Assignment Sheets
This unit is being developed and will be available summer 2008
Adobe Flash CS3 Professional
Book: Dynamic Learning Flash CS3 Professional - Order this book at Amazon
Includes: Flash CS3
Estimated Completion: 60 hours
Text: Dynamic Learning Flash CS3 Professional, ©2007, 1st Edition, Fred Gerantabee, Aquent Graphics Institute (AGI), O'Reilly Media, Inc.
ISBN: 978-0-596-51058-9
Companion Web site: http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596510589/
Errata/Errors: http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596510589/errata/
Cost: $45.00 - Search to see if you can find this book used.
It is recommended that you purchase additional text/reference books on each subject to further enhance your knowledge and meet your individual learning style. An Amazon store has been setup with recommended books to continue your studies.
General Notes - Before You Start the Book
To access Flash CS3 in the classroom click Start > All Programs > Adobe Design Premium CS3 > Adobe Flash CS3.
Important Class Resources
Your instructor provides extensive additional resources for Web design. You should familiarize yourself with and bookmark the following sites:
- Lecture notes are available at: http://www.robinsblog.com - This site is updated several times per week. Students should check this site daily for important class announcements and updates.
- Class forum - A place to discuss Web development. Please register to use the forum.
Homework
Homework is not required for this class. However, reading your lessons at home prior to completing them in class makes your classroom time more productive.
Backing up Your Student Files
You should periodically back up your student files to CD. Stations along the windows have CD Burners. Instructions for writing files to a data CD can be found here.
Certificates
In order to earn a certificate in Dreamweaver students must complete the Adobe Final Project. This project should be completed before starting another course module.
Tutorials, Files, Samples, and Errata
Before you begin the book ask your instructor to review the tutorial Flash CS3 Professional Fundamentals at Lynda.com.
File management skills are absolutely necessary to create and maintain Web sites. Please download and print this file management information for use in class. If you need a brush up on file management, review the tutorials that I've listed here http://www.tinkertech.net/octWeb03.htm#file.
The book has a companion Web site @ http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596510589/. You should bookmark this site for future reference. This page includes the errata link and a link/page for submitting errors.
In the classroom we use a network. You will be assigned a folder on our network. To connect to your personal folder use drive O:\. Copy the fllessons folder from the DVD in the back of the book to drive O:\. Do not copy the Extras or Videos folders, these files can be viewed from the DVD.
Getting Help
While we encourage you to try and problem solve any errors that you may have with your Web pages, ask for assistance if you cannot figure out the problem within a reasonable amount of time; I do not want you to become frustrated.
Cheat sheets are wonderful when you're learning to code. You will find links to numerous cheat sheets on the class forum.
Chapter Notes
Complete all exercises in the book unless otherwise noted in the chapter sections below.
Chapter 1 - What's New in Adobe Flash CS3
To access Flash CS3 in the classroom click Start > All Programs > Adobe Design Premium CS3 > Adobe Flash CS3.
Page 3 - Copy the fllessons folder to drive O:\. Do not copy the Extras or Videos folders, these files can be viewed from the DVD.
Page 16 - Lesson 2 is the Flash CS3 Jumpstart, not lesson 12.
Chapter 2 - Flash CS3 Jumpstart
No notes for this chapter.
Chapter 3 - Getting Started with the Drawing Tools
Page 55 #9 - You may also need to change the Stroke Style to Solid.
Page 56 #2 - The Guides may get in the way when you're trying to select pieces of the stroke. Click View > Guides > Show Guides if you have a difficult time selecting any of the strokes.
Page 61 #3 - The Registration point for the gotruck symbol has been set to center. Click the center registration point as indicated in the Convert to Symbol screen capture below step #3.
Page 70 #12 - Click on the top CORNER of the gray rectangle.
Page 76 #2 - After you select the Pencil tool be sure that the
Object Drawing mode tool
is
turned off (at the bottom of the Tools panel). Keep the Object
Drawing mode off for the remainder of the lesson.
