Macromedia Flash 8 - Introducing Layers Video

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Macromedia Flash 8 - Introducing Layers

Okay, we have just got one more thing to look at before we start making stuff. And I want it to take a look at our layers section here at the top. This is going to be a very important section because our flash movies are going to have a lot of stuff in them. We are going to have a lot of graphics, we are going to have text, we are going to have background elements, we need to have someway of organizing all that stuff and our layer menu is our primary place for being able to set this up and to figure out where all these different pieces are going to be. So, let us take a look at that now. Just so we have something to look at, let us open up a file with a bunch of layers already in it, and we can play around with those. I will go up to file open, and we should have a file in our Lesson 2 folder once again call The Garden. Now, let me just adjust my layers here a little bit. You can see, we have got a whole bunch of layers and if I give myself a little bit more space from my screen, I will do a fit in window and we can see our nice pretty flowers on grass pictures. My layers are dividing up all these content and that is going to be really helpful for me to be able to organize things, find them, what I want to make a change, just to be able to access all these pieces. Now, you can image a real big flash movie having a lot more layers, and actually layers are something that we use a lot of. So, managing them is very important. The first things we can do to take a look at these layers is I have got some controls in here that not only setup what the layers are, but you can see with the eyeball in the left column, I have go some areas where I can control what the layers are going to be doing. If I just go into the eyeball column, you will notice that little dot there. I can pick out a layer like for instance flower 2, click on it and I am basically going to hide that layer from view. Now that layer is still there, of course, but it is out of the way so I can work on some other elements. I can selectively hide any individual layer like both the flowers and be able to get rid of them and pull them back, okay, no problems. The eyeball at the top actually acts as control itself. I can show and hide all layers as the tool tip says, just by clicking right on the eyeball so I can toggle the entire column of whatever layers I am working on, on or off at that point. And that is going to be really helpful because you can even click through this ones and you can see obviously the grasses and the grass layer, the leaves -- my two leaves at the base of the flower. I have got flower stems there, the clouds and the sky, and even the sky itself okay. When you get rid of the sky, you will notice I have that plain white background that we had before in our new untitled document that we are working with. So, we have got our layers dividing things up. The other thing in our layers are going to do for us very importantly is control on what is on top of what on the screen, our stacking order. You can see very clearly that the flower is on top of the clouds, just like they should be, and they are behind the grass. My stems go up behind the flowers and that is all controlled by where they are in the stack of layers on my timeline window. If I just pick a couple of things out. For instance, the stem is behind the flowers, you can see down here it is underneath the flower. So, that is great way of thinking about it. Whenever is the furthest back or the furthest down the stack is going to be the bottom. So, my sky is behind everything else. Now, just to change the stacking order is really simple. I can just grab a layer. Generally, it is best to grab it by the icon and I can pull it forward. Let us try this. I will pull the clouds up in front of the flowers. Okay, you can see my clouds on top of the flowers and my clouds on top of the flowers. So, that is going to be our real easy way of being able to control where our layer elements are going to go and how their going to be assembled to form our final image for our users. Now one other thing, you probably notice I am bouncing around from layer to layer is the selection. As I click on the layer, this little pencil icon follows me around. I can see a little highlighting of the layer and I got that pencil now. That is indicating to me what is my currently active layer. This is great in a couple of ways. First of all, I can use layers for basic selection in the program. As I click on the layer, for instance the cloud layer again, you can see the pencil icon floats there, and you can see that my clouds are selected. Now, that is really handy because a lot of times, I will create a layer just to gang up a few items and make that so that I can select them with one click. The stems, I grab it and I get both stems because they are both from the same layer, same thing with the leaves down here. Now, this also is going to work in reverse for us as well. If I just use my normal selection tool which I happen to have here, click away from everything. If I just click on something like the cloud layers -- now, when we point out, current active layer is the leaves layer, but if I click on the clouds, you can see it not only selected the clouds but it moved my active layer down here. Now, that is going to be very important when we start drawing things, we are not drawing in this lesson right now. Everything is already drawn for us, but if you start drawing or adding items, the active layer is the layer where all that your items are going to go.

