Workshop
The Workshop consists of quiz questions and answers to help you solidify your understanding of the material covered in this hour. You should try to answer the questions before checking the answers.
Quiz
| 1: | How many frames can you use inside a Graphic symbol? How many inside a Movie Clip symbol?
You can use one frame for a Graphic symbol and as many as you want for a Movie Clip symbol. You can use as many as you want for either. It doesn't matter how many frames you use in the master symbol; it only matters whether the instance behaves like a graphic, which can have one frame, or a movie clip, which can have as many frames as you want.
| | 2: | What happens if you name two symbols in the Library the same? What about naming two movie clip instances the same?
You can't name two symbols the same unless you separate them by using Library folders, but there's no problem naming two instances the same. You can name two symbols or two instances the same, but it's a bad idea because Flash might lose one.
| | 3: | Although movie clips are recommended over graphics, when should you use Graphic symbols?
You should always avoid them always. Graphic symbols enable you to synchronize Graphics to the Timeline and sometimes even make the file play faster. Graphic symbols are easier on the eyes because they're antialiased.
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Quiz Answers| A1:
| B. You can use as many frames as you want in the creation of movie clips or graphics. Depending on where you use graphics, though, you might need to concern yourself with the number of frames the instances are given to live. | | A2:
| B. Although there's no problem naming multiple instances the same, it might become a problem when you try addressing just one, such as when George Foreman addresses one of his many sons named George, Jr. But there's certainly no rule against it. | | A3:
| B. Some people actually agree with Answer A (graphic instances should be avoided), but for truly varied applications, using movie clips to simulate Graphic symbols can be problematic. Plus, who cares how big the file becomes if you're not delivering it to the Web? Finally, if something saves you a ton of time in production, it could be worth the cost of slightly larger file sizes—especially if the cost doesn't turn out to be terribly significant. |
Exercises
In the first edition of this book, the following exercises produced a fair number of frustrated readers emailing me (which, by the way, you should feel free to do). They're tricky exercises but worth going through. To make things a bit easier, I've uploaded source files for both of these (and many others) to www.phillipkerman.com/teachyourself/sourcefiles.
Despite all the negative talk about Graphic symbols, this activity practically requires them. Create an animation of a steam engine train. First, make a Graphic symbol of just the stack. Then go inside the stack symbol to animate the smoke stack, possibly by using a shape that starts out as a rectangle. Use shape tweens to Frame 5, where the stack is bulging, Frame 6 where it's extra tall and expels smoke, and Frames 7 through 10, where it's normal again. Use the stack symbol in the creation of the train itself. (Be sure to give the train exactly the same number of frames as the stack.) Bring the train into the main Timeline and motion tween it across the screen. By scrubbing, you'll be able to judge where the clouds of smoke appear. In another layer, add symbol instances of clouds, which will appear and stay in the same location as they motion tween to 0% alpha. Try this by using Graphic symbols for everything. Create an animation of a Ferris wheel. First, make the passenger car a movie clip so that you can animate it. Make a Graphic symbol called One Rotation and inside it create circular motion guide to motion tween the passenger car one full rotation in about 28 frames. Now place 10 instances of One Rotation inside a 36-frame movie clip named Ferris Wheel. For each instance of One Rotation, access the Properties panel and specify the first frame for each. Start one on Frame 1, the next on Frame 4, the third on Frame 7, and so on. In the end, you'll have 10 cars rotating in the same manner but starti
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