Objects, Arrow tool, Lasso tool, Symbols, Assets, Library, etc
5. Working with text
   • Static text, Embedded and Device Fonts, etc
6. Working with graphics
   • Turning bitmaps into vector graphics, Using bitmaps as fills, Modifying bitmap fills, The magic wand.
7. Animation
   • Frame by frame animation, Tweened animation, Setting up a movie, Animating, Layers, Adding a background, Creating timeline effects.
8. Actionscript
   • Creating interaction, Planning scripts for a movie, Object oriented programming, The movie clip object.
9. Using audio in your movies
   • Unsynchronised sound, Synchronised sound, Importing sounds, Adding sounds to frames, Adding sounds to buttoons, Using event sounds, Start sounds, Streaming sounds, Stopping sounds, Looping sounds, Editing sounds.
10. Using video in your movies
    • Quality, Keyframe interval, Scale, Importing audio, Working with video, Importing video.
11. Components
    • The check box, Importing text scroll bar, Creating a form, Adding a check box, Adding a combo box, Push buttons, Configure components, Write action script to gather data, Action script for the entire movie, Action script to each key frame, Testing the movie.
12. Publishing
    • How to prepare your finished movie for distribution via the Internet, CD and other formats. You will also learn techniques for optimising your movies so they perform efficiently and on multiple system configurations.

Each lesson culminates in an assignment which is submitted to the school, marked by the school's tutors and returned to you with any relevant suggestions, comments, and if necessary, extra reading.