Flash Exercise 1
FOCUS Symbols and animation
PURPOSE Show your mastery of simple Flash animation concepts, including use of symbols, layers, keyframes, tweens and ActionScript: stop();
VALUE 5 points (see Grading):
- 2 points for meeting all the requirements (below)
- 1 point for acceptable appearance (that is, no one is likely to say, "That looks bad!")
- 1 point for professional appearance (most people would say, "Wow, that's good!" even if they did not know it was student work)
- 1 point for originality
PLEASE NOTE that if you have not viewed the Flash Animation Basics tutorials, you are probably going to waste a lot of time being frustrated by this assignment and doing it wrong.
DETAILS Create a new, original SWF that contains a simple animation with two (2) or more different symbols. Embed the SWF object in an HTML page, and upload both files to your Web host. Also upload the FLA to to your Web host. Please focus on making it look good -- a complicated animation is not necessary.
Requirements
- At least two Graphic symbols must appear in the Library.
- Each of the two symbols must MOVE in your animation.
- Your FLA must have a bottom layer that serves as a background image. (A plain one-color background does not count. A big rectangle does not count.)
- Do not import or paste any images into Flash from outside sources. Use the drawing tools in Flash to create the symbols and the background.
- Your FLA must have an "actions" layer with a stop(); action in the final frame on the Timeline. (This is illustrated clearly here.)
- Use Flash CS4 or CS5 Professional and NO OTHER SOFTWARE to complete this assignment.
- Follow all the instructions below.
- Upload ALL THREE files (SWF, FLA, HTML) to your Web site and send me two properly formatted URLs -- (1) the HTML page, and (2) the FLA -- via one e-mail, by the deadline. (When your URL is formatted correctly, I can right-click to download your FLA.)
Example
[You will need to install the Flash Player
or enable JavaScript in your browser
to see the missing content.]
The two symbols in this movie are the hand and the dollar bill. It's obvious that they are two separate symbols that can be animated independently.
Note that your movie will NOT have a replay button. That is for next week. Please do NOT put a button in your assignment this week.Instructions
- Create an entirely new FLA for this assignment.
- Create two new, different Graphic symbols in the FLA.
- Create a background design in Flash. (This must be the bottom layer in your FLA.)
- Animate TWO DIFFERENT symbols in Flash.
- Read these instructions to learn how to embed your SWF in an HTML page. (Flash will do it for you.)
- Copy the SWF, the HTML file and the FLA into one folder.
- Upload the folder, containing all three files, to your Web site. NOTE: If you are using Plaza, you may run out of space. You can deal with this by deleting older work from Plaza.
- Send the two URLs to me (see Requirements, above).