February 1, 2000

Painting with Flash 4 is extremely easy. The first thing you need to do is decide on an image that you want to use to paint with. I picked the sunset you see below. But before we start painting we need to set up our work area.

1. Modify Menu>Movie
   1. fps = 8
   2. Dimensions of the movie were set to the size of my image
   3. Background color was set to the background color of my image
2. File Menu>Publish Settings>Format Tab
   1. Check off Flash and HTML
   2. HTML Tab - turn off looping
3. File Menu>Save As... - save the movie as whatever you like.
4. File Menu>Publish - publish the movie so you get your html document
5. File Menu>Publish Settings>Format Tab - turn off HTML
6. File Menu>Save

Now we're ready to get started with our movie.

1. File Menu>Import - import your image
2. On the Object palette I set the x and y positioning to 0.0
3. Right click on the name of Layer 1 and change the name so you know what is where after you get going with your movie (naming layers makes it easier for you to find things when/if you have to make changes)

1. Modify Menu>Break Apart (your image should look all mucked up like the one below

2. Select the eyedropper tool and click anywhere on the image

3. Hit the delete key (you should now have a blank canvas again

For my movie I needed images of paint brushes so I imported them also. As I imported them I converted them to symbols.

1. Insert Menu>Convert to Symbol - name the new symbol and set it's properties as a graphic

2. From the Window Menu>Library - will open the library you see below that shows all the components included in my movie so far. From here you will drag and drop the elements into your movie

Once I have my components in the library I create a new layer that I will put my paint brush symbols on. It's not always necessary to convert your images to symbols. I do it out of habit because I always ended up in the middle of my movie having to create symbols of some images that I want to do certain things with and I can't because I didn't convert them to symbols in the beginning.

To create a new layer, click on the plus sign. I name the new layer "BrushLayer" so all I have to do is take a quick look to see where they are if I have to change something.

Now we are going to start painting. Since I will be painting my background on, I:

1. Select the Background Image layer

2. On the tool palette I select the paint brush, the use pressure tool, the shape and size of my brush -if you don't have a graphics tablet the use pressure tool will not work but you can still achieve terrific results with your mouse

Making sure I am on the correct layer and that I have frame 1 selected, I then paint a line across my movie canvas.

And then select my BrushLayer and drag one of my paint brushes onto the movie canvas. I place it where I started to paint my line making sure that it is inside the bounds of the movie canvas. I counted over 5 key frames (you can use as many or few as you want to get the exact effect you want) and

1. Right click on the frame>insert key frame

2. I then moved the paint brush symbol to the opposite side of the canvas where I ended my brush stroke.

3. Right click on frame 1 of the BrushLayer > create motion tween

4. Click on frame 1 of the Background Image layer - it will then appear highlighted

5. Drag the dot from frame 1 to frame 5 of the same layer

Now if you select frame one of the Background Image layer you won't see the line you painted because we just moved it to frame 5. However, you should see your paint brush where you began your line. Making sure you are on frame 1 of the Background Image layer, put a small dot with the paint brush tool right on the tip of the paint brush.

1. Right click on frame 1 of the Background Image layer>Properties>Tweening Tab and make the settings the same as below and click ok.

My paint brush symbols can all stay on the same layer, but the brush strokes I am creating each need to be on their own layer.

On the Background Image layer, select the frame after the last key frame and then add a new layer by clicking on the plus sign. On the new layer create a key frame where the red line is on the timeline. Your brush layer should be just above that and you need to insert a key frame in the same frame as the new layer below it. In my example that would be frame six.

Once you have the key frame inserted into the Brush Layer hit your delete button to remove the current paint brush symbol selection from that frame.

On the new layer, I painted another line in key frame six starting at the opposite side of the first one. I then added my paint brush symbol so that it ran in the same direction as the brush stroke in the same way I did for layer one. From here on out it's a matter of creating a new layer for each brush stroke and a new instance of the paint brush symbol on the time line.

Continue creating layers and brush strokes until the whole movie canvas is full. To fill the canvas took 29 brush strokes each on it's own layer.

On the brush layer each frame that is gray with a dot is the end of a motion tween. You can see below how the brush strokes and the paint brush symbols tweens matched up.

When I finished that up I add the fading text you saw if you watched the finished version of the movie linked at the beginning of this page.

As you see, painting with Flash 4 is extremely easy and opens up all kinds of movie possibilities.

Have fun painting with Flash 4.

Copyright 2000, Vikki Olds, All Rights Reserved