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Okay, we have just got one more thing to look at before we start making stuff. And I want it to take a look at our layers section here at the top.

This is going to be a very important section because our flash movies are going to have a lot of stuff in them. We are going to have a lot of graphics, we are going to have text, we are going to have background elements, we need to have someway of organizing all that stuff and our layer menu is our primary place for being able to set this up and to figure out where all these different pieces are going to be.

So, let us take a look at that now.

Just so we have something to look at, let us open up a file with a bunch of layers already in it, and we can play around with those. I will go up to file open, and we should have a file in our Lesson 2 folder once again call The Garden.

Now, let me just adjust my layers here a little bit. You can see, we have got a whole bunch of layers and if I give myself a little bit more space from my screen, I will do a fit in window and we can see our nice pretty flowers on grass pictures.

My layers are dividing up all these content and that is going to be really helpful for me to be able to organize things, find them, what I want to make a change, just to be able to access all these pieces.

Now, you can image a real big flash movie having a lot more layers, and actually layers are something that we use a lot of. So, managing them is very important.

The first things we can do to take a look at these layers is I have got some controls in here that not only setup what the layers are, but you can see with the eyeball in the left column, I have go some areas where I can control what the layers are going to be doing.

If I just go into the eyeball column, you will notice that little dot there. I can pick out a layer like for instance flower 2, click on it and I am basically going to hide that layer from view. Now that layer is still there, of course, but it is out of the way so I can work on some other elements.

I can selectively hide any individual layer like both the flowers and be able to get rid of them and pull them back, okay, no problems.

The eyeball at the top actually acts as control itself. I can show and hide all layers as the tool tip says, just by clicking right on the eyeball so I can toggle the entire column of whatever layers I am working on, on or off at that point.

And that is going to be really helpful because you can even click through this ones and you can see obviously the grasses and the grass layer, the leaves -- my two leaves at the base of the flower. I have got flower stems there, the clouds and the sky, and even the sky itself okay.

When you get rid of the sky, you will notice I have that plain white background that we had before in our new untitled document that we are working with.

So, we have got our layers dividing things up. The other thing in our layers are going to do for us very importantly is control on what is on top of what on the screen, our stacking order. You can see very clearly that the flower is on top of the clouds, just like they should be, and they are behind the grass. My stems go up behind the flowers and that is all controlled by where they are in the stack of layers on my timeline window.

If I just pick a couple of things out. For instance, the stem is behind the flowers, you can see down here it is underneath the flower. So, that is great way of thinking about it. Whenever is the furthest back or the furthest down the stack is going to be the bottom. So, my sky is behind everything else.

Now, just to change the stacking order is really simple. I can just grab a layer. Generally, it is best to grab it by the icon and I can pull it forward. Let us try this. I will pull the clouds up in front of the flowers. Okay, you can see my clouds on top of the flowers and my clouds on top of the flowers. So, that is going to be our real easy way of being able to control where our layer elements are going to go and how their going to be assembled to form our final image for our users.

Now one other thing, you probably notice I am bouncing around from layer to layer is the selection. As I click on the layer, this little pencil icon follows me around. I can see a little highlighting of the layer and I got that pencil now. That is indicating to me what is my currently active layer.

This is great in a couple of ways. First of all, I can use layers for basic selection in the program. As I click on the layer, for instance the cloud layer again, you can see the pencil icon floats there, and you can see that my clouds are selected.

Now, that is really handy because a lot of times, I will create a layer just to gang up a few items and make that so that I can select them with one click. The stems, I grab it and I get both stems because they are both from the same layer, same thing with the leaves down here.

Now, this also is going to work in reverse for us as well. If I just use my normal selection tool which I happen to have here, click away from everything. If I just click on something like the cloud layers -- now, when we point out, current active layer is the leaves layer, but if I click on the clouds, you can see it not only selected the clouds but it moved my active layer down here.

Now, that is going to be very important when we start drawing things, we are not drawing in this lesson right now. Everything is already drawn for us, but if you start drawing or adding items, the active layer is the layer where all that your items are going to go.

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