Advanced Flash Tutorials from LearnFlash.com

The following Flash tutorials are available to you with permission from LearnFlash.com.

Motion Guide
In this tutorial, you will learn how to animate a graphic on a guided path using the motion guide. You will also learn how to place your graphic or movieclip on the correct points of the motion guide.

Invisible Buttons and Sound
In this tutorial, you will learn how to command sounds with invisible buttons. Add invisible buttons around objects that become interactive, and play sounds and songs.

Gradient Mask Reflections
A gradient mask is a great way to make a reflection effect. However, there arises a problem when you try to make a gradient mask visually in Flash. Flash treats the gradient like it was just a solid fill. But don't worry! There's a way to overcome this if you apply the mask using actionscript, and in this video, you'll learn how.

Cursor Replacement And Blending Modes
You're going to need Flash Professional 8 for this tutorial. In this video, you'll learn how to use Flash 8's blending modes to create a circle that follows the cursor around on the stage, inverting the colors of the image in the layer below the circle.

Animating Filters In Flash Pro 8
You can motion tween a lot of things in Flash--position, transparency, color, etc--but did you know you could ALSO tween a filter in Flash Professional 8? In this video, Craig will show you how!

Continuous Animation
In this video, you'll learn how to set up a looping animation that doesn't seem like it's looping. It will look like a continuous stream flowing through a pipe.

Semitransparent Buttons
In today's beginner-level tutorial, you'll learn how to create a very simple, yet elegant, button symbol with a semitransparent background that loses its transparency on rollOver.

Countdown Timer
In this tutorial, you'll learn how to create a timer in Flash that will count down the time to a given date in days, hours, minutes, and seconds. This is a great tool for counting down to holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, etc.

Animating with ActionScript
In this tutorial, you'll learn how to create a simple animation using ActionScript instead of motion tweens.

Problems with Rotating Animations
Creating an animation of an object rotating is very easy to do, whether you do it with tweens or in Actionscript. Unfortunately, sometimes the rotations don't occur
exactly how you would want them to, because by default, the anchor for the rotation is the center point of the object being rotated. In this tutorial, you will learn how to change that anchor point for both tweened animations and Actionscript animations.

Illustration Optimization
Many artists prefer using hand-drawn illustration techniques for their Flash graphics, but there's often a big hit on your file size when using these types of illustrations. In this tutorial, you'll learn why this is the case, and you'll also learn a couple of techniques for optimizing those illustrations in order to reduce file size.

JavaScript Popup Windows
Unfortunately, there's no way to create a customizable popup window using only Flash. But the good news is that with a little help from JavaScript, you can create popup windows with no scrollbars, no toolbars, no menubars, and you can even specify the size of the popup window. In this tutorial, you'll learn how to do just that.

Conditionals and Toggle Switches
A conditional is a way of executing a piece of code only if the circumstances are right. In this tutorial, you will learn how to use the if() statement to control a toggle switch in Flash.

ComboBox Interactivity
In Flash, the ComboBox component is basically nothing more than your basic dropdown list that you see in forms on the Internet. In this video, you'll learn how to use this component to communicate with another movie clip on the stage.

Basic Preloader
This tutorial is an excerpt for an upcoming training series, to be released by LearnFlash.com on March 31. In this excerpt, you'll learn how to create a simple preloader for your Flash website.

Loading Pictures Dynamically
The loader component in Flash is a very handy tool for loading external images into your Flash file. In this video, you'll learn the fundamentals behind creating a photo gallery, using the loader component to load pictures one at a time.

Digital Clock
It's always helpful to know what time it is, and in today's video tip, you'll learn how to pass this information on to the users of your website. In this tutorial, you'll discover how to use dynamic text fields and Actionscript to create your own digital clock for your Flash website. (Here's another digital clock tutorial!)

Random Jumping
Predictability is way overrated. Web users all over the world expect a button to stand still when they click on it. So why not take a little of that predictability away from them? In this video, you'll learn how to generate random numbers in Flash and then use those numbers to create an elusive button or graphic that jumps to a random position on the stage every time your user hovers his mouse cursor over it.

Magic Cursor
If you want to learn to make your Flash websites truly interactive, then it's very important that you understand how to alter the properties of your objects dynamically. In this video, LearnFlash.com trainer Craig Campbell will show you how to alter the "alpha" property, or the transparency, of an object in Actionscript so that the object fades in and out as you move your mouse cursor left and right across the stage.

Animating with ActionScript
In this tutorial, you'll learn how to create a simple animation using ActionScript instead of motion tweens.

Adding Flash Elements to Your Website
It’s time to replace the boring text link in the bottom-right corner of the home page with something that stands out a little better. In this video, Craig creates an animated button to take its place.

Intro To Flash 8 Preview
Our new "Introduction to Flash 8" video series will be released soon, and in this excerpt from the series, you'll learn all about using and customizing panels and panel sets in Flash.

Intro To Flash 8 Preview
Today's tip is an excerpt from our brand new "Introduction to Flash 8" video series, and in this clip, you will learn all about how to create shape tween animations where one shape morphs into another shape.

Movie Clip Loader
The MovieClipLoader class allows you to keep track of loading information for dynamically loaded assets. In this tutorial, you will learn how to use the MovieClipLoader class to create a preloader for your slideshow images.

Intro to Action Script 3.0 (v1)

In this video, Craig will demonstrate how to get your object to move to a specific point on the stage.

Intro to Action Script 3.0 (v2)
When dealing with ActionScript code, it is a good idea to learn how to get around in the Actions panel. In this video, Craig gives you a quick tour of the panel and its features.