Flash Week 4 Presentation by Mindy McAdams

Review of best practices The top layer in the main Timeline: Named “actions” and contains all “a” frames containing ActionScript (unless your movie has NO actions) The second layer in the main Timeline: Named “labels” and contains all frames containing a frame label

Extend a short layer in the Timeline If the layer has contents (is gray or blue), then right-click in the next frame and insert a blank keyframe (white)

Right-click in the next frame and insert a blank keyframe (white) – or press F7

Right-click in the final frame of the Timeline and insert a (regular) frame – this extends the layer

Nice! All layers are the same length This becomes more important as your Flash movies become more complex

Review of best practices Extend all layers in the main Timeline to be the same length All unnecessary keyframes should be “cleared” – that is, changed to regular frames (no dot in the frame) Why? Because a keyframe should be used only when something changes in that layer

Two layers here are short All layers should be the same length

Right-click to get menu and extend the layer Or press F5

Now we have two unnecessary keyframes In which two layers?

Right-click to get menu and clear a keyframe (making it a regular frame instead)

Lovely even layers! No unnecessary keyframes! One more thing: There is (possibly) an unnecessary frame at end of “coconut” layer …

Review of best practices Fix all “broken” tweens in your Timeline A dotted line in a layer means your tween is “broken” is some way A solid line is a proper tween If you see Tween 1 or Tween 2 in your Library, something was moved without first being converted to a symbol Tween 1 is a bad sign!

Here we can see two good tweens (solid lines)

Here we see that the second tween is “broken” (dotted line) – why?

Here we see that the second tween is “broken” (dotted line) for a different reason – why?

Check in your Library If you see Tween 1, Tween 2, etc., it means you made a mistake You tweened something that was not a symbol

Those bad symbols (Tween 1, etc.) in your Library may be a clue to a “broken” tween

Summary Extend all layers in the Timeline to the same length Change all unnecessary keyframes to regular frames (with no dot) Fix all “broken” tweens (dotted lines) in your Timeline If you see Tween 1 or Tween 2 in your Library, figure out why, and fix it

The End Monday after Spring Break: QUIZ on Lesson 7, but no exercise is due