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Adobe Flash CS3
Flash 4 - Simple Tell Target
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Adobe Creative Suite 3
Adobe Creative Suite 3
This tutorial will teach you a critical part of creating extensive Flash movies. Tell Target controls other movie clips inside your main movie. This results in being able to create user interaction with your movie as well as create other effects such as "rollover" animation.
Step 1
First thing you need to do is create your Movie Clip (Insert > New Symbol > Select Movie Clip and name it clip). This will be the animation that takes place when Tell Target is called. Make the animation anything you want, but keep it simple for the tutorial, I just used a basic square with a clockwise motion tween. Also make sure you add a Stop Action in the first frame of your M.C. so that it doesn't play right away, and add an Action in the last frame to Go To and Play 2, so it loops.
Step 2
When you have that done, you need to drag it from your library (Ctrl + L) on to your main stage. Position it where you want it, double click it, and give it an Instance Name of clip.
Step 3
Now you need a way to tell the Movie Clip to play and stop. Create 2 simple buttons. For the start button, double click it and give it an OnMouseEvent. Then bring up the Actions menu again and Choose Tell Target. In the right hand side of the window, you should see your movie named "clip". Double click it. Then 1 more Action, add Play after the Tell Target Action. You should end up with this result:
On (Release)
Begin Tell Target ("/clip")
Play
End Tell Target
End On
You can use any OnMouseEvent you want. On Roll Over is good for menu buttons when you want an action to occur when the cursor is over a particular button. But for this tutorial, I chose On Release because we want the Action to occur after a button has been clicked.
Step 4
Then for the stop button, use the same steps as for the start button but give it a Stop Action in place of the Play Action. You should end up with a movie that gives the following result.
Step 1
First thing you need to do is create your Movie Clip (Insert > New Symbol > Select Movie Clip and name it clip). This will be the animation that takes place when Tell Target is called. Make the animation anything you want, but keep it simple for the tutorial, I just used a basic square with a clockwise motion tween. Also make sure you add a Stop Action in the first frame of your M.C. so that it doesn't play right away, and add an Action in the last frame to Go To and Play 2, so it loops.
Step 2
When you have that done, you need to drag it from your library (Ctrl + L) on to your main stage. Position it where you want it, double click it, and give it an Instance Name of clip.
Step 3
Now you need a way to tell the Movie Clip to play and stop. Create 2 simple buttons. For the start button, double click it and give it an OnMouseEvent. Then bring up the Actions menu again and Choose Tell Target. In the right hand side of the window, you should see your movie named "clip". Double click it. Then 1 more Action, add Play after the Tell Target Action. You should end up with this result:
On (Release)
Begin Tell Target ("/clip")
Play
End Tell Target
End On
You can use any OnMouseEvent you want. On Roll Over is good for menu buttons when you want an action to occur when the cursor is over a particular button. But for this tutorial, I chose On Release because we want the Action to occur after a button has been clicked.
Step 4
Then for the stop button, use the same steps as for the start button but give it a Stop Action in place of the Play Action. You should end up with a movie that gives the following result.
Tell Target can be used in a variety of ways, but this is a basic introduction to what it can be used for.