Symbols robot flash tutorial

3. Symbols

Types of Symbols • Graphic: used for images or reusable animations. • Movie Clip: movie within a Flash movie and has its own timeline. Good for interactive elements and sounds. • Button: responds to clicks, rollovers, and other actions. Define the graphics for each of the button states, then assign particular actions to an instance of the button. Create a Graphic symbol • Select one of the eyes. Select Modify Convert to Symbol. Choose Graphic as the behavior and give it the name EyeGraphic. • All symbols in a Flash document appear in the Library panel, which is usually in the Panel Sidebar. If not, select Window Library. • Delete the other eye and replace it with the EyeGraphic sym- bol by dragging the symbol from the Library panel to the stage. • The benefit of symbols is that you can create instances of elements that repeat. • Change how the EyeGraphic symbol looks. • You can edit a symbol by double clicking an instance or double-clicking the symbol in the Library panel. Editing a symbol also changes its instances. 7 Create a Button symbol • Draw a circle and select it. Select Modify Convert to Symbol. Choose Button as the behavior and give it the name RobotButton. • The RobotButton symbol should now appear in the Library Panel like the Eye- Graphic symbol. • To edit the RobotButton, double-click an instance of the symbol or double-click the symbol in the Library panel. • Buttons have frames for each of its states. Each state can have it’s own appear- ance. • Up: when the button is not pressed, or released. 8 • Over: when the button is hovered over. • Down: when the button is pressed. • Hit: defines the clickable area of the button. • Leave the Up and Over states as they are. • Insert a keyframe in the Down frame. Change the color of the button’s fill. • There are two ways to test whether your buttons work. • Choose Control Test Movie to build the Flash movie. • Choose Control Enable Simple Buttons to make the buttons accept mouse events in edit mode. Create a Movie symbol • Select Insert New Symbol. Name the Movie symbol RobotMovie.This creates an empty stage and a new timeline. • Return to the main timeline named Scene1 by clicking on the “Scene 1” button on the Timeline panel. Cut the eyes, face, and mouth from the Scene 1. • Edit the RobotMovie symbol and paste the eyes, face, and mouth. • Drag the RobotMovie symbol into the Scene1 timeline. • At this point, the RobotMovie symbol doesn’t do anything, since there is only one frame in our movie. 9

4. The Timeline