Drawing in Flash 8

Design passes through many phases when designing web page or an animation. After the phase of "What do I want to create and how is it going to look", normally, the phase of graphic design comes up. Realize what your imagination has produced on the paper (in this case on the paper of Flash).

It isn't desirable to mislead us, Flash isn't a program of graphic design, but its power in this field is almost as great as these programs. We are going to see how use every drawing tool effectively.

Tools Bar. Basic Tools.

The Tools Bar contains all necessary Tools for the drawing. Let's see which of them are the most important and how they are used:

Icon Tool Purpose Selection (arrow) Tool It is the most used tool among all. Its main use is to select objects, it allows selecting the borders of the objects, the fillings (with only one click), the borders (with double click), zones on our choice... Moreover, its adequate use can save time of our work. Line Tool It allows creating straight lines in a quick way. The lines are created as in any program of drawing. Click and drag to show up a straight line until the desired end point. Once created, the line can be modified just by placing the cursor near the line: above of the extremes for dragging them, and in any other part near the straight line to curve it. Text Tool It creates a text in the place where we click. Its properties will be shown in the next theme. Oval Tool The Oval Tool enables drawing circles or ellipses in a fast and simple way. Rectangle Tool Its handling is identical to the Oval Tool, they only differ in the objects they create. Pencil Tool It allows drawing lines, after being drawn you will be able to edit its shape as you like. The color applied by this Tool can be modified from the Color Mixer Panel or from the subpanel Colors that is in the Tool Bar. Brush Tool Its functionality is equivalent to the pencil, but its stroke is much more thicker. It is usually used for fills. We can modify its thickness and stroke shape. Paint Bucket Tool It lets you apply fillings to the created objects. Many other programs of drawing don't allow to apply fillings if a border doesn't limit the zone, it does. The color applied by this Tool can be modified from the Colors Mixer Panel or from the subpanel Colors that are in the Tool Bar. Eraser Tool It works like the Brush Tool. Nevertheless its function is to erase everything what "it draws".

Tools Bar. Advanced Tools.

Icon Tool Purpose Lasso Tool Its function is complementary to the Arrow Tool, since it can select any object in a free way (the Arrow Tool can only select objects or rectangular or square zones). In counterpart, the Lasso Tool can't select fillings nor objects (if we don't make the selection by hand). By selecting this Tool, the following images appear on the Options Panel : This is the Magic Wand Tool, which is so popular in other programs. It lets you make selections according to the objects color. The third option you have is the following: It allows you to select polygon shapes. Pen Tool Creates polygons (and moreover straight lines, rectangles...) in a simple way. Many people find this tool to be complicated, although it's one of the most powerful tools that Flash provides. Its use consists in clicking on the places that we want to define as vertices of the polygons. In order to create curves, indicate the anchor points, which limit curvature, and then drag the tangent on them. Subselection Tool This Tool complements the Pen Tool , as far as it lets us move or adjust the vertices that make up the objects created by the above mentioned tool. Ink Bottle Tool It is used to change quickly the color of a stroke. It is applied to objects with borders, changes the color of the boundary with one click in the Colors Mixer Panel. Eyedroppers Tool Its mission is to "Capture" colors to use them afterwards.