C. Play with Text
Text Tool
Flash acts similar to a word processor.
It provides a lot of flexibility when formatting text. The Properties panel allows
you to change the font, size, style and color of a single character or an entire text
block.
You can use the Properties panel to set margins, indents and line spacing. You
can also align paragraphs such as left, right, center and justified.
Transforming Text
Text is also an object, and can therefore be transformed like other objects in
Flash.
The entire block gets transformed.
Use Break Apart command to transform individual letters.
Break apart is a process of making each area of color in a bitmap image into a
discrete element you can manipulate separately from the rest of the image. Also,
the process of breaking apart text to place each character in a separate text block.
Skewing a text block Reshaping a letter after the text block
has been broken apart.
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Skew, Break Apart, and Color Text
Tutorial C1
Steps:
1. Open a new Flash document (with ActionScript 3.0).
2. Click File > Save it as “text.fla”.
3. Type a word “Cat” on the stage, you may change the font size (please choose a
bigger size), font type and font color.
4. Skew the text like the above picture by selecting the word “Cat” and click
Free Transform Tool ( ).
5. Type another “CAT” on the stage, and fill each letter with different colors (Tip:
use the Properties panel)
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6. Save your work.
7. Change the shape of the letter “C” into a cat shape like the picture below.
(Tip: Use Selection Tool to select the text > Right-click Break Apart twice,
then you will find that the letters become a dot pattern. It indicates that they
can now be edited > Click the Subselection Tool > Click the edge of the letter
“C” and reshape the letter to cat shape.)
8. Change the word “CAT” with gradient color or multiple colors like picture
below.
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Color Panel
(Tip: Select each letter > Use Fill Color Tool ( ) > Choose gradient color
or use Color Panel to change color)
9. Save your work.
Vertical Text, Rotate Text and Zoom Text
Tutorial C2
Before After
Create Classic Tween for the vertical word “Hello” so that it can fly from the right
to the left hand side of the stage starting from Frame 1 to Frame 10.
Steps:
1. Open a new Flash document (with ActionScript 3.0).
2. Click File and Save it as “TextVnR.fla”.
3. Click File > Import to stage / Import to Library > Choose any picture such
as “winter.jpg”.
4. Use Free Transform Tools to resize picture to make it the same size as the
stage.
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5. Rename Layer 1 as Background.
6. Insert Frame in Frame 45 of Background layer.
7. Insert another new layer ( ) and rename it to V-Hello.
8. Use Text Tool to type a vertical “Hello” on the right hand side of pasteboard
like the picture below. (Tip: Use the Properties Panel to set the text attributes:
font size = 50, color = yellow, Text Direction button = Vertical.)
9. Right-click in Frame 1 and select Create Classic Tween
10. Insert Keyframe in Frame 10 > Drag the vertical word Hello to the left side
on the stage.
11. Right-click in Frame 10 on Layer V-Hello > Select Remove Tween. This
action will remove the tweening effect from Frame 10 to Frame 45)
Create Classic Tween for the word “Hello” so that it can fly and rotate from the top
to the center of the stage starting from Frame 1 to Frame 20 of R-Hello layer like the
picture below.
Steps:
Hello
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12. Insert a new layer and rename it as R-Hello.
13. In Frame 1 of the R-Hello layer, use Text Tool to type “Hello” on top of the
picture like the following:
14. Right-click in Frame 1 on Layer R-Hello > Select Create Classic Tween.
15. Under the Properties window, select CW in the Rotate dropdown list and
type 2 in the times input box.
16. Insert Keyframe in Frame 20 on Layer R-Hello.
17. Drag the word “Hello” to the center.
18. Right-click in Frame 20 on Layer R-Hello > Select Remove Tween.
(This will remove the tweening effect from Frame 20 to Frame 45)
19. Save your work and test the movie.
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Create Classic Tween for the word “Welcome” which can zoom from large to small
on the stage starting from Frame 21 to Frame 30 of the Welcome layer.
Steps:
20. Insert a new layer and rename it as Welcome.
21. Insert Keyframe in Frame 21 on Layer Welcome.
22. Type a BIG word “Welcome” (such as size = 95) on the stage.
23. Right-click in Frame 21 on Layer Welcome > Select Create Classic Tween.
24. Insert Keyframe in Frame 30 on Layer Welcome > Click Free Transform
Tool and drag the edge of the word Welcome to make it smaller.
25. Right-click in Frame 30 on Layer Welcome > Select Remove Tween.
(This will remove the tweening effect from Frame 30 to Frame 45)
26. Save your work and test the movie.