2. Goals Discover the purpose of Flash, who uses it and why Explore some of Flash’s tools and features Create an animated business card Get excited about Flash
3. What is Flash CS4? Flash CS4 (Creative Suite 4) is a powerful multimedia creation tool What can Flash do? Can Create a Variety of Content: Simple Graphics Animations Sound External Graphics Video Interactivity
4. The Flash Phenomenon-Who Is Using It? Flash is a digital content authoring program for online designers, developers, animators, illustrators, programmers, educators, and off-the-shelf enthusiasts Flash is an output content in a compressed format for online viewing via the Flash Player Flash had its beginnings as Macromedia Flash in 1996 and is now a prevalent online content creation program
7. Flash CS4 Interface Features Stage-Where you draw and manipulate artwork Timeline-Allows you to organize your Flash content into layers in frames. Frames show what your content looks like over time. It lets you create animations Panels-Docked on right by default, shows information about what you select, allows you to change design characteristics, such as: Properties/Property Inspector-Change design characteristics, shows information you have selected. Library-Contains assets you will use in your flash movie, contains video, sounds, bitmap graphics, etc Tools-Has tools that allow you to select, create and modify artwork.
8. Flash Workflow -3 Basic Steps -Content you create in flash-sound, graphics, video, etc. -2 Files are created by Flash (FLA/SWF), Flash movie is embedded in HTML file -Use FTP client (Filezilla) or other software (Dreamweaver) to upload Flash files to the server
9. Flash CS4-Understanding Core Flash File Types FLA File-Main Flash Working File, Where You Create All Your Artwork and Animation SWF File-Flash Movie, Output File From FLA file (Cartoon, Rich Internet Application, etc. It’s what you view when you see Flash content on the web) FLV and FL4 File-Video Files for the Flash Player, Actual Movie Files AS File-Action Script File, Contains Interactive Code to Control Flash Application
23. Flash CS4-Vector Graphics Vs. Bitmap Graphics Bitmap Graphics are made of pixels Vector Graphics are made of points, lines and and math Each Has Its Uses: Bitmap are great for photo editing (better photo effects) Vector Art is great for Illustrations (smoother lines and use of shapes)