Flash Authoring Software

Photoshop is an excellent software mainly for graphic art, not for animation purpose. Yes, it can produce animation in .gif, and the older version than CS3 has a feature to save as .swf, but it has limitations – the result is good only for small size and simple animation. The best format for bigger size and more complicated animation is Flash Authoring Software as Macromedia Flash – last version is Adobe Flash CS3. The feature to save as .swf is no more available in Photoshop since CS3 – for that purpose we have to use Firework, indeed the quality is not as good as one produced by Adobe Flash.

I myself have Macromedia Flash 8 and I learned much the basic principle of Flash animation in this software. But lately I love Swishmax2 more, since it is much simpler and easier. It has built in effects – and I can also download built in movies/ effects and then customize it.

Anyhow, to have a good animation, you might need Photoshop to prepare the basic frames. Let us create this animation in .swf in bigger size (600 x 450) instead of this one in .gif small size :

  1. Download this raw image :
  2. Open in Photoshop : make it layer and duplicate it. Original layer as background (name the layer bgr), and the duplicate will be the foreground layer.
  3. Using the masking technique, make the sky invisible in the foreground layer.
  4. To the background layer, make the color more blue and blurred by modification in “layer properties”. I put color overlay blue with opacity 54 percents. I also change the blue color by re-arrange hue/saturation.
  5. Add a new layer, this will be the moving cloud. Use brush toll to create a white-greyish cloud.
  6. It would be more natural like if the cloud moves between clouds. So add another new layer for foreground cloud. Create clouds in this layer. This layer should be under the foreground layer.
  7. Now you are finish with photoshop – only to save it:
  • Make visible the foreground layer and clouds foreground layer -> save as foreground.PNG
  • Make visible the background layer -> safe as bgr.PNG
  • Make visible the moving_cloud layer -> safe as cloud.PNG

This is the steps in SwishMax2 (You can also use Swish miniMax):

  • Open your SwishMax. Open New File. Click -> Modify ->Movie Properties -> , change the document size to 600 x 450.
  • Import to the stage : image bgr.PNG, then cloud.PNG and last foreground PNG. Make sure the order is correct. Set the alignment to be in center. If the align panel not yet visible, click Windows -> align.
  • Select layer “cloud.png”. You can do it in the timelines panel (on top) or in outline panel (in the right side). Choose frame no.1, right click and click “insert keyframe”. Select frame no. 140, right click and click “insert keyframe”
  • While frame no. 1 is selected, move the cloud layer to the right outside movie area. And while frame no. 140 is selected, move it to the left outside movie area.
  • Now click the preview button.
  • To create .swf file, click File -> Export -> SWF

Only if you get stuck, download through “right click and save link as” this .psd, .swi and .swf files.

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