Flash Tutorial Videos

Introduction to Building Games with Flash Preview

In this chapter, you will learn how to use Flash to create your custom characters. Learn to use the line tool and the fill tool to easily design the Control and Hostile ships for this side scrolling game.

Text Flash

Create a catchy animation with text. This tutorial with teach you how to add a great effect using the glow filter within Flash 8.

Glowing Text

In this tutorial, you will learn how to create a professional effect using very simple commands. Learn to create this effect using key-frames instead of action script. You will also learn how to break apart text so that we can edit and add effects.

"Integrating Flash with XML" Preview

In this video, Craig will demonstrate how to add code to the 'next' and 'previous' buttons in order to cycle through the songs in your XML playlist. He also shows you how to automatically start playing the next song when the first song is finished playing.

Custom Cursor

Create a custom cursor with your own image by simply using action script. This is popular flash effect and adds a level of interactive fun that will WOW your users.

Shining Text

In this tutorial, you will learn how to create a looping text mask effect. This mask gives the effect of shining metal and is a great improvement to any banner or important text.

Lightning Effect

This is a great way to add some flavor to old photos or animations. A lot of Flash designers use this effect in many different ways and after this tutorial you will have a better understanding of how the Glow effect works.

Adding Gravity

In this tutorial, we will discuss an effect that is overlooked a lot of the time, its called the ease effect. If you want your animation to stand out and have a better look and feel than the ease effect will help.

Digital Clock

Add a sleek element to your site and give your users a real time digital clock to keep time. Design the clock using action script and import into your site as an .swf.

Propellor Effect

Creating a spinning animation is very simple in Actionscript, taking only a few lines of code. So since it is so simple, we will take this tutorial one step further and show you how you can allow your users to control the spin and the direction of the spin using their arrow keys.

Dynamic Lines

In this tutorial, you will learn how to create two draggable circles that will always remain connected via a dynamic line that you will create in Actionscript. No matter where you move the circles, they will always be connected by the line.

Bungee Ball

In this tutorial, you will learn how to create a circle that the user can drag around the stage. But when the user releases his mouse, the circle will snap back to the center of the stage as though it were tied to a bungee cord.

New Year Fireworks

In this special New Year tutorial, you will learn how to play with fireworks without setting any grassfires, and you will do so by learning how to create a fireworks show from scratch in Flash Professional 8.

Falling Flakes

Once you've drawn your snowflake in Flash, this video will teach you how to animate multiple instances of your snowflakes falling before your eyes. This tutorial uses the Math.random method in order to give your snowfall a more natural feel.

Gradient Mask Reflections

A gradient mask is a great way to make a reflection effect. However, there arises a problem when you try to make a gradient mask visually in Flash. Flash treats the gradient like it was just a solid fill. But don't worry! There's a way to overcome this if you apply the mask using actionscript, and in this video, you'll learn how.

Fixing Unruly Shape Tweens

Sometimes complex shape tweens can get a little rambunctious, even when we add all the shape hints we can think to add. In fact, sometimes the shape hints only serve to make things worse. In today's tutorial, you'll learn a quick cheat that might fix some of the less desirable shape tween effects that might pop up.

Cursor Replacement And Blending Modes

You're going to need Flash Professional 8 for this tutorial. In this video, you'll learn how to use Flash 8's blending modes to create a circle that follows the cursor around on the stage, inverting the colors of the image in the layer below the circle.

Rotating Globe Effect

Unfortunately, Flash doesn't have any functionality for creating true 3D animations by itself, but if you know a few tricks, sometimes you can fake it. In this tutorial, you'll learn how to create a somewhat 3D-esque rotating globe effect in Flash.

Animating Filters In Flash Pro 8

You can motion tween a lot of things in Flash--position, transparency, color, etc--but did you know you could ALSO tween a filter in Flash Professional 8? In this video, Craig will show you how!

Creating A Bounce Animation With Actionscript

Creating a bouncing ball animation can be a little tedious if you do it visually in Flash. In today's video tutorial, Craig will show you how to create a bounce animation with only a few lines of ActionScript by calling on the Tween class and the Bounce class.

Creating & Animating Clouds

One of the most popular features of Flash Professional 8 is the new "Filters" feature, which lets you add blurs, drop shadows, glows, and other filters to your objects. In today's tip, you'll learn how to use the "blur" filter to create some very realistic clouds, and then you'll learn how to animate those clouds in Flash. Unfortunately, if you don't have Flash Professional 8, you'll just have to sit back and watch.

Continuous Animation

In this video, you'll learn how to set up a looping animation that doesn't seem like it's looping. It will look like a continuous stream flowing through a pipe.

Semitransparent Buttons

In today's beginner-level tutorial, you'll learn how to create a very simple, yet elegant, button symbol with a semitransparent background that loses its transparency on rollOver.

Typewriter Effect

Today's tip is a simple, though somewhat tedious effect, that allows us to create a typewriter animation where the user can see the text being typed onto the stage. The animation will be synced up with a sound file.

Animating Lines

In today's tutorial, you'll learn how to animate a series of lines to make it look like they're drawing themselves onto the stage. This is done using a simple mask.

Symbol Instances

I was asked recently about how to alter the label on one instance of a button without having the labels of the others instances of the same button change along with it. In this video, you'll learn an important distinction between the way symbols work and the way symbol instances work.

Rotating Sunburst Effect

In this basic tutorial, you will learn how to highlight your logo by putting a rotating sunburst effect behind it. You'll also learn an important lesson about reusing graphic elements whenever possible.

Text Swipe Effect

In today's tutorial, you'll learn how to create an animated text swipe effect, where the text is quickly and smoothly revealed from left to right. Text effects like this can be a little tedious to achieve, but the end result is usually well worth the effort.

Creating A Gyroscope Animation

Creating a spinning ring is as easy as flipping it over and tweening it. In this video, you'll learn how to create a gyroscope effect using multiple instances of this simple technique.

Countdown Timer

In this tutorial, you'll learn how to create a timer in Flash that will count down the time to a given date in days, hours, minutes, and seconds. This is a great tool for counting down to holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, etc.

Intro To Flash 8 Preview

Our new "Introduction to Flash 8" video series will be released soon, and in this excerpt from the series, you'll learn all about using and customizing panels and panel sets in Flash.

Intro To Flash 8 Preview

Today's tip is an excerpt from our brand new "Introduction to Flash 8" video series, and in this clip, you will learn all about how to create shape tween animations where one shape morphs into another shape.

Text Gradient Fills

Unfortunately, applying a gradient fill to text in Flash isn't as easy as selecting the text field and then choosing a linear gradient from the Color Mixer panel. So in this video, you will learn two different methods to achieve this effect.

Problems With Rotating Animations

Creating an animation of an object rotating is very easy to do, whether you do it with tweens or in Actionscript. Unfortunately, sometimes the rotations don't occur exactly how you would want them to, because by default, the anchor for the rotation is the center point of the object being rotated. In this tutorial, you will learn how to change that anchor point for both tweened animations and Actionscript animations.

Illustration Optimization

Many artists prefer using hand-drawn illustration techniques for their Flash graphics, but there's often a big hit on your file size when using these types of illustrations. In this tutorial, you'll learn why this is the case, and you'll also learn a couple of techniques for optimizing those illustrations in order to reduce file size.

Creating And Animating Clouds

One of the most popular features of Flash Professional 8 is the new "Filters" feature, which lets you add blurs, drop shadows, glows, and other filters to your objects. In today's tip, you'll learn how to use the "blur" filter to create some very realistic clouds, and then you'll learn how to animate those clouds in Flash. Unfortunately, if you don't have Flash Professional 8, you'll just have to sit back and watch.

Javascript Popup Windows

Unfortunately, there's no way to create a customizable popup window using only Flash. But the good news is that with a little help from JavaScript, you can create popup windows with no scrollbars, no toolbars, no menubars, and you can even specify the size of the popup window. In this tutorial, you'll learn how to do just that.

Conditionals And Toggle Switches

A conditional is a way of executing a piece of code only if the circumstances are right. In this tutorial, you will learn how to use the if() statement to control a toggle switch in Flash.

Common Mistakes with Actions and Buttons

There are two ways to add actions to a button in Flash. You can add the actions to the button itself or you can refer to the button when adding actions to a frame. Unfortunately, the actions you add will be a little different depending on which method you choose. Because of this difference, the ActionScript involved can be a little confusing to beginners. In this video, we'll clear up all the confusion and fix some common mistakes that are made in the process.

ComboBox Interactivity

In Flash, the ComboBox component is basically nothing more than your basic dropdown list that you see in forms on the Internet. In this video, you'll learn how to use this component to communicate with another movie clip on the stage.

Animation Setup

Animation can be a tricky process if you've never done it before, but Flash makes it possible to reuse pieces of your animation so you don't have to continually redraw everything. In this tutorial, you'll learn some basics for drawing and preparing your drawings for animation in Flash.

Basic Preloader

This tutorial is an excerpt for an upcoming training series, to be released by LearnFlash.com on March 31. In this excerpt, you'll learn how to create a simple preloader for your Flash website.

Simple Page Transitions

This tutorial is an excerpt for an upcoming training series, to be released by LearnFlash.com on March 31. In this excerpt, you'll learn how to create simple animated transitions for your Flash website.

Loading Pictures Dynamically

The loader component in Flash is a very handy tool for loading external images into your Flash file. In this video, you'll learn the fundamentals behind creating a photo gallery, using the loader component to load pictures one at a time.

Digital Clock

It's always helpful to know what time it is, and in today's video tip, you'll learn how to pass this information on to the users of your website. In this tutorial, you'll discover how to use dynamic text fields and Actionscript to create your own digital clock for your Flash website.

Disabling Buttons

If you're on the homepage of your website, obviously it won't do the user much good to click on the "home" button of your menu. In this video, you'll learn how to disable a button when you're on the page that the button is designed to take you to.

Random Jumping

Predictability is way overrated. Web users all over the world expect a button to stand still when they click on it. So why not take a little of that predictability away from them? In this video, you'll learn how to generate random numbers in Flash and then use those numbers to create an elusive button or graphic that jumps to a random position on the stage every time your user hovers his mouse cursor over it.

Magic Cursor

If you want to learn to make your Flash websites truly interactive, then it's very important that you understand how to alter the properties of your objects dynamically. In this video, LearnFlash.com trainer Craig Campbell will show you how to alter the "alpha" property, or the transparency, of an object in Actionscript so that the object fades in and out as you move your mouse cursor left and right across the stage.

Button Basics

Creating buttons in Flash may seem fairly straightforward--and it is--but there are a few things that many Flash novices don't realize about making their buttons interactive. For instance, did you know that there are two places where you can add your actionscript for your button? Watch this video to find out more.

Creating Movie Clip Buttons

In this tutorial, you'll learn how to create animated buttons by storing your button as a movie clip symbol instead of a button symbol. Movie clip symbols will give you much more flexibility.

Animating with ActionScript

In this tutorial, you'll learn how to create a simple animation using ActionScript instead of motion tweens.

Falling Text Effect

In this video, you'll learn how to create a really sharp animation effect by animating the letters of a block of text onto the stage separately.

Smoke Effect

Learn how to create a really cool smoke effect using Flash Professional 8's new filters!

Flashing Face Effect

In this tutorial, you'll learn how to highlight a picture on the stage by causing it to flash a couple times.