Advanced Flash Animation - Masking
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Who can forget Jim Carey's performance in The Mask? I can, that's who. I haven't even seen it yet. I bet your grandfather doesn't remember it either. Wait. What were we talking about?
Right. Masks in Flash are used for a variety of reasons. In our sample, we are going to create some decent-sized text and give it a spotlight effect. As the mask moves across the screen, it will block out everything except for the text it is passing over.
Create a new file and rename your layer to MASK (do this by double-clicking on the name Layer 1, entering the new name and pressing Enter). Right-click on frame sixty and insert a blank keyframe. Next, right click on your layer and choose Insert Layer. Name this layer BOOOO!.
Click on the Text Tool and insert a line of text that reads, “BOOOOOO!” Make sure to use font size fifty and format the text to bold. Once finished, click on the first frame of the Mask layer, draw a circle barely larger than your text and convert it into a Symbol. Drag the circle to the left hand side of the text, then click on frame sixty and drag an instance of the circle to the right-hand side of the text. Now, click on a frame between one and sixty and add a motion tween.
Finally, right-click on the Text layer and choose Mask from the pop-up menu. Now play the movie to see the effect.
Next: It's Better to Burn Out Than to Fade Away >>
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