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Chapter 3. Symbols and Animation

In This Chapter

• Understanding symbols and the library

• Creating and editing symbols

• Using the Spray Brush and Deco tools

• Working with frames and keyframes in the Timeline

• Creating animations with tweens

• Understanding frame-by-frame animation

• Working with the frame rate

Once you're familiar with the Flash drawing tools, explore the topic that Flash is best known for: animation. In this chapter, you bring your creations to life with movement, interactivity, and sounds. Flash CS5 introduces significant new changes to the way animation is created on the Timeline, which is exciting for new and experienced users alike.

First, you explore some central concepts in Flash: symbols and the library. Because the symbol is an essential part of creating animation in Flash, you discover how to create and modify symbols before diving into your first animation tasks.

Visiting the Library

Each Flash document contains a library, a repository of reusable graphics, animations, buttons, sounds, video, and even fonts. As you build your Flash movie, you can add to your library any piece of artwork you've created on the stage, where the artwork is stored as a symbol, as shown in Figure 3-1. Your library is managed from the Library panel, which is visible in the default workspace. If you don't see your Library panel, choose Window

What makes symbols powerful is that you can reuse them as ...