Lesson
3: Pt. 1 |
Flash: Interactive Web Animation
Excerpted and modified from the Macromedia MX Flash Help File
A symbol is a graphic, button, or movie clip that you create once in Macromedia Flash MX and can reuse throughout your movie or in other movies. A symbol can include artwork that you import from another application. Any symbol you create automatically becomes part of the library for the current document.
An instance is a copy of a symbol located on the Stage or nested inside another symbol. An instance can be very different from its symbol in color, size, and function. Editing the symbol updates all of its instances, but applying effects to an instance of a symbol updates only that instance.
Using symbols in your movies dramatically reduces file size; saving
several instances of a symbol requires less storage space than saving
multiple copies of the contents of the symbol. For example, you can reduce
the file size of your movies if you convert static graphics such as background
images into symbols that you then reuse. Using symbols can also speed
movie playback, because a symbol needs to be downloaded to the Flash Player
only once.
Types of symbol behavior
Each symbol has a unique Timeline and Stage, complete with layers. When you create a symbol you choose the symbol type, depending on how you want to use the symbol in the movie.
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Use graphic symbols for static images and to create reusable
pieces of animation that are tied to the Timeline of the main movie.
Graphic symbols operate in sync with the movie's Timeline. Interactive
controls and sounds won't work in a graphic symbol's animation sequence.
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Use button symbols to create interactive buttons in the movie
that respond to mouse clicks, rollovers or other actions. You define
the graphics associated with various button states, and then assign
actions to a button instance. |
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Use movie clip symbols to create reusable pieces of animation.
Movie clips have their own multiframe Timeline that plays independent
of the main movie's Timeline—think of them as mini-movies inside
a main movie that can contain interactive controls, sounds, and
even other movie clip instances. You can also place movie clip instances
inside the Timeline of a button symbol to create animated buttons.
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Lesson
3: Pt. 1
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