Drawing Lines

To draw lines, we have two tools in “Flash”.
The first tool is the “Line”, the second is the “brush” tool.

Let me start by talking about the “Line” tool.

To draw a line, select the “Line” in the tool box, or, for those of us who like to work with keyboard shortcuts, click the ‘N’ on your keyboard.

To place a line click and drag on the “Stage” until you’ve reached the desired size for the line.

If you wish to give the slope of a line to 45 ° angle then press and hold the Shift key on your keyboard.

This allows you to draw a line with a slope of 45 ° or to draw a multiple lines thereof . So we get a perfectly horizontal or vertical line.

In the “Properties window”, you always have the option of adjusting the line.

A second possibility to draw a line is with the “brush” tool.

In both cases, you have the option to draw the line in “Object Drawing mode” or “Compound form”.However, when we draw a line with the “brush” tool , we have three options. When we click the “Pencil Mode” button, it reveals a menu with three options.

The first option is “Straighten” the line drawn, or rather the curves of the drawn line, as well as possibly try to straighten corners.

The second option is “Smooth” which does just the opposite by smootheing out the corners of the drawn line.

 

The third option is “Ink” where the line will be displayed like you’ve actually signed it.

 

The “Rectangle”, “Oval” and “Polygon” tools

To draw a rectangle, select the “Rectangle” tool in the tool bar.

Set a border color and fill color, set the width of the pixels in the “Zone”, and choose a style. This we had already seen in the previous lesson.

Now I can tell you something about the “Rectangle Options”.

This setting refers to the rounding of the corners.

The higher the number you set here, the rounder the corners will be(1)

If you give a negative number, then the corners as it were will be cut in a round shape (2).Once you enter this value for the rectangle you draw, the rectangle is drawn and we cannot change it.

We also have the “rectangle primitive” tool. But we will see more about that in the next lesson.

To draw an “Ellipse” select the “Oval” tool in the tool bar.

If you cannot see what is more than likely after drawing a “Rectangle”, then click the “Rectangle icon” in the tool bar and hold the mouse button.

This opens the drop-down menu with the different sub-buttons.
Click the button “Oval”.

The shortcut for this was indeed the letter ‘O’ on your keyboard

When we draw an “Oval”, we have a few properties in the “Properties window”.

On top is the line color and fill color which you all should know by now, so I’m not going to repeat it but, with the bottom three sliders we can draw something special.

With the upper slider, we can determine where the angle of the circle is to be drawn.

With the middle slider, you determine where the angle of the circle ends.

With the lower slider, draw a circle inside. You draw it like a donut.

When you use these different sliders combined together, you can make nice character designs.

Again, once the circle is drawn, we cannot change the settings on the sliders.
This may be the “Oval primitive” tool. We will see more in the next lesson.

When drawing a “Polygon”, we have two options. We can draw a “Polygon” or a “Star”.

First select the “Polygon” tool in the toolbar and set the fill color, border color, border region, and the edge style.

Then click the “Options …” button in the “Properties window” and in the “Tools Settings” dialog, choose the “Style” as either a “Polygon” or “Star”.

Then give the number of sides.

A “Polygon” with three sides is a “Right angled Triangle”.

When you’ve chosen the style as “Star” there’s the possibility that the sharpness of the star points need to be set.. 0 is the lowest and gives the sharpest corners, 1 is the highest and indicates the most obtuse angles.

 

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