How to Learn Flash

How to Learn Flash, now available on Amazon, is a series of Flash tutorials for beginners that walks you through the basic production pipeline of creating Flash projects without making you pull your hair out. We are realeasing these on Amazon Kindle. In this first exercise, Simple Interactive Pencil, you will create a basic project: a pencil that when clicked, draws a straight line.

This first project in the series, though very simple in appearance, shows the basic elements that are needed to build interactive projects in Flash: drawing, creating and naming layers, creating symbols, button states, importing images & sound, motion & shape tweens, animation, and Actionscript (Flash’s computer language).

I have had over 10 years of experience in teaching and using Flash, and I wanted to create a series of tutorials for all of those who were curious about learning flash, but weren’t quite sure what was involved. This series of lessons has been adapted from classes I have taught to beginners who were just learning flash.

We at tonyteach believe that learning flash, or anything for that matter, shouldn’t be difficult or expensive, and our goal is to pack as many tips, tricks, and techniques into a single, simple, cost-effective project.

With that in mind, the How to Learn Flash series is designed for a skill level of novice to beginner. This first project, Simple Interactive Pencil, should take between 30 minutes to an hour to complete.

Available Now on Amazon Kindle & Kindle Apps: http://amzn.com/B0064BCA8O

Okay, for those of you who haven’t heard, I’ve stopped using Flash for animation. Before I explain why, allow me to be clear—I haven’t stopped using Flash for other projects (web design, motion comics, etc.), I just no longer animate with it.

For animation, I switched over to a product from Toon Boom called Animate – right out of the box, Animate does things for my animation work flow that Flash only can do with plug-ins, and, in some cases not well, or not at all.

Though I’m sure there are other advantages for animators to switch from Flash to Toon Boom, for me and my workflow, there are three reasons worth mentioning – character rigging, a true 3D camera, and automated lip sync.

Character Rigging
Flash CS4 did add the Bone tool, however, Animate’s IK system, IMHO. is a much better solution. Cartoon Smart did an awesome comparison of the two here.

Camera
Flash, to date, has no camera of its own unless you know how to “fake” one or program one using Actionscript. Though I can’t talk about Flash’s lack of camera without mentioning V-Cam. V-Cam is a free movie clip that creates a pseudo-camera for Flash. However, when compared to Animate’s True Space camera, V-Cam lacks Z-depth and the ability to create multiplane scenes.

All of this can be faked in Flash (trust me, I’ve done a few), but having the ability to create camera moves in minutes by simply moving the camera instead of moving your object, scene or symbol is much less tedious, and far more efficient.

Lip Sync
Last but not least, automated lip sync. Almost all of my animations involve some sort of lip sync, from simple dialogue to song lyrics. Typically, in Flash, this process for me can take anywhere from two hours to a full day, or two, depending on the level of complexity or number of characters. However, Animate can automate this for you. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a stickler for lip sync, so my preference is to go in after the automation and tweak a few things. The bottom line: I can now get my lip syncs done in a fraction of the time.

In closing, I realize the Flash vs. Toon Boom discussion is one of those conversations that can be lumped in with sex, religion, politics, Mac vs. PC and, more recently, Apple vs. Adobe, but IMHO, there is no reason for discord.

Both Adobe Flash and Toon Boom Animate are amazing tools, and I use both. A hammer and a wrench are also great tools, and again I use both; however, I do not hammer in nails with a wrench, nor will I animate with Flash, for that I use Toon Boom Animate.

Don’t take my word for it; try out the free PLE (Personal Learning Edition) of Animate.

Here is a video tutorial on how to create a simple drop menu in Flash. Subjects covered are button states, invisible buttons, movieclips, and Actionscript 3.
18:16 minutes/40.8MB… be patient while loading

I get a lot of questions on how I have my Flash workspace set up. Well, it’s customized. Here is a short beginners tutorial to show you how you can customize your own workspace.
You can also follow these steps for Photoshop and Illustrator CS4.

Hey Campers, hope all is well with you. I have a new tutorial on Gomediazine, a Flash file with a simple, yet eye-catching effect — a black & white photo with full-color rollovers. This is the first in a multi-part tutorial. Check it out!
I wanna send a shout-out, and special thank you to the band Today the Moon, Tomorrow the Sun for the use of their photo.

I want to take a moment to explain the idea behind my new online classes at eduFire.com.

I have 10+ years teaching experience, and two of my specialties are:
1. developing ways of delivering a lot of information in a short time period, and
2. putting forth that information in a way that the novice does not feel overwhelmed.

An example of this is in my Flash animation class, though this is an intro class, students are doing their first animation within the first 30 minutes of class.

I have been teaching, at a local university, a few Community Education (CE) courses on Flash over the past 5 years. The courses are 16 hrs long, broken up over two consecutive weekends. I was looking for a way to build a modular teaching series.

I have always been interested in teaching online, and then I came across the eduFire community. I like eduFire because, like the CE courses, I am free to develop classes of my own design. This is especially helpful as most of my class topics & tutorials are based on students requests and questions. I also love the fact that unlike the CE courses I teach, you don’t have to live near Atlanta to attend them. In my last eduFire class, I had students ranging from California to Cairo!

So, what has developed from this are my new 2-hour mini-classes. Designed to be modular, short and to the point. They are broken up into two groups:

the “I Wanna Learn” Series: intro courses for the beginner to get their feet wet (these classes are always FREE)

and the “Simple and Perfect” Series (these courses are intermediate level, and are normally $49).

Here is a listing of my eduFire classes for August 09, and if you haven’t done so already, please fill out my short survey, as this information helps me to design better classes and tutorials.

I Wanna Learn Flash: Interactive Intro,
*FREE* : Saturday, Aug. 1, 12pm – 2pm EDT

Simple & Perfect : Banners and Ads in Flash,
*$49* : Sunday, Aug. 2, 12pm – 2pm EDT

I Wanna Learn Flash: Animation intro,
*FREE* : Saturday, Aug. 8, 12pm – 2pm EDT

Simple & Perfect: Animating a short in Flash,
*$49* : Sunday, Aug. 9, 12pm – 2pm EDT

Simple & Perfect: Flash AS: Five scripts you should know,
*$19* : Aug. 22, 12pm – 2pm EDT

If you haven’t done so already, please fill out my short survey, as this information helps me to design better classes and tutorials.

Thanks for reading all this (I tried to keep it short), and I look forward to seeing you all in class!

Tony Ross

So after viewing my tutorial, Build A Basic Site Using AS3 in Flash, over on Creative COW, Tom Whaley had the following to ask:
I’m making an interactive color chart that has a square inside a square. I want to be able to change the color of both squares individually. How can I change them separately?

Well Tom, this tut’s for you, NOW w/ cleaner AS3! (well, at least different) enjoy – Tony