The Layers

A word to image-editing software users: layers are used in Flash on similar lines to the way they are used in Photoshop or Paint Shop ... but in addition, the notion of time is involved.

Layers give depth to your animations and enable you to simulate perspective. Putting it very simply, if layer 2 is behind layer 1, an item on layer 2 will be positioned under an item on layer 1. They make it easy to create depth or back and forth movement effects.

To illustrate this, see the Flash animated sequence below. As you can see from Figure 3, the cactus and the car are each on a separate layer. The layer on which the car is placed goes successively in front of and behind the cactus layer.




Figure 3: The car and the cactus have been placed on separate layers.

Each layer corresponds to an animation element, to which one of the following 3 properties is assigned:

• None. The element will remain static on screen.
  
  
• Motion. The element will change during the animation playback. It can be mobile or simply change from green to red, from being opaque to transparent, etc.
  
  
• Shape. This property makes it possible to distort a drawing (as in a morphing): for instance, to turn an elephant into a mouse, a letter into a digit, and so on.
  
  

Animated sequences are created by associating the Motion property with a symbol, positioning this symbol on stage, and moving it from one point to another. This is really easy.