MAS – Student Outline

Flash 1 Course Outline

WEEK 1

Introduction:
-Some background on your instructor and his/her experience
-the Flash API(Application Programming Interface)
-using Tools(vector drawing, text tools, magnification, selection)
-drawing in flash(stroke, fill, smoothing, cookie cutting)
-panels(properties and library)
-basics of the time line(layers, locking, hiding, adding frames/keyframes)
-basics of the library(converting shapes to symbols for reuse)

WEEK 2

-light review of drawing techniques
-in depth review of the timeline(keyframes, frame rate, tweens)
-importing(copy/paste, PNG/GIF/JPG, importing layered PSD in CS3)

Assignment 1:
Create 5 tweens (location/position, scale, alpha, shape, color, etc…)
Use combinations of property changes for at least 2 of them.

WEEK 3

- Discuss Quarter project requirements
- Masks and guides
- Further duscussion on differences between movieclips, buttons, graphics
- What can be done on the time line vs use of actionscript
- 4 AS examples: animation, games, dynamic content, physics
-Quick actionscript overview (actions panel, syntax highlighting, error console, etc)

Assignment 2 Tutorials:
Available on the white Adobe Creative Suite 3 Video Workshop disc: I’m going to assign five tutorials that cover things we already addressed in class. These are all pretty short tutorials (under 10 minutes) but they’re going to give you the concepts we discussed from a different perspective. I’m also listing three tutorials that are optional, but if you feel like you want more information on these topics feel free to take a look at them.
1. “Working with FLA files”
2. “Creating and using symbols and instances”
3. “Understanding the timeline, keyframes, and frame rate”
4. “Creating animations using motion tweens”
5. “Creating animations using shape tweens”

Optional Tutorials

• “Using the workspace“
• “Using the drawing tools”
• “working with text”