Ecard Project - Finishing the Element List

In this tutorial, we will finish drawing the other elements needed for our Flash^R envelope animation. So far we have used the Object Drawing mode to draw the front of our envelope and the Merge Drawing mode to draw and cut out the back of the envelope. However, we still need two more elements.

As you can see from our elements list, we have created EnvFront1 and EnvBack2. Now we will get a little more practice with the Object Drawing mode and Flash filters as we draw the other EnvFlap and EnvBack elements. We will animate the EnvFlap movie clip when it's time to "open the envelope" (see first image in bottom row of storyboard). We will join the EnvBack to other movie clips during parts of the animation. Open your fla file into Flash CS4.

As of now, we have only the EnvFront1 (Env_Front1) and EnvBack2 (Env_Back2) movie clips in the Flash Library.

Click on the PolyStar tool and toggle the Object Drawing mode on. In the Properties Inspector, click on the Options button to open the Tools Settings dialog box. Set the Number of Sides to 3 for our triangle. Set the Fill to the color of your envelope (e4dec6) and the Stroke to null. Now, draw the envelope flap on the stage, making sure that the long edge of the flap is parallel with the top of the stage. In the Properties Inspector, set the Width to 200 and the Height to 75. To be sure you are in the Object Drawing mode, there should be a blue bounding box around the triangle.
Convert the triangle to a symbol named "EnvFlap". In the Library, click on the EnvFlap icon to open the movie clip in edit mode.
Rename Layer 1 to "Filter". Right-click on the envelope and convert it to a movie clip named "Env_Flap". Apply our Env Inner Glow preset filter. Click on the Scene 1 link to go back to the main Timeline.
We should now have our EnvFlap movie clip in the Library, so delete the instance from the stage.

The final element that we need to draw is a plain rectangle the same size as the EnvFront1 but without the stamp. We will be grouping this element together with others to create #2 EnvBack1 and #5 EnvFront2.
Click on the Rectangle tool and draw a rectangle 200 wide and 150 high. Convert this shape to a symbol and name it "EnvBack".
In the Library, click on the EnvBack icon to open it in edit mode. Rename Layer 1 to "Filter". Right-click on the envelope and convert to symbol. Name the movie clip "Env_Back". Apply our preset filter to this movie clip and return to the main Timeline. Delete the envelope from the stage.
Save your fla file.

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	Diane Cipollo BellaOnline's Flash and Animation Editor