Flash Out of the Box

Chapter 7. Effects and beyond

As with animation, effects are often overused in Flash. So the goal of this chapter is to teach you not only some effects but how to use them wisely. The key is to use effects to advance or convey the Flash movie’s purpose and not merely as eye candy. This chapter covers animation paths and motion design, and gives more practice in achieving effects with ActionScript.

The preceding chapter introduced animation and text effects, including motion tweening and shape tweening. This chapter goes into effects in greater detail. Excessive use of effects will repel the very users you want to attract. So when is it best to use effects? As in most things, less is more—the best effects don’t necessarily jump out at the user as an effect. For example, you might use effects to create variation without increasing the file download size. Or you might use a subtle effect, such as sliding in text when the user rolls the mouse over a hotspot. In this case, the effect is a useful feedback indicator. It says in a subtle way, “I am adapting the interface to your needs. What can I do for you next?” Contrast that with the case in which an effect is merely there so the designer can show off, which ends up assaulting instead of assuaging the user.

So let’s look at some techniques for creating effects and their prudent use. We’ll look at how to animate text, which can be used to highlight a particular item or add a subtle professional polish to an otherwise mundane design. Text ...