This post is to illustrate a technique to create flash documents using transparency.
There is nothing particularly unique here: much of the work depends heavily on suggestions and help from Kralex_Designs, Emu, Durty Jay and Ahnton_Novo among others.
We hope to provide a compact discussion of proven techniques for future reference.
Our work is done using Flash Professional 8. This program has been ubiquitous for the last decade. Although it is now replaced by Adobe Animate, one can still find the Flash Professional program from vendors on Amazon.
First, create a new document. In this illustration, the size of the document is 512 x 512 pixels so that it is optimized for use in RLC.
Next, we will create the eraser for the program that will prevent ghost images from lingering on the screen. Insert a New Symbol of the type Movie Clip with the name eraser. ( When you create the symbol, you will notice that the display at the top adds “eraser” to “scene 1.” Take note of this for later.)
Now we will enter the code that acts as the eraser. Clicking the Actions tab opens the window to add the programming code. Cut and paste the following:
createTextField ("eraser", 0, 0, 0, 512, 512 );
eraser.background=true;
eraser.backgroundColor=0xabcdef;
We now have programmed the eraser.
Up top, click on Scene 1. The eraser movie will now close. Locate the eraser listing in the library list on the right hand side, left-click it and drag it to the upper left hand corner of the white window. It should be positioned at 0,0. If eyeballing it does not work, there is a dialogue box at the lower left and side of the screen, The W and H define the width (0) and the height (0) of the movie clip, and the location for X and Y should be 0 and 0. When you are done, Frame 1 of Layer 1 will show the presence of the movie clip with gray shading.
Now it is time to add our images.
Begin by clicking on the Scene 1 text at the top. This closes the movie clip window and allows us to begin entering images.
Next, we create a new layer. Right clicking on the existing layer gives a dialogue box offering Insert Layer. We select it, and thus create Layer 2.
We will load an images from playing cards, changing from clubs to diamonds..
(If you want to follow along, you can find the images at
https://photos.smugmug.c.../cards%20clubs%20on.png
https://photos.smugmug.c...rds%20diamonds%20on.png Under File, we Import, and Import to Library our two images. The images are placed in the library list on the right hand side of the screen.
Now we insert the images. For the first image, we left click on Frame 1 for layer 2 to highlight it. We then go to the library list, left click the clubs image, and holding down the mouse button, drag it to the screen. We can drop it anywhere close, because we next align it precisely under the properties tab at the bottom of the screen. We can see by the numbers that the image is 512 Wide and 512 High. We want to locate the X and Y values (the upper left hand corner) at 0,0 by entering the numbers in the boxes.
For the second image, we select the frame in which we first want it to appear. Under Layer 2, we will left click on Frame 6, then right click to get the pop-up menu, and select Insert Blank Keyframe. (FYI, when we first created the layer, it automatically gave us the blank keyframe at frame 1, and so we didn't need this step at the first insertion. ) We then go to the diamonds image, left click, drag close to place, then place again at X,Y = 0,0.
To end the display, we select the final frame. Under Layer 2, we will go to frame 12 and insert a blank keyframe. We then drag the diamond image to this frame and locate it as before.
The images for the movie are now complete. It is now time to set the eraser. We waited to fill out the eraser, since often in creating a movie one changes plans and the final length of the movie may not be what one initially anticipated. We activate Layer 1 by left-clicking on it. We then insert a new keyframe at Frame 13 in Layer 1, one frame past the end of the images in Layer 2. This allows the program to automatically fill in layer one with the eraser movie from Frame 1. We then Remove the keyframe in Frame 13, leaving our eraser set in frames 1 through 12.
The movie is now complete. If you select File, Project Preview and Flash you can see the movie. There will be a blue background. That is OK: it is the eraser and it will disappear once we are done in RLC.
You can now export the movie, load it to your SWF hosting service (I understand Cloudup is popular), and you are good to go.
The finished movie is available at
http://annartdesigns.com/clubdiamond test1.com..
In RLC, the movie should be loaded as Attach Flash Control. Be sure to check the Transparent button to eliminate the blue screen.
This concludes the instructions on creating a basic flash file with transparency. Again, many thanks to all those who shared their work to make RLC a better place for all, and to those whose contributions allow this article to exist.
And a couple of observations and explanations.
There may well be more elegant and efficient ways to execute this. This is new to us, and we welcome any input.
In publishing the file, it was suggested that on the HTLM tab under Publish Settings, for window mode one should select Transparent Windowless. We have left it int eh default Window mode and the program works.
For the programming code, the first line contains the location and size of the eraser. The second and third numbers at 0,0 locate the upper left hand corner of the eraser box. The fourth and fifth define the width and height, in our case 512 by 512. These will of course be changed to match your files.
The third line of the code defines a color for the box. This is required, but the color does not seem to matter. We have changed the color without issue.
