Chapter 5: Drawing; About Vector And Bitmap Graphics - MACROMEDIA FLASH MX 2004-USING FLASH Use Manual

CHAPTER 5
Drawing
The drawing tools in Macromedia Flash MX 2004 and Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004
let you create and modify shapes for the artwork in your documents. For an interactive
introduction to drawing in Flash, select Help > How Do I > Basic Flash > Draw in Flash.
Before you draw and paint in Flash, it is important to understand how Flash creates artwork, how
drawing tools work, and how drawing, painting, and modifying shapes can affect other shapes on
the same layer.
This chapter contains the following sections:
About vector and bitmap graphics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Flash drawing and painting tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
About overlapping shapes in Flash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Drawing with the Pencil tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Drawing straight lines, ovals, and rectangles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Drawing polygons and stars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Using the Pen tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Painting with the Brush tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Reshaping lines and shape outlines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Erasing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Modifying shapes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
Snapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Specifying drawing settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

About vector and bitmap graphics

Computers display graphics in either vector or bitmap format. Understanding the difference
between the two formats can help you work more efficiently. Using Flash, you can create and
animate compact vector graphics. Flash also lets you import and manipulate vector and bitmap
graphics that have been created in other applications.
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