WEIRD DRAWING

Flash does weird things to objects you draw. Drawing over things eliminates what was under them, as in Photoshop, but you can select a fill or stroke by clicking on it with the selection tool, sort of like the magic wand.

Well, not all the drawing tools in Flash do weird things. The ellipse and rectangle tools do essentially what they do in any other vector drawing program: click and drag to create the object; hold the shift key to constrain to a perfect square or circle. (Click on the blue button to see...)

Every time one line (drawn with the pencil or line tool) crosses another, both lines are turned into sections. To select the bisected parts of an original line, therefore, you have to use shift + click on each part. Double clicking will select all overlapping lines.

Every time you draw a shape over a line, you will be removing the line wherever the fill overlaps the line underneath. The shape’s fill remains intact (it is not bisected), but any stroke attached to it is affected by the line underneath.

When you draw a line over a painted object, they both turn into sections, but the fill isn’t deleted if you delete the line.

Painting two overlapping shapes cuts them into parts. The topmost shape will remain whole, while any color it overlaps disappears.

IMPORTING GRAPHICS

As I mentioned previously, the weird drawing in Flash just makes me crazy. With few exceptions, I tend to draw basic black and white shapes in Illustrator and then copy and paste them onto the stage. I then break them apart (command B) and add my colors. FreeHand works, too. You can even import bit-mapped images (like those from Photoshop).

To import something you created in another program (vector or bitmap), just choose Import to Stage or Import to Library from the File menu. Make sure you select “all formats” in the dialogue box, so you can see the image you saved. Click on the file you want to import, click the add button and click ok. If Flash doesn’t recognize it as a legitimate file format, it will ask you if you want to import it using QuickTime.

At this point, it’s not a symbol. You don’t have to make it one, unless it is something you want to use over and over. If it’s just a background, leave it as is...

Import formats Flash recognizes: .GIF, .JPG., .PICT, PNG, .PSD, EPS, BMP, and .SWF files, among many others

If you’re working on a terribly ambitious animation, most likely you will have several images that define all the positions of something—someone walking, for instance. You must save each portion of image as a separate file: if you try to import them all in one file, you will get an error message and, believe me, it will be a mess. (That’s why I prefer to cut and paste).

There is one drawback to using Illustrator, that isn’t an issue if you use Freehand. The colors and gradients in Illustrator do not translate very well at all. It’s been my experience that you have to replace almost all the colors within Flash—so I usually just do the line work in Illustrator and color it later.

If you are bringing in a bit-mapped image, you can turn it into a vector image. Luckily, the math wizard working on Flash included a “trace bitmap” feature. After you import your image, select Modify > bitmap > trace. That dialog box allows you to determine the amount of detail you want to retain. Remember, the more exact you are, the larger your file size will be. Using higher numbers results in a smaller file size, but doesn’t have as much detail.

You can also use a bitmapped image as a fill to apply with the paintbrush or paint bucket tool. Instead of using the trace bitmap command, choose “break apart” from the Modify menu (command B). Keep this image off to the side.

When you want to use it as a fill, select it with the eyedropper, then fill an object. Flash will tile the image to fill the shape. I suppose this might be a good way to create some texture in an image.