Page 77 #7 - Your sail may not be perfect. I ended up redrawing the sail with the pencil tool.
Chapter 4 - Modifying and Transforming Graphics
The video on this lesson is incorrect around the middle of the movie (the frames under the letter g in the word "modifying" through the word "and" in the movie title). When the transformation point is at the bottom, left hand corner resizing does not occur from the center point as the movie depicts. The author goes on to say that he is going to move the transformation point from the bottom, left hand corner to the center, but the point is already in the center. Transformation occurs as described, but the video is incorrect in displaying the behavior.
Page 104 - The Transform panel screen capture caption should read WINDOW > Transform.
Page 121 - Be sure to complete the Self study exercise.
Chapter 5 - Using Symbols and the Library
Page 135 #6-7 - These steps were a bit confusing to me. I placed 13 snowflakes on my stage duplicating the screen capture of the completed background at the bottom of page 135.
Page 141 Screen capture at the bottom of the page - Your background should have one rotated and resized snowflake.
Page 142 #2 - Because there is on instance of the snowflake on the stage with a different alpha setting, you will have to select Alpha from the Color drop-down twice.
Page 144 #2 - You may not need to click the Padlock icon. If your property inspector looks like the screen capture at the bottom of page 144 Flash will keep the height and width in proportion.
Chapter 6 - Creating Basic Animation
Page 169 #1 - Click frame 25 of the logo layer THEN Shift+click frame 25 of the stick figure layer. If you don't click frame 25 of the logo layer first, then you will end up selecting frames 10-25 on both layers. This selection issue occurs several times in the book.
Page 173 #2 - Click frame 33 of the logo layer THEN Shift+click frame 33 of the stick figure layer.
Page 177 #3 - Make sure that Object Drawing Mode is turned on before you draw the path with the pencil.
Page 178 Note after #4 - Single click the path to clean it up, do not double click the path.
Page 181 #7 - The figure is on the next page.
Page 184 #1 - Click frame 115 of the logo layer THEN Shift+click frame 115 of the stick figure layer.
Chapter 7 - Diving Deeper into Animation
Page 190 #8 - Click frame 20 of the Plant Life layer THEN Shift+click frame 20 of the Background layer.
Page 200 #7 - You may have to click frame 1 on the Eyes layer to display the Tween menu.
Page 200 #10 - Before you click with the Shift key be sure that you don't have anything else on the stage selected. If necessary click on the gray work area to deselect the eyelids before selecting the stroke.
Page 209 #8 - To draw a circle that matches the size of the bubble move your cursor to the center of the bubble and hold down the Alt key and drag down and to the right until the new oval matches the bubble.
214 #4 - Be sure that you don't have anything else selected in the timeline before you press the Shift key to select frames 1-20.
Chapter 8 - Customizing Your Workflow
Page 223 2nd to the last paragraph. I think that this paragraph is incorrect. Stacked panels are called "docked" and floating or loose panels are called "floating". By default panels are "docked" when you open Flash. If you have a set of grouped panels that are floating, they are said to be stacked.
Page 225 #3 - Note that the History panel is "floating" when you open it.
Page 230 #4 - Custom workspaces are saved to the local hard drive; if you use a different computer your custom workspace will not be available.
Page 232 Note at the bottom of the page: Document Undo works the same as all other software programs. Object Undo can only be seen when you're editing a symbol or you have an object selected on the Stage. From Flash Help: "You cannot undo some actions when using object-level Undo. Among these are entering and exiting Edit mode; selecting, editing, and moving library items; and creating, deleting, and moving scenes."
Page 234 #1 - Here is a copy of
the default shortcuts that you can print. You can create your
own HTML copy of customized keyboard shortcuts with the Export Set
as HTML icon
in the Keyboard Shortcuts dialog box.
Page 247 #2 - When precisely placing an object on the stage select the object and use the arrow keys on the keyboard to move the object up, down, left, or right one pixel at a time. If you find that the object jumps when you're trying to move it, be sure that all snapping is turned off.
