Flash
Toolbox
Review Questions
- When the Zoom tool is selected, which shortcut key will temporarily shift control between the Zoom In and Zoom Out modifiers?
- What are the two keyboard shortcuts for accessing the Hand tool?
- What is the primary selection tool in Flash?
- When an ungrouped object is on the Stage that has both a stroke and a fill, how is the fill selected? The stroke? Both together?
- Can an ungrouped object be reshaped with the Arrow tool if it is selected on the Stage?
- What key is held down to draw perfect circles and squares?
- 'Line processing' and 'shape recognition' are features of which drawing tool?
- Which two tools have modifiers that let you smooth or straighten lines?
- What keyboard shortcut is used to access the Zoom In tool if another tool is currently active? What about the Zoom Out tool?
- What are the differences between open and closed paths?
- Which points have tangent handles: curve or corner points?
- Does the Brush tool apply a fill or a stroke or both?
- What is the No Colours button used for?
- Can the Toolbox colour controls be used to change the colour of an existing object?
- What keyboard shortcut will let you temporarily access the Arrow tool?
- What is the Ink Bottle tool used to modify: strokes or fills?
- What is the purpose of the Transform Fill tool?
- What is the purpose of the Dropper tool?
Exercises
Exercise 1
Here's a chance to put into practice some of the tool skills you've learned. The object is to create a reasonable facsimile of the picture above in Flash. You can get as creative as you like, as long as you follow the guidelines below. There are a couple of challenges thrown in for you to try your hand at, including a simple animation.
Exercise 1 Guidelines
- Create a new Flash movie that is 400 pixels wide by 300 pixels high. Assign a blue colour for the sky background.
- Create separate layers for the different objects that will be added to the scene.
- Grass. Use the Rectangle tool to create the basic grass shape and then draw in grass blades using the Pencil tool.
- Tree. Start by using the Rectangle tool to make a basic tree trunk. Using the Subselect and possibly the Pen tool, modify the shape of the rectangle to approximate the shape of a tree trunk. Use the Brush tool to draw the tree's foliage.
- Apples. Use the Oval tool to draw perfectly round apples.
- Sun. Draw a sun using the Oval and Line tools.
- Dog. Use the Brush tool to draw a dog. Use the Pen tool to draw the dog's collar.
- Bone Challenge. Draw a bone like the one in the example by using only the Rectangle and Oval tools. (The Arrow tool is allowed for placement.) There are two possible solutions using what you've already learned.
- Wagging the Dog Challenge. See if you can set up a shape tween to make the dog's tail wag. The animation that we created (see link below) was done using five frames.
View our example.
Exercise 2
The Flash Help menu has some useful Lessons on Flash basics. For this exercise, please work through Lesson 02 up to and including the Scene called "Reshape". You'll get a brief introduction to the Lasso tool here. To find the lesson, go to Help > Lessons > Lesson 02 Drawing. When the file opens, you may find it displays rather small if a portion of your screen is taken up with panels. The only panel you'll need to complete this lesson is the Stroke panel so you can close the others and resize the Stage. To resize the Stage to fill the screen, change the zoom magnification to "Show Frame".
To help you determine if you are on the right track, the answers to the Review and Bonus questions have been provided. Do all the work on the questions page before you take a look at the answers.
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