Creating a ‘Glass’ ball in Flash

1.       To start, open Flash and start a new file.  It doesn’t matter which coding format you use, the technique and principals I will show here can be used in either.  I like to create my design concepts larger then scale them down to export for whatever final format I need.  For this example, I set the stage to 700 x 400 (see Fig 1) and set the background to white.  Since this won’t have any animations the FPS doesn’t matter.

FIG 1 

2.      I begin by selecting the Oval Tool (see Fig 2) or by pressing the “O” key.   Once this is activated, you will notice a ‘pencil’ and a ‘bucket’ on the bottom or right of the screen.  These 2 options denote the ‘pencil’ and the line or the edge and the ‘bucket’ being the fill or interior.  Set the line color to black and the fill to blue (see Fig 3).  The number next to the line color is the width of the line, for this example set it to 1.

FIG 2

FIG 3

3.      While holding the shift key, draw a circle that spans to about 400px wide (see Fig 4).  Don’t worry if it falls outside the stage and parts are in the grey buffer area.  For now we are just laying some ground work. In Flash, image objects can be converted to ‘symbols’.  These are called buttons, graphics and movie clips.  I won’t go in to each function at the moment, but for this example we are going to convert this circle into a graphic.  To do this it’s simply a matter of clicking on the stage and selecting the entire circle by either:  pressing Ctrl-A, or by double-clicking the circle anywhere in the color fill of it.  Doing this will select both the fill and the line.

FIG 4

4.      With the circle selected, press F8 and click ‘Graphic’ and OK (see Fig 5).  You will notice the highlights changed to a bounding box around the circle.  Converting a vector to a graphic in flash allows you to change options like Alpha, Brightness, Tint and more.   To edit a graphic which you will need to do, double click the object on the stage.  This steps you down a level ‘into the graphic symbol’.

FIG 5

5.      Click next on Window > Color to bring that window to the front (see Fig 6).  Single click the blue area on the circle on the stage to activate it.  On that window on the right it says ‘Solid’.  Click on that and go to Radial.   Doing this may turn the circle fill to black fading to white.

FIG 6

6.      With the fill still active, double click the smaller black box on the lower left of the Color window (see Fig 7).  Doing this brings up the color box and then select the #0000FF blue.  The gradient now changed to a blue/white.  Set the white side on the right and set that to the same color #0000FF blue.  Just above that color selector, there will be a small box with a blue hue gradient going from white to black but as blue.  Click somewhere between the middle blue hue and the white (see Fig 8).  Notice the gradient now has a slight color shift.

FIG 7 

FIG 8

7.      Click now anywhere on the stage, but not on the blue circle.  This deactivates the selection.  Press the ‘F’ key or click on the ‘Gradient Transform Tool’.  The cursor turns white so now go select the circle fill again.  You’ll notice that a pale blue line and some dots form over the blue area (see Fig 9).  Move your cursor to the middle dot in the center of the blue area until you see 4 arrows going up, down, left and right.  This is the gradient move tool.  Click the arrows and move downwards until the middle dot is now at the very bottom of the blue area (see Fig 10).

FIG 9

FIG 10

8.      With the blue color fill still selected, look for a dot with an arrow in it aiming down, right.  This is the Gradient Scale Tool.  Click it and move outwards until the outer scale reaches the top of the blue circle (see Fig 11).  Once that is complete, click on the grey stage area to deselect the fill.

FIG 11

9.      Press ‘V’ or the Selection Tool (see Fig 12) then press Ctrl-A or draw a box around the entire blue circle.  Press Ctrl-C to copy the blue circle to the clipboard.

FIG 12

10.  If you notice above the stage you have your track and layer timeline.  Here is where animations can be made, as well as having many layers to use for graphics and programming.  Add a new layer (see Fig 13) and move it above the darkened layer with the circle on it.  Click the ‘Layer 2’ to make sure it is selected.  Press Ctrl-Shift-V to paste the vector in the same place you copied it from, but make sure it’s pasted on Layer 2.  You will see a black dot in the middle of the frame.

FIG 13

11.  Holding the Shift key press the ‘Up Arrow Key’ until the bottom of the blue circle on Layer 2 is in the middle of the blue circle on Layer 1 (see Fig 14).  **Keep a mental note of how many times you press the key.

FIG 14

12.  With the blue circle on Layer 2 still active, look at the Color window and it should be set to Radial.  Double click the blue Color Selector Box on the lower left of the Color window and change to white (see Fig 15).  On the right one, change to white as well, but change the Alpha to 0%.

FIG 15

13.  Deselect the circle but while still on Layer 2, move the cursor to the outer line of the white circle.  You will see the arrow add a curved line to itself (see Fig 16). Click to activate the black line only.

FIG 16

14.  While holding Shift, press the ‘Down Arrow Key’ until the black line is matched over the black line on Layer 1.   Now select the space above the blue circle on Layer 2 (see Fig 17).  Since we won’t need it just delete it.

FIG 17

15.  Select the bottom half of the white circle (see Fig 18) and convert to a Graphic by pressing F8.  You will see that on the bottom Properties there is an option called Color and its set to None.  Click it and change to Alpha set it to about 30% (see Fig 19).

FIG 18

FIG 19

Using these techniques you can make all kinds of vector based images.