Lesson #01
Introduction To Flash Class Written By Paul M. Games
Welcome to Cozy Academy’s first Flash Class lesson.
I assume there are two different types of people that would be possibly reading these lessons. Those that have already experienced the power of Flash software and want to learn more dynamic tools and techniques to improve their work, and those that have no clue about anything dealing with Flash, but are interested in learning. If you are the experienced
flash developer then our latter lessons will be of more interest to you, but if you are new to this groundbreaking technology then, please read on. Keep in mind that currently 97.4% of all users on the Internet today already have the Flash player plugin on their browsers!
Before we dive into these lessons I would 100% recommend that you have the following programs installed on your computer (Flash software works on both PC and MAC based systems):
You downloaded the latest version of Flash software and you are ready to reinvent the online experience for yourself and possible clients. Before we can take over the world let’s first take a
look at the Flash technology itself so we can get a better understanding of what this program is all about.
Remember the good ol’ days when everyone actually read the newspaper? Well the introduction of HTML language and the “World Wide Web” change that medium forever. Similarly, Flash’s technology has taken the simple, static webpage to a totally interactive level never before seen on the net before. A Flash movie itself can be (or contain) animation, video,
sound, games and more. Many industries use Flash technology for creating online training classes and professional interactive presentations.
The Flash software itself is similar to being a cartoonist. The program works from the same concept of frames, just like an individual frame on a movie projector’s film. One of the largest differences between a traditional cartoonist and Flash is an aspect that makes the program so popular. A traditional cartoonist would have to create 24 separate
drawings (one per frame) per second to make any moment look smooth and continuous. With Flash, many times you will only have to designate a starting point and an ending point and Flash will create the transition for you.
For example:
The above example took five total seconds to create. This movie was setup with the first frame having the ball on the left side and the last frame I placed that same ball on the right side. Flash took care of moving it across the screen for me. There are little details and explanations on what I did to actually make this happen in the software, and that will be covered in another lesson. While it's great that Flash can make things move around like this, its true power is in it’s interactivity with the end user. There are many different programming
languages on the Internet today, and some include HTML, Javascript, ASP, PHP, CGI and XML, etc. Flash’s scripting language is called “ActionScript” and is something we will also be talking about in some of our more advanced lessons.
Some examples of how ActionScripting can make a Flash movie more interactive:
In this first “interactive” example try to take your mouse and touch the green ball. See what happens when your mouse goes over top of it.
Now here is another simple “interactive” example. Place your mouse within the Flash movie and move it around and see what happens this time
Again, these two examples are very, very simple and take less than a minute to make. Hopefully, even in these simple examples you can see how we will be able to make more interactive websites using Flash technology. So sit back. Put your helmet on. We are about to take flight into a whole new level of webmastering and design.
Adult Webmasterism
