Stage - the stage in Flash represents the area in which the animation will take place. Just like in a play, you only see what is on stage. You can create objects and animate them so that they enter, exit or remain on the stage. Everything that will appear in your movie must appear in the stage area at some frame in the timeline in order for it to be seen.

Work area - the work area is the behind the scenes area. You can use this extra space to create objects. Keep objects in the work space until the point in your movie that you want them to be visible. For example, if I wanted to animate the sun setting, I could draw a yellow circle in the work area above my stage and then animate it to enter at the top of the stage and exit the bottom of the stage.

Toolbox - the toolbox contains the tools you will need to draw and modify objects and text.

Layers - you can place parts of your movie on different layers. Layers work like transparencies. This allows you to have multiple things happening at the same time. However, like transparencies, you can only see things on different layers if they do not occupy the same space. If they occupy the same space on the stage, then the top most layer will block the layers beneath.

Timeline - the timeline is where you will control the sequence of events and the timing of events in your movie. The timeline is made up of frames. An individual frame represents what is happening on stage at that one point in time. For example, if I wanted to animate a character throwing a punch, the first frame would be the first initiation of motion and the last frame would be the final aspect of motion. All the frames in between would be the fist actually moving from the starting point to the ending point of contact. When you play the movie, the frames appear in succession and the result is an animated punch being thrown.

Panels - the panels are used to modify elements of your movie. For example you can change the color or transparency of an object and give the effect that the object disappears or fades away.

The following steps will cover:

• drawing artwork
• using keyframes
• animating an object using motion tweening.

The toolbox is where we will find the tools needed to draw our artwork. Keyframes are frames in the timeline that represent where significant changes occur. For example, if we created an scene where the sun enters the stage from the top and exits at the bottom, a key frame would represent the sun entering our scene and another key frame would represent the sun setting and leaving the scene. Rather than creating all of the frames in between the two key frames (i.e. the movement of the sun from the top of the stage to the bottom of the stage), Flash can create those frames for you through a process called tweening.

We will draw a scene and animate a ball entering the scene, bouncing and exiting the scene.

Part One - Creating your road scene

1 - Open a new document in Flash.
2 - Select the Rectangle tool.

3 - Draw a green rectangle across the lower third of your stage.

To select the color that appears in the rectangle you need to set the fill color. If your fill color was not green and you want to change it without redrawing the rectangle, you need to select the paint bucket tool, and with it selected, click on the fill color tool and select the correct color. Then move your cursor which should have a paint bucket icon and click on the rectangle.

4 - Once you have created a green rectangle in the lower third of your stage, change the fill color to black and draw a black rectangle over the middle third of your stage.
5 - Draw a blue rectangle over the top third of the stage.
6 - Draw a yellow rectangle down the middle of the blacktop road in the middle third of the stage. You should have something like this.

Now you have created your scene using the draw tools.

1 - Go to the insert menu and select layer. You have just created a new layer for your movie. This will allow you to keep the background you created as your scene separate from the objects that you create and animate.
2 - Double click the word "layer 1" and rename that layer "background" and hit enter.
3 - Double click the work "layer 2" and rename that layer "ball" and hit enter.
4 - In the work area to the left of your stage and just above the road, create an orange ball

5 - The ball currently has a thin black outline. Remove the outline by using your arrow tool and clicking the outer portion of the ball once to select only the outline. Note: if you double click on the ball you will select the entire ball. Once you have only the outline selected, click delete.

6 - Select the ball and go to the insert menu and select convert to symbol. Name the symbol "ball" and make it a graphic.

1 - Using the arrow tool select frame 20 of the timeline for the "ball" layer.
2 - Go to the insert menu and select keyframe. Notice that your background has disappeared. Don't worry, the background is not lost, it just isn't part of the movie yet in frame 20.
3 - Using the arrow tool select the "background" layer, then select frame 40 of the timeline and insert a keyframe. Now your background will appear in all 40 frames of your movie.
4 - Using the arrow tool select the "ball layer".
5 - With the "ball" layer selected, select frame 20.

6 - Select the ball and move it to the middle of the stage and place it on the bottom of the road.

7 - Click anywhere in the timeline between frames 1 and 20 for the "ball" layer and go to the insert menu and select create motion tween. Note you can also create a motion tween by selecting motion tween in the properties box below the stage.
8 - On the "ball" layer, click on frame 40 and insert a keyframe.
9 - Move the ball so that it exits the screen at the right edge and appears as if it is bouncing off the road.
10 - Click anywhere in the timeline between frames 20 and 40 for the "ball" layer and go to the insert menu and select create motion tween.

Congratulations you have just created a road scene and animated a ball bouncing down the street.

Your timeline and final keyframe should look similar to the following: