[ Poll ] Noob flash FAQ - Learn how to make your own multimedia

This topic is...

Helpful, but reall unorganized. you need a table of contents or something		31.2%	[ 29 ]
Helpful, and forces you to read the entire thing, which is also helpful, since it makes the readers learn		41.9%	[ 39 ]
Unhelpful.		26.9%	[ 25 ]

Total Votes: 93

[[Q]]

GO HERE TO THE NEW THREAD INSTEAD!
]http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13557981



Last edited May 7, 2006


New short url for fast linking! -> http://xrl.us/flashfaq

Short FAQ about Flash.
READ ALL THE WAY THROUGH BEFORE YOU GO "omg I totally can't do anything!" Links are there FOR A REASON. If a link is there, you probably need to CLICK IT.


Image-intensive, step-by-step guides on how to do some of these are on Page Two!


Where do I get Flash?

you can get the 30 day trial from macromedia.com. What you want is Flash Pro 8, which can be found here.

Yes, you need to register for a link to the demo. It's free, and if you don't register, you can't download it.

Once it's downloaded, while you're installing, it will say something like "Which version do you want to install?
Flash Basic 8
Flash Professional 8"

You want professional. DO NOT INSTALL BASIC.


ZOMG! I have no idea how to use this thing!! crying
There are several guides/tutorials on Newgrounds. READ THEM.


How do I make a loadbar?

Download Newgrounds' Loadbar .fla(fla's are flash's project files) and mess with it.
Link
When you open up the fla, double click on the newgrounds logo in the first frame; that should take you to another canvas-type area with more layers. ONLY EDIT "NewGroundsTankLogo" to customize your picture or have none at all, OR "Loading_TEXT" layer(s). Why? Because if you edit anything else, you're likely to screw up the whole loadbar and it won't work.
Just click "Scene 1" to get out of that little loadbar canvas area and you can continue with whatever you're making.



How do I import a video into Flash?
Well there's two ways. The first way is just upload whatever your video is to http://youtube.com and it'll do everything for you, plus give you a code(AND it has a play button; very nice).
Tutorial on putting youtube videos in your profile

Or, if your so intent on doing it yourself, go to File -> Import -> Video.
then chose your video. Make sure you chose the option that sounds something like "Embed in the timeline". If an error comes up about not being Flash 8, you need to change your publish settings. I'll show you how to do that later.
Then, pick your quality for everything, and wait a day and a half for it to encode(oh dear god it takes forever). Then it should show up in your timeline. Edit it if you need/want to, then export it!

I got an error about not having Flash 8 when importing video but I DO HAVE FLASH 8!
This confused me for a while, too.
File -> Publish -> Publish Settings.
Now, I'm not on a computer with flash right now, so this is the part where you have to listen to me carefully.

You're on a tab right now with lots of drop down menus. There's only one other tab at the top. Click that. Right under the tab-y part, before all the jpeg quality settings and such, there's a dropdown that says something like "Flash [#]". Make sure it's at "Flash 8". (only matters if you're embedding video, really)
Click "Ok". Try to import your video again. All should work.

How to I make music work in Flash?

1. Always making a fsking loadbar first.
2. go to File -> Import -> To library and click your music file(s). When it's down importing, go the the frame you want to make the music start at, and make it a keyframe(right click -> new keyframe).
Then, open up the properties tab near the bottom of the flash screen.
There should be something that says "Audio:" and then a dropdown toward the right. Pick your music file in the dropdown menu.
Then there's another dropdown that says either "Event" or "stream" then some stuff about looping.

If you're making a music video, make sure it's on "Stream". This makes your music part of the timeline.
If you just want music to play for your profile, make the music "Event". Then the music will play whenever you hit that keyframe, so in theory, you only have to have three frames in your video(2 for the loadbar, 1 for the music).
"Loop" is how many times the song loops over. Zero is forever. 1 means it plays once(not that it loops once).
If you make your music an event, follow these instructions:
Click the frame the music starts in. Open up the "actions" tab(above the properties tab). Type in:
stop();
Test your video.
This makes sure that your video STOPS at that frame, and your video won't keep repeating and so doing a row your boat routine with the song looping over itself(that's bad).

How do I make music in my profile WITHOUT downloading flash [trial]? - AKA How do I convert music to a .swf file
Guide.

How do I make a cool music player with a music on/off button
Pay me 1k wink

No, I kid. go here.
Or google "Flash music on/off button".

How do I make an mp3 player type thing that has next and back buttons to play more than one track?

Smart little b*****d, aren't you?
This is the only decent tuorial I could find.

How do I make an mp3 player with a playlist(Xspf Player)? sweatdrop
There's this nifty player that SourceForge(Yes, the same people behind VirtualDub ;P) hosts that you can customize. It took me three hours to figure out how it works, and I'm still having some problems(my images won't show up), but for the most part I've got it running smoothly.

All I can suggest to you is to read the help page multiple times and try to do it yourself. As well as get lots of file storage, for the songs. Try to do it yourself.
[Edit - See Page 2 for a step by step guide on this]
But I don't want to do it by myself!
Well, there's this nice site called webjay.org and a guide to help you with that site here.

I know some flash and I know what actionscript is. How do I do [insert thing here] with actionscript?
I can safely say that VERY FEW people in this forum can help you.
There are many actionscript tutorials on actionscript.org, and they also have forums where you can ask any question about actionscript. The forums look dead but I got my question answered in the same day, and damnit, they know their stuff.

Where can I host my flash so I can put it in my profile?

http://imageshack.us hosts files 1.2mb and under; you don't have to sign up.

http://myfilehut.com hosts files up to 50mb in size, has a total of 150mb of storage. 1gb of bandwidth per month. All free. Must sign up.

http://ripway.com - 30mb free space, 15mb hourly bandwidth, 10mb file limit per file. Must sign up.

http://filelodge.com/index.php?pg=p16 - Up to 500mb free, no bandwidth limitations. [I couldn't register]

http://fsphost.com - 250mb free, unlimited bandwidth, 20mb individual file limit, ftp upload doesn't seem to work, but browser upload is okay.

[Charley Foxtrott]

Thank you [Q], I was beginning to be rather annoyed with all the flash help topics... and I wasn't even trying to answer any of them.

[[Q]]

Hope bumping this doesn't violate anything; I just didn't subscribe because I'm lazy and don't want to search past the second page to find this thing. XD

[Sherboy]

This is nice for people asking quesitons about flash, maybe people would read a faq before actually asking questions first.

[[Q]]

bump frm page 4..ish. 0o

[[Q]]

domokun

[WaruiKoohii]

Doesn't violate anything since you aren't bumping every minute.

Good tutorial, by the way.

[[Q]]

Thanks.
I just wish uavg would come back already. Damn Gaia pagination. :/

[[Q]]

rawr

[Joda01]

*scratches [ Q ] behind the ears to see him wag his tail*

[[Q]]

http://img33.echo.cx/img33/884/qtailwag1yk.gif

[[Q]]

Off the first page again.

I really should subscribe to this.

[[Q]]

I'mg going to try to get a second page and make a second "image guide" on that page.

[[Q]]

[read above]