Flash CS4 All-in-One For Dummies®

Chapter 2. Introducing Graphics, Symbols, and Animations

In This Chapter

• Creating good-looking graphics in Flash

• Introducing symbols and instances

• Flash Animation 101

Flash is an extremely versatile application. You can create interactive Flash projects with audio and video and other bells and whistles. But Flash's humble beginnings were all about graphics and animations. Combine great-looking graphics with interactivity, and the sky's the limit.

If you're a first-time user of Flash CS4, you might feel like a kid in a candy store — you literally want to experiment with every tool. But, like anything else that's new, before you dive into the deep end of the pool, you have to dip your toe in the shallow end. In this chapter, we show you what you can accomplish with the Flash tools, and we introduce you to the backbone of any lean, mean Flash production: symbols, which are reusable graphics. But we're getting ahead of ourselves. In this chapter, you get an introduction to the type of things you can create with the drawing tools, plus an introduction to symbols and the document library.

Working with Flash Graphics

Great-looking graphics separate a ho-hum Flash production from something that grabs viewers by the scruff of the neck and makes them want to view the entire project, whether it's a game, an interactive Web site, or a great-looking Flash banner on a Web site. If you're artistically ...