Timewaster's Guide Archive

Departments => Webcomics & Free Stuff => Topic started by: Gemm: Rock & Roll Star; Born to Rock on March 05, 2004, 02:35:50 PM

Title: Flash and Me
Post by: Gemm: Rock & Roll Star; Born to Rock on March 05, 2004, 02:35:50 PM
Hey Spriggan, need some help with Flash. How do you insert a picture?
Title: Re: Flash and Me
Post by: Spriggan on March 05, 2004, 02:42:46 PM
import from an outside source:

look for import in the file menu.  I sugest import to Libary.

If that's not what you want, you'll need to explaine what you're trying to do better.
Title: Re: Flash and Me
Post by: Gemm: Rock & Roll Star; Born to Rock on March 05, 2004, 05:56:33 PM
Yeah, makes sense. For some reason the picture I had wasn't a file type it wanted to use. So I converted it to jpg. Weird that is wasing.
Title: Re: Flash and Me
Post by: Spriggan on March 05, 2004, 06:01:36 PM
humm odd, I cant think of a picture type flash can't read.  What version you useing?  MX 2004? MX? or earlier (wich if you are I feel very sorry for you)?
Title: Re: Flash and Me
Post by: Gemm: Rock & Roll Star; Born to Rock on March 05, 2004, 06:04:58 PM
It's Flash 5 I believe. MX maybe.
Title: Re: Flash and Me
Post by: Spriggan on March 05, 2004, 06:10:46 PM
dude if you're not at lease useing MX you need to goto your boss and raise bloody hell.  The difference between flash 5 and MX (wich is the 6th) is so amazeingly different it's cruel and unsual to use any of the numbered flashes.  

And the difference between MX and MX 2004 is very media oreiented, includeing better compression and prossescor speed, which does affect animation in a lot of ways.  Basicaly it allows you to have more moveing things going on at one time.  Animation that's by tweens and frame by frame takes up a significant amount of memory copaired to useing actionscript.  MX 2004, and flash player 7 that it uses, realy helps the frame by frame speed.
Title: Re: Flash and Me
Post by: Gemm: Rock & Roll Star; Born to Rock on March 05, 2004, 06:16:22 PM
Eh, I think it's just more important for me to understand the basics right now and actually get some flashes made first.

If I really, really, wanted a newer version of Flash I could just ask my mom. But I can wait.
Title: Re: Flash and Me
Post by: Spriggan on March 05, 2004, 06:22:21 PM
lets put it another way, if you're useing flash 5 you'll want to upgrade becasue the layout, commands, actoinscript and several other things are all different.  So if you're going to learn, you should be useing one of the flashes thats current on those things.  
Title: Re: Flash and Me
Post by: Gemm: Rock & Roll Star; Born to Rock on March 05, 2004, 06:28:44 PM
Yeah, I think I'll stick with what I've got though. For one, it's my bosses own personal copy, and two, I'm a lowly Work Study student.
Title: Re: Flash and Me
Post by: Spriggan on March 05, 2004, 07:13:57 PM
fair enough, but next time you're at work can you check the version for me?  I need to know if its MX or 5 so I can give you correct answers.
Title: Re: Flash and Me
Post by: Gemm: Rock & Roll Star; Born to Rock on March 05, 2004, 07:15:19 PM
Ah, ok. I will try.
Title: Re: Flash and Me
Post by: Gemm: Rock & Roll Star; Born to Rock on March 08, 2004, 05:07:30 PM
Ok Spriggan. I've found what it is. It's MX. It's all MX.
Title: Re: Flash and Me
Post by: Gemm: Rock & Roll Star; Born to Rock on March 08, 2004, 05:27:55 PM
Ok, how do I embed an image into the whole movie? Do I have to add it to every frame? That would seem tedious.
Title: Re: Flash and Me
Post by: Spriggan on March 08, 2004, 09:18:23 PM
depends on how complex your movie is, Gemm.  If you're just doing simple movie make a new layer and place it on said layer.  Like most programs layers are well layered.  So if you put the new layer as the top most, everything else will appear behind it.
Title: Re: Flash and Me
Post by: Spriggan on March 09, 2004, 12:45:46 AM
here's the link you wanted Gemm.

http://www.kirupa.com/developer/mx/percentagepreloader.htm
Title: Re: Flash and Me
Post by: Gemm: Rock & Roll Star; Born to Rock on March 09, 2004, 12:37:25 PM
Ok, Spriggan, I think I've figured out my problem from last night. The reason it just kept looping for me is because my actual movie doesn't start until frame 1, and that loader wanted to start on frame 3. So what I'm thinking is, if I moved my main movie to frame 3, would that make it work. You think?
Title: Re: Flash and Me
Post by: Spriggan on March 09, 2004, 07:17:15 PM
well it all depends on the code:

Code: [Select]
if (bytes_loaded == bytes_total) {
     this.gotoAndPlay(3);
}

The above code requires the the movie starts on frame 3 of the same scene.
if you chage it to:
Code: [Select]
if (bytes_loaded == bytes_total) {
     nextScene();
}


the above code would require you to have the movie and the loader in seperate scenes, but flash would start frame 1 of the second scenes.
Title: Re: Flash and Me
Post by: Gemm: Rock & Roll Star; Born to Rock on March 10, 2004, 01:27:43 AM
Hey Spriggan, you wouldn't happen to have any font that looks like hand-writing would you? That'd be useful to me.
Title: Re: Flash and Me
Post by: Spriggan on March 10, 2004, 03:48:58 AM
http://www.1001freefonts.com/fonts/

