Elstree Film Studios - Training Courses - Flash ActionScript
Please note that this course has recently been expanded and developed. To read the latest outline for this course, please see our Adobe Flash ActionScript training course.Macromedia Flash ActionScript provides experienced Flash designers with the knowledge and hands-on experience that they need to create dynamically generated event-driven animation and interactive games with Flash. The course teaches fundamental programming techniques utilising
ActionScript 3.0. It begins by introducing core concepts including instance names, variables, functions, properties and methods; then proceeds through conditions, loops, event handling, and animating with ActionScript.
Also available are our Flash Introduction and Flash Video and YouTube training courses.
Duration: 1 day.
Location: 21st Century New Media Ltd, Elstree Film Studios, Shenley Road, Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, WD6 1JG. [
Click here for a map]
Times: 10.00am to 4.30pm. For security reasons, further details are only provided upon booking.
Software Versions: All of our Adobe courses include lessons generic to both CS3 and CS4 versions of the Adobe suite: whichever version you use is covered in detail. In addition, we also now preview the functionality of the new Adobe CS5 suite. Our Apple training courses utilise the latest versions of Final Cut Studio HD (also known of as version 3 or FCS 2009).
Equipment: Our fully featured training room includes six top-of-the-range iMac computers configured to work in both Macintosh (OSX) and PC (Windows) modes, ensuring you the maximum familiarity with your chosen operating system.
Courseware: The book which accompanies this course is posted to you upon payment confirmation.
Accommodation & Transport: Details of local accomodation and transport can be found
here.
Further assistance: Our
FAQ help page contains the answers to many popular questions. Alternatively please call
0844 844 2428 to arrange to speak to our training manager.
COURSE CONTENT
Introducing the Course
- Understanding the course format
- Reviewing the course objectives and prerequisites
- Looking at the course outline
Controlling Visual Objects with ActionScript
- Using the Actions and Help panels
- Declaring variables and their data types
- Using the trace() function
- Using code hinting
- Assigning instance names and using them to assign runtime property values
- Using the with operator
- Introducing core properties of visual built-in classes: Movie Clip, Button, and Text Field
- Controlling Button and Movie Clip position and visual state
- Controlling Text Field content
- Introducing core properties of non-visual built-in classes: Math
- Using mathematical operators
- Understanding data type conversion
Using and Writing Functions
- Working with Flash Player global functions
- Converting values returned from functions and assigning them for display
- Writing user defined functions
- Returning, or not returning, data from a function
- Understanding variable scope
- Adding code within a Movie Clip symbol's own time line
- Introducing the this operator
- Understanding object methods
- Introducing core methods of visual built-in classes: Movie Clip and Text Field
- Controlling the Movie Clip play head within its timeline
- Loading external Movie Clip content
- Exporting and attaching Movie Clip symbol instances at runtime
- Writing and using user defined functions to create visual content
- Understanding depth
- Dynamically referring to instance names and property names at runtime
Using Text, Math and Paths
- Controlling Text Field formatting through code
- Creating and formatting Text Fields at runtime
- Working with String concatenation
- Generating random numbers and integers using the Math class
- Understanding relative path names
- Controlling nested Movie Clip objects
Managing Colour, Sound and Data with Built-in Classes
- Understanding complex (aggregate) variables
- Working with Arrays
- Working with generic Objects
- Transforming Movie Clip objects using Transform and Colour Transform objects
- Generating random colour transformations
- Using Sound objects
Making Decisions and Repeating Yourself
- Understanding looped code
- Using loops and arrays to attach, name, and control Movie Clip objects
- Using loops to create, name, and control Text Fields to display data object values
- Understanding conditional code execution
- Surveying the comparison and logical operators
- Using if/else comparison to toggle Movie Clip visual states
Animating with ActionScript
- Dragging and dropping a Movie Clip object
- Testing for collision between Movie Clip objects
- Initialising attached Movie Clip objects
- Using the 'on Enter Frame' event handler
- Controlling visual change rate
- Testing and responding to position at runtime
