This is not a Flash 8 tutorial. In this post I will share how I started with absolutely no experience with Flash and created the short video below. It might be helpful for every flash beginner who feels kind of scared when opens the program and see the blank document. You can also find links to all Flash tutorials I found useful and helped me in the process of working.
Flash 8 is created by Macormedia in 2005, but today is a part of Adobe Flash Family. It has limited support for video and advanced graphical and animation effects, but it is great for learning the basics. Of course, it can’t be compared with the power of CS3, CS4 and CS5, but once you are experienced with Actionscript 2.0, you can always upgrade yourself.
Here are my suggestions to everyone who wants to start with Flash 8
Read as many tutorials as you can. Clicking around is not the right way to learn Flash. I thought it might help, but I spent hours like this without understanding anything. Make yourself familiar with the stage, the timeline, the library, the tool box and side components. One of the most useful tutorial I found was Macromedia Flash Beginners Guide by Just Poison. It might look useless for flash experts, but it was extremely important to me the first two days, when I even didn’t know what “frame” in Flash means.
Learn how to insert and remove frames, keyframes, blank frames and how exactly you have to use them. It sounds silly, but it took me hours to understand how to insert motion tween and why sometimes it works, and sometimes not. The same guide (by Just Poison) can help you with this basic knowledge before you start creating stuff.
Another very useful tutorial is the Flash Section of Kirupa.com.
Watch videos. Once you know the basic tools, you want to start creating animations. This is where You Tube (or other video sharing websites) can help. I noticed that it is much easier to watch, listen and repeat what you see on the screen, than reading the same information. And it saves time. For 5 minutes you can learn how to animate a simple object, while reading the same thing will take you at least 20 minutes.
Here are my favourite videos, which helped me to learn
Participate in forums, ask for help, make contacts. There many forums for flash developers where you can find useful information and seek for help. The forum I liked most is Kirupa’s Flash Forum, which has great flash community and the guys there give you prompt and fair responses. As a beginner, I thought they would ignore my “silly” questions, but this didn’t happen.
Another useful websites for Flash 8 beginners:
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