Flash pen tutorial
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This entry is part of the Flash tutorials.
Introduction
- Learning goals
- Learn about basic Flash 9 (CS3), Illustrator and Inkscape bitmap tracing.
- Prerequisites
- Flash CS3 desktop tutorial
- Flash drawing tutorial
- Flash layers tutorial
- Moving on
- The Flash article has a list of other tutorials.
- Quality
- Not complete. This tool is fairly complex ...
- Level
- It aims at beginners. More advanced features and tricks are not explained here.
- Materials (*.fla file you can play with)
- http://tecfa.unige.ch/guides/flash/ex/tracing-intro/
- http://tecfa.unige.ch/guides/flash/ex/shape-tweening-intro/
The pen tool allows to create complex shapes with lots of straight lines and perfect arcs.
- Basic use
- To insert a series of connect points with straight lines, just click on several points in a row
- You may want to display a grid (Menu View->Grid->Edit Grid or View->Grid->Show Grid
- Once you are done: double click on the last point to create a closed shape or hit ESC or select another tool.
- To insert curves, select a new point where the curve should start, but hold down the mouse for a while, then drag the mouse either out (along the line) or turn right/left.
- To draw a line after a curve, click on the last curve control (round circle you just created), the click elsewhere.
- Controls
- The tiny rectangles (magnify if you can't see them) are called anchor points. You may later move them with the subselection tool.
- The little dots are called curve controls. You can drag them in all directions to create the arces you'd like.
- To close a curve, move it over an anchor point. A little circle should appear next to the mouse pointer. Click.
- Other pen tools
When you hold down the mouse over the pen tool you can get three other tools that you may use while your are working on a drawing (before hitting ESC)
- The Add Anchor Point tool: To add an anchor point to a segment, click on it.
- The Delete Anchor Point tool: To delete a point click on it.
By default, the Pen tool changes to the Add Anchor Point tool as you position it over a selected path, or to the Delete Anchor Point tool as you position it over an anchor point.
Later, you also can use the subselection tool to repair.
Links
- Drawing with the Pen tool. These help pages are fairly well done, e.g. look at:
- Draw curves with the Pen tool (Adobe Flash Help)