Flash 8 Filters

Flash 8 filters can be applied to text, MovieClips, and Buttons only.
Filters only work in Flash Professional 8. They are not available in Flash Basic 8.
These flash 8 filters are similar to those in graphics programs layer effects.
They include Drop Shadow, Blur, Glow, Bevel, Gradient Glow, Gradient Bevel and Adjust Color. If you know Graphics programs you should be very familiar with these filters.

What is a flash 8 filter?

A graphic flash 8 filter is a tool that processes and/or manipulates the pixels of the graphical object. E.g. the Drop Shadow will appear to have a shadow behind it.

How do we apply a Flash 8 filter?

• Create your movieclip
• Open the properties window
• You will see the Filters tab there.
• Click on the Filters Tab.
• Click on the "+" Button and the filters will pop up.
• Click on the Drop Shadow Flash 8 Filter.Click on the "+" Button and the filters will pop up.
• BlurX - the horizontal offset and eventual added radius.Click on the "+" Button and the filters will pop up.
• BlurY - the vertical offset .Click on the "+" Button and the filters will pop up.
• You can unlock them and set them differently or keep locked to keep x and y values equal( suggested).
• Strength - adjusts the lightness or darkness of the shadow.
• Quality - refers to the rendering quality. Keep it at low if you want the fastest rendering times or high for best quality.
• Color - you can change the color of the shadow.
• Angle - This will change the direction of the shadow or I prefer to think of it as the direction of the sun :)
• Distance - how far away from the shadows the movieclip/object is.
• Knockout - knocks out the overlying flash 8 graphic object. Doh!
• Inner Shadow - reverses the shadow to make the object look like it is in a hole !!11!!
• Hide Object - leaves the shadow only. Why would you use it ? Beats me, but its there if you ever need a shadow or an invisible man .

That's it for the Drop Shadow. Play around with all the settings till you get used to them and then use the defaults. I always use the defaults anyway. They are usually the best-looking settings. To remove a Flash 8 Filter, just click on the Minus "-" Button right next to the + Button.

Blur Filter

The only properties that you can change are the x and y values. These seem to be the amount of blur that is applied. Try it. You can unlock and lock the x and y ratio as well.

Glow Filter

The Glow Filter is a glowing outline around an object. You can change the radius with the blurx and blurry settings.
Strength relates to the transparency of the glow somehow.
Knockout takes out the top graphic, leaving the outline or glowing outside only.
Inner Glow - reverses the effect putting the glow on the inside.
Of course you can change the color of the glow using the color palette.

Bevel Filter

This Flash 8 filter is very similar to the Graphics Programs Bevels. It creates a beveled outline around your object.
BlurX and BlurY change the amount of the bevel.
Strength - changes the hardness of the level edge.
Shadow Color - the shadow color.
Highlight Color - the color of the lighting or the "hot" edge.
Angle - Direction of the lighting.
Distance - amount of bevel.
Knockout - leaves only the shadowed edge.
Type
Inner bevel - normal.
Outer Bevel - bevels from the outside to the edge of the object.
Full - both inner and outer bevels together.

Gradient Glow.

Allows us to set the gradient drop shadow it looks like. I am not sure what this may be used for? If you find a use for it let me know ;(

Gradient Bevel

Meh ! Don't see the point. Lame.

Adjust Color

This flash 8 filter is not really An Adjust Color filter as such but a combination Brightness-Contrast and Saturation-Hue filter. This filter is very useful.
The Brightness/Contrast lets you adjust the lightness( light to dark) and Contrast ( umm how do you describe and define contrast ?).
Saturation - the amount of color in the graphic can be adjusted from -100 (which is totally black and White or grayscale) to +100 which is fully blown color .
Hue changes the actual color(ie. Red green, blue , yellow etc.. )
Play with these sliders till you get the idea.
Reset takes all the values back to default values.

Flash 8 Resources

Hollywood 2D Digital Animation: The New Flash Production Revolution - Digital animation using Flash, is primed to take Hollywood and TeleVision by storm with two feature films and three television shows underway. This book describes why Flash is the future of broadcast animation. As the future of 2D animation, the knowledge provided to the reader by this book will be a necessity for animators.