Para hacer etiquetas (labels) o comentarios (comments) dentro de una Fotograma (Frame) en Flash:

1. Ir a la pestaña o ventana de Propiedades.
2. Escribir un texto donde dice “Fotograma”.
3. Seleccionar que tipo de etiqueta será.

Hay 3 tipos de etiqueta:

• Nombre: Identifican a fotogramas clave en la Línea de Tiempo y se usan en vez del número de fotograma (que puede variar al crecer la animación) para indicar un fotograma de destino en “Acciones”.
• Comentario: Observaciones para uno mismo o para otras personas que trabajan en el mismo documento.
• Anclaje: Simplifican la navegación. Permiten usar los botones para avanzar y retroceder del navegador, para saltar de un fotograma a otro, o de una escena a otra.

En este link vienen otros aspectos generales del Flash

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Ok. Here goes a small tutorial… I made a video of the process, then upload it to YouTube, and it got a little blury, anyway you may watch it here and I’ll describe the steps below (BTW all this happens on Windows XP):

You will need the latest WinZip version:
http://www.winzip.com/downwz.htm

And the latest Flash Player version:
http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/

The steps to unzip and run:

1. Right-click the *.zip file and select “Extract to here”
2. A new folder will be created with the zip’s file name and folder stucture.
3. Open that new folder and find the SWF file.
4. Right-click the *.swf file find the “Open with” menu
5. Click on “Choose program” and scroll-down to “Macromedia Flash Player 8” (or higher version).
6. File should open.

You may also choose Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) instead of Macromedia Flash Player 8 for opening the file, which is usually the default option but it will probably take longer and send some security messages or errors, and maybe won’t open some linked elements in the SWF file.

I strongly recommend the Macromedia Flash Player option.

Flash has always been a tricky technology, its uneasy to approach since there are many ways to start a project and it usually involves 2 parts: the Technical part and the Creative part

Anyway, as I have stated before in this blog I have come across many styles in Flash development when patching or re-writing files for customers that were developed by other professionals, some of them very well done, so gathering all the styles that I have seen, the useful ones that is.

I’m writing this little guide so I can stick to my own standards if I get lost (I’m human, sometimes I do) in the developing process. This is NOT really a Tutorial on how to setup a Flash Presentation it’s just a CHEAT SHEET sort of a guide on the basic STEPS & STANDARDS to follow, from the structural and technical point of view, for a basic animation (non heavy Action Script). The Creative part is not a subject in this post.

BASIC STEPS & STANDARDS FOR A BASIC FLASH ANIMATION:

1. WRITE

Write down a small summary of what your customer wants, like a small story, no more than half a sheet. Note the keywords that important

2. STORYBOARD

Now, tell the story you just wrote in Flash Screens. Make a raw hand sketch of your presentation (I’m attaching a PDF file that I use for this purpose) or you can do this in Corel, FreeHand or Illustrator as well if you’re more comfortable with it, or even in MS Word. This is just to summarize even more and spot the main scenes that will integrate your presentation.

3. SCENES

According to your storyboard you may translate your sketches into flash scenes now. Try to keep a manageable number of scenes, it’s not like we’re doing a movie just yet. Less than 20 scenes is a good number for a single Flash file, you can do more, but it might become a hassle or a heavy file. You can make separate files and them join them together with actions.

4. LIBRARY

Generate all the blank library items you might need according to your storyboard. Make them all blank elements for now, you will populate them in a following step, for know just ID them: Kind (movie, button or graphic), Name, Classification, Order (a good standard is to compile them into folders corresponding to the scene name you will integrate into). A nice and healthy touch is to put a number before the name of the item in order to further correlate to its apparition order in the scene, this way you can set you layer names with numbers and make a standardized handling of your scenes not to mention a very speed population of the by coping all the standard layers to other scenes (pasting blank scenes or populated with standard elements as well).

5. LAYERS

Setup your layers. You may usually setup your layers classification by images, text and template. You can standardize even more by naming the folders like as basic layer groups: IMG (images), TXT (text), TPL (template), EF1, EF2 (effect1, effect2), try to avoid fancy names that only mean something to you, like “crying sophie blury buzz lightning effect”, mostly if you have to deliver the source file of your work, so if anyone comes across your file to add or modify something, they will know where to find stuff easily, and they will also know you are a good developer. I’m attaching a handy matrix a the end of this post.

6. POPULATION

Populate all your library items images, texts, movie clips that later will be integrated in the layer’s timeline.

7. INTEGRATION

Integrate your populated Library elements on the corresponding layers. Don’t worry too much about the timeline just yet, you may focus in adjustments in the following step.

8. ADJUSTEMENTS

Now make sure all your elements are running on the timeline as they should

9. MUSICALIZATION

Setup your loop or complete piece of music to run on your presentation according to your layer timeline. After musicalization is good moment to make a first presentation to your customer to see if they have any comments before spending more time in the next step.

10. POLISHING

Make sure music fits well with all the running elements and your customers comments are integrated as well. Everything can be improved over the time, but there is a time for letting things go, so don’t spend unnecessary time on a presentation that is working fine. Finish it, deliver it, write down your new ideas and use them in the next project. DO NOT waste time on “last moment” improvements that might surprise your customer, chances are you’ll be the surprised one, don’t risk it.

DOWNLOADS (PDF):

• The e-Miguel’s Basic Flash Storyboard
• The e-Miguel’s Basic Flash Matrix