Flash Professional CS5

Course Description:

Flash Professional CS5 software is the industry-leading environment for interactive authoring and delivery of immersive experiences that present consistently across personal computers, mobile devices, and screens of virtually any size and resolution. Design expressive content, write code precisely and efficiently, and deliver superior-quality video to audiences practically everywhere.

A powerful new text engine, expanded support for mobile and consumer devices, and enhanced coding tools are among the new features in Adobe Flash Professional CS5 software, the industry-leading interactive authoring tool. Flash Professional CS5 offers unrivaled integration with Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and After Effects software, creating a design workflow that extends the potential of your interactive content across media formats. Integrated support of Adobe Flash Player, Adobe AIR, and mobile authoring allows you to easily and consistently deliver interactive content, advertising, and video virtually anywhere.

Flash Professional is the flagship product for designing and developing content for the Adobe Flash Platform, and is an integral part of Adobe Creative Suite 5 Design Premium, Web Premium, Production Premium, and Master Collection software. Combined with the numerous benefits of these Creative Suite 5 editions, the features in Flash Professional provide a comprehensive toolset for design, web, mobile, and video workflows.

Our two day course will provide you with the core skills you need to make the most of this extremely powerful application.

Course Outline

Lesson One: Getting Acquainted

• Create a new file in Flash
• Adjust Stage settings in the Properties inspector
• Add layers to the Timeline
• Manage keyframes in the Timeline
• Work with imported images in the Library panel
• Move and reposition objects on the Stage
• Open and work with panels
• Select and use tools in the Tools panel
• Preview your Flash animation
• Save your Flash file
• Access online resources for Flash

Lesson Two: Working with Graphics

• Draw rectangles, ovals, and other shapes
• Understand the difference between drawing modes
• Modify the shape, color, and size of drawn objects
• Understand fill and stroke settings
• Make symmetrical and decorative patterns
• Create and edit curves
• Apply gradients and transparencies
• Group elements
• Create and edit text

Lesson Three: Creating and Editing Symbols

• Import Illustrator and Photoshop artwork
• Create new symbols
• Edit symbols
• Understand the difference between symbol types
• Understand the difference between symbols and instances
• Use rulers and guides to position objects on the Stage
• Adjust transparency and color
• Apply blending effects
• Apply special effects with filters
• Position objects in 3D space

Lesson Four: Adding Animation

• Animate the position, scale, and rotation of objects
• Adjust the pacing and timing of your animation
• Animate transparency and special effects
• Change the path of the motion
• Create animation inside symbols
• Change the easing of the motion
• Animate in 3D space

Lesson Five: Articulated Motion and Morphing

• Animate armatures with multiple linked movie clips
• Constrain the joints
• Animate armatures with shapes
• Morph organic shapes with shape tweens
• Simulate physics with the spring feature
• Use shape hints to refine shape tweens

Lesson Six: Creating Interactive Navigation

• Create button symbols
• Add sound effects to buttons
• Duplicate symbols
• Swap symbols and bitmaps
• Name button instances
• Write ActionScript to create nonlinear navigation
• Use the Code Snippets panel to quickly add interactivity
• Create and use frame labels
• Create animated buttons

Lesson Seven: Using Text

• Add and edit text on the Stage
• Apply style and formatting options to text
• Create text with multiple columns
• Create text that wraps around objects
• Add hyperlinks to text
• Use editable text for user input
• Dynamically change text content
• Embed fonts and understand device fonts
• Load external text

Lesson Eight: Working with Sound and Video

• Import sound files
• Edit sound files
• Use Adobe Media Encoder CS5
• Understand video and audio encoding options
• Play external video from your Flash project
• Customize options on the video playback component
• Create and use cue points
• Work with video that contains alpha channels
• Embed video in your Flash project

Lesson Nine: Loading and Controlling Flash Content

• Load an external SWF file
• Remove a loaded SWF file
• Control a movie clip’s Timeline
• Use masks to selectively display content

Lesson Ten: Publishing Flash Documents

• Test a Flash document
• Understand the Bandwidth Profiler
• Change publish settings for a document
• Understand the difference between export file types
• Add metadata
• Publish a SWF file and its HTML file
• Detect the version of Flash Player a viewer has installed
• Publish a self-contained projector file