Re: FLASH: lettering

[Nigel Randsley-Pena]

Jerry,


> Thanks to Lena and Fabienne:

> I found the sample file Writing Pen and it appears to be a frame by frame masking

> effect. Very slow and laborious technique. Was hoping for something more automated,

> but I had a feeling there wasn't an eay way to do this.


There is in fact another method, that is quicker, being a bit more

automated, but requires an external programme, either Illustrator or

FreeHand will do. If you have one of these then read on. I've used this

process with various objects including lettering. As this is a Flash

list let's use FreeHand for the example and save JD the time necessary

to answer praising the virtues of FreeHand ;)

Open a new document in FreeHand, select the text tool, and place 1 char

on your page. Leave this char selected give it a fill of none and a

basic line. Still selected apply a convert to path. If the letter has

drop out's like for example 'O' do a split. Depending on the letter you

will have a number of control points. If they are too few add some,

Xtras Distort Add Points. Deselect the letter and click drag it so as to

select the anchor's, now do a split. With the selection still active do

a copy. Open a new document and in this one place an empty text box.

Paste the copied elements, leave selected and do Xtras Animate Release

to layers. Export this document in ai 7.x format. Close Freehand goto

Flash choose Insert New Symbol type movie clip and import the saved ai

file into this symbol. You'll see a series of layers imported into the

symbol. Each layer is one step of your animation. Now just arrange each

of the keyframes in each layer so that they form a progression by adding

blank frames before each key frame in each layer. Add the necessary

blank frames in each layer after the keyframe so it won't disapear from

the stage and your animation is done.


Have fun


Nigel


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