My personal newbie Flash questions

[Bischop]

Heya guys. I have already been interested in Flash for a long time, so I thought it's about time to start making my own flash movies and games, just to realise that it is really freekin' hard to get started at all. But since I usually don't give up that fast I thought it would be the easiest if I learn it by doing. So I created this new topic to ask all questions that occour while working with flash. Im hoping to learn a lot from you guys and hope you share your knowledge with me. So get prepared for some really stupid questions.

Okay first question: Im currently trying to create an intro to my own point and click adventure. So what I want to do is, after the preloader is ready, having a text being blurred and getting sharper from second to second until you can finally clearly read it. I tried doing this by just blurring the text and "unblurring" it a few frames later with a tween inbetween( hehe). But it just won't work. All I get is the text suddenly jumping form blurry to not blurry. So any help on this?

[flailthefox]

I tried doing this by just blurring the text and "unblurring" it a few frames later with a tween inbetween( hehe). But it just won't work. All I get is the text suddenly jumping form blurry to not blurry. So any help on this?

So you've tired a tween? what type of tween did you use?

[Bischop]

Just a usual motion tween.

[Deathcon7]

First, place the MC on a frame. Then, apply a blur filter to it in the filters tab. Then, go the amount of frames you need (at 30 fps, about 60 frames away should suffice, the number isn't important though and should be in/de -creased to suit your needs) and press F6 to create a new keyframe. The MC will still be blurred, but go back into the filter option and set the blur to 0. Then, right click the original frame and select motion tween. This'll tween it for you. You can also set some options on the tween. For example, easing in will case the blur to start slow, then get really fast at the end. Easing out is the opposite. Or vice-versa, idk, i'm not sure. Try either one.

[Bischop]

At 1/25/09 10:55 AM, Deathcon7 wrote: First, place the MC on a frame. Then, apply a blur filter to it in the filters tab. Then, go the amount of frames you need (at 30 fps, about 60 frames away should suffice, the number isn't important though and should be in/de -creased to suit your needs) and press F6 to create a new keyframe. The MC will still be blurred, but go back into the filter option and set the blur to 0. Then, right click the original frame and select motion tween. This'll tween it for you. You can also set some options on the tween. For example, easing in will case the blur to start slow, then get really fast at the end. Easing out is the opposite. Or vice-versa, idk, i'm not sure. Try either one.

Okay somehow Flash doesn't want to work the way I want it to work. I did it exactly the same way. STep by step what you did. And what happens? Right nothing ;D All i get is a tween which stays at the same blurr level for 29 frames and then suddenly jumps to completely clear at frame 30. Inbetween there's no change visible. What am I doing wrong?

[Bischop]

Okay Im getting completely confused now. Suddenly it worked, when I used black color and a white background. But when I draw the background completely black and try the same with white colour it does not work? What the hell? :D

[Deathcon7]

Hey, you probably got something else on the layer. Remember that tweens require that the object is the only thing on that layer, otherwise it'll do that. It'll act like it's tweening, but then just jump like that. Is the line connected? Or is it dashed? If it's dashed, thats exactly the problem.

[Bischop]

Ah damnit....I feel stupid now. I forgot to set the background to a different layer. That's why it did not work. Thx buddy :).

Another thing that im thinking about is the timeline management. Isn't that completely confusing with all these different layers in later stages of movies? Like you get lost in that shitload of layers? Or is there any way to prevent that? I mean if I want to tween 2 characters I'd need at least more than 10 layers for that. Or is my thinking there wrong?

[Deathcon7]

Use layer folders. 10 layers or w/e for each character will end up only being 2 folders. Plus, just collapse a folder at a time and you'll only be dealing with those layers for that character.

[Bischop]

At 1/25/09 11:24 AM, Deathcon7 wrote: Use layer folders. 10 layers or w/e for each character will end up only being 2 folders. Plus, just collapse a folder at a time and you'll only be dealing with those layers for that character.

Ahhhh. Okay. Thing get much clearer know. A good feeling when you finally get how something works......thank you sooooo much for your help. Although it were, until now, mostly dumb questions, you really helped me a lot....so thank you so far ;)

[Deathcon7]

Keep it coming I'm bored. And you're welcome of course :D

[Bischop]

Okay since you're bored and I'm hopefully not wasting your time.....I want my game to begin with a small intro in form of a text scrolling up, telling a little bit about the story. So far that can easily done by tweening the text from the bottom to the top and then out of the picture. Is that right? Or is there a better way to do this?

[Deathcon7]

It's up to you and it depends how you're handling your assets. It could always be done with AS but if you want to give the text flavor and if it's not going to change, just use a tween. If you want to keep the stage compact, put it in an MC.

[Bischop]

Okay I'm back with two questions.
1) Everytime I test my movie something strange happens. When I have for example my text appear, it always appears in lowest quality and there are randomly words missing. So how can I switch the qualitiy there and what the hell happened to the words? It's really strange. The words seem like their cut off or sth. For example "a game made by" appears as "a game ma". And from my intro text there's like 3/4 gone randomly missing.

2) Im having a little problem with AS here. It's nothing big and I think it's easy to do....just not for me. So I want to have a part of the intro text appear. I have three buttons. One to switch the intro, one to go to the next part of the text( the next frame), and one to go to the previous. I tried doing this with the "nextframe" "previousframe" and "stop" and "play" commands but somehow it won't work. Can you quickly show or tell me how to do it?

[Bischop]

EDIT: just in case you misunderstand....these strange errors just appear when I "test my movie". Not when I play the movie within Flash Professional 8. I really don't know what's going on there.

[Bischop]

EDIT2: Yay. Finally figured out what happened to my text. The problem was that I accidently set the text to be "dynamic" not static. Fixed that and everything works.....well my AS problem is still there but I hope you guys can help me out there.