Flash Assignment 1 - Create an Animated Banner

1. Create a new .fla file and save it with an appropriate filename Set the document properties to a size of 750 x 100 pixels wide and a frame rate of 20 frames per second. Choose either a transparent background or some background color other than white.

2. Create a frame-by-frame animation (not a tween!) consisting of 12 or more frames where there is a change in content among at least some of the frames. You can make this very simple or more complicated, whatever you choose. You may want to use one or more of the tools we have studied and any of the techniques we have studied -- e.g. in Merge Drawing, using objects to cut or become part of another object (behavior depends on whether their colors are the same), onion skinning, inserting and deleting frames to alter speed of animation, etc.

3. The HTML in the web page that references your .swf file should specify that the animation should not loop. You may do this in two different ways:

a. If the web page is to be generated from within Flash, then Choose Choose File>Publish Settings > HTML and uncheck the Loop checkbox so that your animation will only loop once. Click on Publish to generate the .swf file and an html file that reference (and hence displays) the .swf file. Flash will create these files in the same folder as the .fla file and will give them the same name (but different extensions) as the .fla file. OR

b. If the web page is to be generated by Dreamweaver, In Dreamweaver, select Insert>Media>SWF and browse for the .swf file. Make sure that the loop checkbox in the Property Inspector is not selected.

4. Add a brief description to the web page created by Flash or Dreamweaver of the steps you used in creating the banner. Your description need not indicate every click but should be clear.

5. Upload all the files necessary for the animation to your site. Remember to the external JavaScript files created by Dreamweaver to folder specified in the reference to the JavaScript file.