Flash Article

Flash graphic effects learning guide

Using Flash filters

Filters let you add interesting visual effects to text, buttons, and movie clips. Filters are most often associated with applying drop shadows, blurs, glows, and bevels to graphic elements. A feature unique to Flash is that you can animate the filters you apply using motion tweens. For example, if you create a ball (or sphere) with a drop shadow, you can simulate the look of the light source moving from one side of the object to another by changing the position of the drop shadow from its beginning and ending frames in the Timeline.

After you apply a filter, you can change its options at any time or rearrange the order of filters to experiment with combined effects. You can enable or disable filters or delete them in the Property inspector. When you remove a filter, the object returns to its previous appearance. You can view the filters applied to an object by selecting it; doing so automatically updates the filters list in the Property inspector for the selected object.

Applying filters

You can apply one or more filters to selected objects using the Property inspector. Each time you add a new filter to an object, it is added to the list of applied filters for that object in the Property inspector. You can apply multiple filters to an object, as well as remove filters that have been previously applied. Applying different filters affects the appearance of a movie clip instance (see Figure 1).

Figure 1.Various examples of filter effects applied to movie clip instances

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For information on how using filters can affect the performance of your SWF files, see the following sections of Flash LiveDocs: About Filters and Flash Player Performance (Using Flash > Using Filters and Blends > About Filters and Flash Player Performance); and About Error Handling, Performance, and Filters (Learning ActionScript 2.0 in Flash > Animation, Filters, and Drawings > Using Filter Effects > About Error Handling, Performance, and Filters).

To apply a filter:

1. Select a movie clip, button, or text object on the Stage to which you want to apply a filter. You can apply filters only to text, button, and movie clip objects.
2. Select the Filter tab in the Property inspector.

3. Click the Add Filter (+) button and select a filter from the Filters pop-up menu (see Figure 2). The filter you select is applied to the object and the controls for the filter settings appear in the Property inspector.

   

   
   

   Figure 2. Adding a filter to the Filter tab in the Property inspector

4. Experiment with the filter settings until you get the look you want. For details about the settings available for each filter, see the following sections in Flash LiveDocs:

   • Apply a Drop Shadow (Using Flash > Special effects > About filters > Apply a drop shadow)
   • Apply a Blur (Using Flash > Special effects > About filters > Apply a blur)
   • Apply a Glow (Using Flash > Special effects > About filters > Apply a glow)
   • Apply a Bevel (Using Flash > Special effects > About filters > Apply a bevel)
   • Apply a Gradient Glow (Using Flash > Special effects > About filters > Apply a gradient glow)
   • Apply a Gradient Bevel (Using Flash >Special effects > About filters > Apply a gradient bevel)
   • Apply the Adjust Color Filter (Using Flash > Special effects > About filters > Apply the Adjust Color filter)

To remove a filter:

1. Select the movie clip, button, or text object that you want to remove a filter from.
2. Select the Filter tab in the Property inspector.
3. Select the filter you want to remove in the list of applied filters.
4. Click the Remove Filter (–) button to remove the filter.

You can create a filter settings library that allows you to easily apply the same filter or sets of filters to an object. Flash stores the filter presets you create in the Property inspector on the Filters tab in the Filters > Presets menu. You can delete or rename any presets as desired.

You can also share libraries of preset filters with other developers by providing them with the filter configuration file stored in your Flash Configuration folder.

For more information, see the following section of Flash LiveDocs: Using Flash > Special effects > About filters > Creating preset filter libraries.

To enable or disable a filter applied to an object:

• Click the enable or disable icon next to the filter name in the Filter list in the Property inspector.

Note: Alt-click the enable icon in the Filter list to toggle the enable state of the other filters in the list. If you Alt-click the disable icon, the selected filter is enabled and all other filters in the list are disabled.

To enable or disable all filters applied to an object:

• Click the Add Filter (+) button in the Property inspector and then select Enable All or Disable All from the pop-up menu.

Note: You can Control-click the enable or disable icon in the Filter list to enable or disable all the filters in the list.

At this point, you may want to try applying a basic filter effect yourself. There are many examples (see above) in the Flash documentation. However, an easy example to start with is applying a drop shadow, so try it out by using the following steps.

To apply a preset filter to an object:

1. Select the movie clip, button, or text object that you want to apply a filter preset to.
2. Select the Filter tab in the Property inspector.
3. Click the Add Filter (+) button and select Presets from the Filters pop-up menu.
4. Select the filter preset you want to apply from the list of available presets at the bottom of the preset menu.

Note: When you apply a filter preset to an object, Flash replaces any filters currently applied to the selected object(s) with the filter(s) used in the preset.

Creating a skewed drop shadow

Use the Drop Shadow filter's Hide object option to create a more realistic look by skewing the shadow of an object (see Figure 3). To achieve this effect, you need to create a duplicate movie clip, button, or text object, apply a drop shadow to the duplicate, and use the Free Transform tool to skew the duplicate object's shadow.

Figure 3. Skewing the Drop Shadow filter to create a more realistic shadow

To create a skewed drop shadow:

1. Select the movie clip or text object whose shadow you want to skew.
2. Duplicate (select Edit > Duplicate) the source movie clip or text object.
3. Select the duplicated object, and skew it using the Free Transform tool (Modify > Transform > Rotate and Skew).
4. Apply the Drop Shadow filter to the duplicated movie clip or text object, and select the Hide Object check box. The duplicated object is hidden from view, leaving only the skewed shadow.
5. Adjust the Drop Shadow filter settings and the angle of the skewed drop shadow until you achieve the look you want.

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