Page 248 #6 - Remember when using Shift+click to click on the first object you want to select without holding down the Shift key.
Page 250 #11 - Last sentence should read "You will now group these two graphics so you can align all of the text inside the third column."
Page 251 #2 - Click off the Stage before you Shift click to deselect tag01 and tag02.
Chapter 9 - Working with Imported Files
Page 274 #10 - Click frame 80 of the text layer, then shift+click frame 80 of the background layer.
Page 277 #2 - Press the Enter/Return key to commit the changes in the Transform panel.
Page 277 #5 - The movie clip coordinates are wrong, set X to 62.1 and Y to 51 on frame 40.
Page 278 #6 - Press the Enter/Return key to commit the changes in the Transform panel.
Page 278 #7 - The movie clip coordinates are wrong, set X to -269.9 and Y to 2 on frame 80.
Chapter 10 - Introducing ActionScript
Page 282 #1 - Download and use this corrected fl1001.fla file. There is also a corrected completed file.
Page 282 #3 - If you are prompted to replace an existing fl1001_work.fla file select Yes.
Page 283 - If you would like to work through the steps for both ActionScript 2.0 and 3.0 use File > Save As to save your fl1001_work file as fl1001_work3 and again as fl1001_work2. Complete the ActionScript 2.0 steps first on the fl1001_work2 file.
Page 285 1st paragraph, second sentence should read: To open the Actions panel, choose Window > Actions or press F9...
Page 287 #1 - After opening the fl1001_work.fla file, create a new layer above the Basketball layer and name it Actions.
Page 296 #4 - If you are working with ActionScript 3.0 change the 61 parameter in the gotoAndPlay function to "my_label". Your script on frame 100 should look like this:
import flash.display.MovieClip;
this.gotoAndPlay("my_label");
Check the completed file of this lesson if you have trouble with the script. Note that there is no Type menu in ActionScript 3.0.
Chapter 11 - Creating Button Symbols
Page 314 steps #6-7 rewrite:
6. Using the selection tool, select the main_btn symbol on the Stage, then select frame 5 on the Timeline.
7. In the Property Inspector, just below the Button drop-down menu, click in the text field that says <Instance Name> and rename the button instance main_btn. Enter the X and Y coordinate numbers you noted in step #5. This is an easy way to match the positions of two items that exist at different points along the Timeline.
Pager 328 step #4 rewrite:
4. With the first line of the new function selected, click Add a new item to the script button (+), then select flash.net > Methods > ... Add the words in bold to the existing text.
Chapter 12 - Adding Sound to Your Movies
Page 341 #1 - If you cannot edit the Previous button directly on the stage by double clicking it, right click the button and select Edit in Place from the menu.
Page 347-349 #3-8 - The Edit Envelope functionality does not always work well. I would recommend using a free program like Audacity to edit the actual sound file. I have edited a copy of the file for you to use instead of the supplied BackgroundMusic.mp3. Right click the link BackgroundMusicut.mp3 and select Save File As or Save Target As.
Page 363 #4 - Don't drag the wheels too high because the landing gear will appear to come through the wings in the final animation. Check the done file for this exercise to see an example.
Chapter 13 - Introducing Movie Clips
No notes for this chapter.
Chapter 14 - Working with Video
No notes for this chapter.
Lesson 15 - Delivering Your Final Movie
No notes for this chapter.
Additional tutorials
You may be interested in learning more about Flash. Here are some tutorials to get you started.
http://www.vineyardesigns.com/tutorials/flash/photo-gallery.shtml
http://www.techtut.com/Tutorial/Flash/18-Creating-a-Flash-Photo-Slideshow-Tutorial.html
http://www.tutorial5.com/content/view/128/46/
http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/web-adventure/very-basic-steps-to-create-flash-photo-slideshow-22626
http://schoolofflash.com/category/flash-tutorial/page/4/
©2008 - Contra Costa County Office of Education -
Regional Occupational
Program - Call 925-942-3436 to enroll
