Flash : Steps to take when creating Flash animation
Contents ]
Rémy Sergent

The library, your portfolio

Everything begins here.

The library is a storage area, a kind of portfolio from which elements can be pulled out as your design progresses, and where drawings, images and sounds can be created or imported. Each of the various elements are then denoted by a symbol which specifies its behaviour. There are three types of symbols:

  • Graphics. These are vector drawings or images. Generally speaking, these are the main components of static animation.

  • Buttons. These are also images or drawings, but here they have button properties, i.e., they respond to pointing or clicking on the mouse. They can be associated with one or several actions. For example, a mewing sound can be made to occur when the cursor is positioned on the cat , or a purring sound when you click on it.

  • Movie Clips. These are still drawings or images but they move across the screen area.

Modularity. Using items from the library, you can produce an animation which will be played back autonomously within another animation, like an animated button (a Flash version of Russian dolls).



Figure 1: The library is the storage for your animation elements.



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