There's several there.
Title: Re: Flash and Me
Post by: Gemm: Rock & Roll Star; Born to Rock on March 10, 2004, 09:32:19 AM
Sprig, you wouldn't happen to know anything about Adobe Photoshop, would you?
Title: Re: Flash and Me
Post by: Spriggan on March 10, 2004, 09:43:54 AM
That's 42's deparment, he's an Adobe mad man.  I don't have a copy and has been several years since I've used it.
Title: Re: Flash and Me
Post by: Gemm: Rock & Roll Star; Born to Rock on March 10, 2004, 10:06:08 AM
hmmm, then there will be difficulty getting him to pay a bit of attention over here.
Title: Re: Flash and Me
Post by: Spriggan on March 10, 2004, 09:34:51 PM
ask your question here and I'll let him know about it.
Title: Re: Flash and Me
Post by: Gemm: Rock & Roll Star; Born to Rock on March 11, 2004, 11:48:43 AM
Ok, now I have moved on to the quiz template. For the "Hot Object" component I need a little help, hopefully you know what this is. (It is frame 6 in the template) How do I make it so they can only choose one, and if they want to unchoose it and choose another one. (Since, for some reason, the template will let you choose them all but not deselect them.)
Title: Re: Flash and Me
Post by: Gemm: Rock & Roll Star; Born to Rock on March 18, 2004, 12:11:47 PM
Ok Mr. Spriggan. Need a bit of help. I have to take a map and when a city "button" is click it has to draw a line to the school here. I am at a loss for how to do this.
Title: Re: Flash and Me
Post by: Gemm: Rock & Roll Star; Born to Rock on March 18, 2004, 12:33:31 PM
Better question: How do I make an image with a transparent background? So I can draw the line and then import the line so it's just the line, without a background.
Title: Re: Flash and Me
Post by: Spriggan on March 18, 2004, 08:37:27 PM
psh, you know you want to do it useing flashes drawing functions.  mmmm, lots of action srcipt.  Don't have time to answer right now, getting ready to head home for the weekend.  I'll post later tonight or tomorrow.
Title: Re: Flash and Me
Post by: Gemm: Rock & Roll Star; Born to Rock on March 23, 2004, 12:38:16 PM
Hey Spriggan, how to I make scroll buttons for my flash? I've gotten to the part in the help file where it says to: "In the Actions panel, select the Objects category, then select the Movie category, then select the TextField category, then select the Properties category, then double-click the scroll property to add it to the Script pane."

But I can't figure out: "In the Object parameter field, enter the instance name of the text field you want to scroll.

Irement the scroll property by 1 to scroll the text up. The code should look like this:

instName.scroll += 1;"
Title: Re: Flash and Me
Post by: Spriggan on March 24, 2004, 01:08:22 PM
are you just trying to make a text feild scrollable or something else?
Title: Re: Flash and Me
Post by: Gemm: Rock & Roll Star; Born to Rock on March 24, 2004, 01:22:45 PM
yes
Title: Re: Flash and Me
Post by: Spriggan on March 24, 2004, 01:32:06 PM
umm, just right-click on the text feild and select "Scrollable".  That will add scroll bars.

To use buttons make a button and have 2 copys of it (or two different ones).  Name your text feild anything you want (you assign instance names in the top left hand corner).  Then on the buttons have
Code: [Select]
on (press){//or release, rollover or what ever you want
_root.myTextFeild.scroll++ //++ just automatical increases by one.  You could do +1 for the same or +2, +3.
}


on the other
Code: [Select]
on (press){
_root.myTextFeild.scroll--//this is like ++ except it subtracts one.  You could use -1 if you wanted.
}
Title: Re: Flash and Me
Post by: Gemm: Rock & Roll Star; Born to Rock on April 20, 2004, 01:18:44 PM
Coolest line in a tutorial:

"The machine can produce different results depending on what you put into it. For example, if you put bananas in a blender, you get mashed bananas, not mashed peaches."
Title: Re: Flash and Me
Post by: Gemm: Rock & Roll Star; Born to Rock on October 25, 2004, 01:25:24 AM
Ok Sprig, here's a question for you on Flash.

build a global function that I can call from any of the objects in the timeline...
How do I do that best? Preferably one that I can use from ANY timeline
Title: Re: Flash and Me
Post by: Spriggan on October 25, 2004, 03:06:39 AM
well define the function in the root timeline (or path), that way you can easly call it from any path.  So if you have
Code: [Select]

myFunction(){
/all my code here
}


then when you wanted to call it you'd use
Code: [Select]

_root.myFunction();


for calling other objects you'll need to use pathing too, you could easy call a function defined anywhere at about anytime, but it's easier to do it when they're in the root path.  If you haven't allready read something like this I recomend reading this pathing tutorial.

http://www.actionscript.org/tutorials/beginner/paths/index.shtml