WDIM 121

Using The Adobe Creative Suite CS 3 or newer, you can import media into Flash directly from a Photoshop or Illustrator file. This is a fantastic features, with a few limitations. Layers are maintained, so if you or whoever designed project kept a clean Photoshop file with named layers and logical organization, that will carry right over into the Flash file. You can choose to create a MovieClip for a Photoshop Layer or Group right in the Photoshop Import Window. To get to the Photoshop Import Window from Flash CS 3, go File > Import to Library > choose .psd file. You can also choose what layers to import, and unique compression options for each. So all in all, its great. One drawback I’ve noticed is it doesn’t handle transparency very well in certain situations.

If you have a graphic on a layer that has transparency, especially if it moving, you may see white ugly crusty edges around your graphic. This is because when importing from Photoshop Flash isn’t using as good of transparency as a .png (Portable Network File) does. So if that happens to you, simply make the layer in Flash that the crustiness is on a guide so it won’t show up in the final swf, and use it as reference to place a png image. You’ll need to go back to Photoshop, show only the layer you want to save, crop it, and choose File > Save For Web > PNG 24 Transparency to create a .png image from Photoshop.

Get an example psd file here.

• Create a new .fla file
• choose File > Import to Library (or Import to Stage if you want it to be automatically placed on the stage)
• Select the .psd file
• Notice the options in the Import Window
• Try making all the head layers their own MovieClip and give them instance names
• Notice that layers from the .psd file were maintained

We went over the syllabus, the class goals and requirements, talked about some things “beyond the horizon” of the class, introduced each other, and got started working with the Flash Drawing Tools. One of the most important things to take away from the drawing tools is the understanding they are fundamentally trying to predict what you are trying to do. The advantage is speed and consistency of style, as you can quickly draw and color simple shapes. If you’re doing timeline animation, each frame is only shown for a fraction of a second, so precission isn’t as necessary as in traditional Graphic Design. If you want pixel-perfect precession, you’ll be using Photoshop, Illustrator, or a combination of the two and importing graphics into Flash.