In today's tutorial, you'll learn how to use Flash CS4's new 3D Rotation tool in order to transform the stroke of a circle into easy-to-edit planet rings.

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In this tutorial, you'll learn all about the new 3D features included with Flash CS4. The latest release of Flash supports the ability to rotate and move flat objects (movie clips) around in 3D space. In the tutorial, you'll also learn how to animate the 3D rotation of an object using ActionScript's new rotationX, rotationY, and rotationZ properties.

Here is the code for this tutorial:

addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, rotate3D);
 
function rotate3D(e:Event):void
{
   sof_mc.rotationX += 4;
   sof_mc.rotationY += 4;
}

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For the most part, the button symbol has gone the way of the dodo for many Flash developers. Because movie clip symbols are so much more flexible than button symbols, most developers have completely stopped using button symbols. Instead, they opt to use movie clip symbols AS buttons.

But What About the Hit State?

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I just wanted to apologize for the long wait between posts. Things have been crazy in the Campbell household lately. We've got a kid on the way, we're in the process of looking for a new house, we just found out that my wife has gestational diabetes, and we recently got back from a week-long vacation in Pagosa Springs, Colorado (during which I learned how to fix some delicious fried chicken).

Hopefully, now that things have calmed down a little bit, I'll be able to post some more tutorials soon. In the meantime, here's a picture of the view from the back porch of the cabin where we stayed in Colorado. (Photography is one of my many passions.)

In this tutorial, we're going to create a menu with a bar underneath it that moves left and right based on which button the user is hovering over. This tutorial is created with Flash CS3 and ActionScript 3. Here's what it will look like when you're done:

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One of the many things that have changed in ActionScript 3 has been the way that Flash handles depths, or the stacking order of objects on the stage. In ActionScript 2, there was a practically unlimited number of depths into which you could place an object. These depths determine what objects appear in front of other objects. An object with a depth of 100, for example, would cover up an object with a depth of 50. But in ActionScript 2, these depths didn't have to be consecutive. In other words, if you only had 2 objects on the stage, you could very well set one of them to a depth of zero and set the other one to a depth of 1000.

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Many Flash beginners stick with using button symbols when creating navigation links for their Flash websites. And why not! That's what button symbols are made for, right?

Well, you can also create buttons using movie clip symbols. Movie clip buttons are basically buttons on steroids. With movie clip buttons, you have much more control over how your button behaves.

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From time to time, I like to showcase Flash work that other people are doing, and it would be impossible to do so without at some point mentioning Homestar Runner. If you've never heard of Homestar Runner, then you're really missing out. Creators Matt and Mike Chapman have built a small empire on a few crudely animated--and insanely hilarious--characters.

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There is very little that will push users away quicker than a bulky Flash website with no preloader. Without a preloader, your users will have nothing to look at but a blank screen until your Flash file has fully loaded. For users with a speedy broadband connection, this may not be much of an issue (depending on the size of your file), but for people with sluggish connections, it's imperative that you give them some kind of indication that everything is loading properly.

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Today's tutorial is Part 4 of a series of tutorials on creating a music player using Flash CS3 and ActionScript 3. The previous tutorials can be found here:

• Using Sound in ActionScript 3.0
• Creating a Volume Slider
• Creating a Pause Button

If you haven't read these tutorials yet, then I strongly urge you to check them out. The Flash file we'll be starting with can be found at the bottom of the Pause Button tutorial.

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