Hey. I just got my Flash CS3 Professional package in the mail from my family for my Birthday. They all pitched in to buy it and I am going to use it to the best of my ability....


The problem is... I have NO idea where to begin. I have seen so many masterpieces of flash from XIN to SURFACE, and I an scared that my dream of making an anime-style stick figure intro will be short-lived due to my crappy noob-esque abilities with Flash--- which means I currently have NO abilities with flash....

I HAVE checked many tutorials, but they tend to skip steps which screw up their own tutorial... Like, 'how to make a front menu', the steps were to draw it, make the function link to another set of frames (which I know is how to use a button) but the person didn't say the command to actually create a branching set of frames (like after clicking 'START' it goes to the animation) but he skipped the step and it messed up the whole tutorial.

I will be using the tutorial disk provided with the package, but I was wondering, from your experiences, what are the top 10 Dos and Don'ts of making a flash animation in your opinions?


All feedback is appreciated.

I agree tutorials kinda suck that's why I never use them. Just remember though there is always more then one way to do things in flash or photoshop or dreamweaver... I'm also a newbie at flash but from my experience I would probably save often, save it as a different filename as you improve the piece as well.

Say you start with an animation called storm.

Save the draft as storm1, then storm2, then storm3... cause if you overwrite the original file then you might have to restart it allover again if you messed up or don't like it.

That's about the only advice I got

OK, awesome :3 I need to wait for a Serial No. because it came on the receipt and my aunt lost it

I do that to JigSaw.

iBOCK, try not to completley ignore Actionscript even if you are making flash animations.
Go through heaps of tutorials, even if you know what there on about, read them anyway incase theres something you missed.

I'd recomend start programing with AS2.0 as apposed to AS3.0... AS3.0 is pretty hard sometimes.

these tips have been great. I am going to a Borders when school starts and I'm gonna get a Flash textbook <3


I <3 textbooks.

My biggest tip would be to use refrence names for Item Instances, Frame Names and anything you use in Action script, to actually make sense..

Don't name it button1.onRelease = function()

make it (EG options.onRelease
or mainMenu.onRelease
animationOne_*name of animation*.onRelease


be really specific. If you make it a lazy name youl forget it, get it wrong or mix it up with something else.

The most I know about flash is the Pen tool is annoying as heck if you try it without knowing how to use it.

I can help you with that, if you want.
(Knowing how to use the pen tool makes drawing curved lines and otherwise much easier.)

@Ben: I'm still looking for the serial number in my room I'll try to get it to ya when I find it.

@Alek
Arigato.

I still need to work on some stuff x.x

You'll be able to draw for hours on YOUR computer