I admit it, I suck.

[BLiZZaRD]

Absolutley.

to make it a link you use the getURL attribute in your AS panel:

on(release){
   getURL("http://whatever.com", _blank);
}

Note the _blank could be _self or _parent or _top as well, what ever you need.

_self specifies the current frame in the current window.
_blank specifies a new window.
_parent specifies the parent of the current frame.
_top specifies the top-level frame in the current window.

to initiate another animation etc same type of thing. Lets say you have an MC with 40 frames. and there are 4 different animations, each 10 frames each. every 10 frames you would have a stop(); command.

On your button you would put something like:

on(release){
    _root.MC-name.gotoAndPlay(10);
}

this would take MC (here named MC-name) to frame 10 and play until the stop(); command on frame 20.

[Aragoth]

You're funny. I don't even know how to view the actionscript... How bad is that?

[BLiZZaRD]

I am not sure how you have your stage and menus set up, and I am doing this from memory at the moment, as I haven't had to use my navigation bar in years (keyboard short cuts and all )

In your nav menu go to window >> design panels >> action panel

Click on that and your Action Scripts panel should pop open.

You can also look just below your stage and you should (thinking back to default here) see Actions, Properties, and Help bars there. Click on the Actions heading and it will pop up.

[Aragoth]

Click on the Actions heading and it will pop up.

And by God does it pop up! Scared the hell out me... just kidding. Well, that's one thing taken care of... lol. Thanks a lot...

[BLiZZaRD]

Very Welcome.

[Aragoth]

All right, I'm going to try to do something a little less complicated. Cause I suck. I would like to create the original picture fade in (DONE!!! lol) and then create an extremely bright flash that "blinds" the viewer and for another picture to fade in. Any hints?

Edit: Better idea. When the image is fading in, I would like to have makeshift lightening bolts flashing from certain parts. I'll actually give you a link to the pic so you can see what I mean.

http://avengedsevenfold.com/enterpage_r2_c3.jpg

I would like the lightening bolts to be randomly generated (or not randomly, they just have to appear to be moving closer to the viewer) until finally one strikes towards the viewer and then I would like to fade in another pic... Of course, the original images alpha will have to be changed slightly for the further away lightening bolts, etc. Do I have to create individual motion tweens for changing the alpha like that?

BTW: The pic has been resized and so has the background canvas for flash. As well, the background color of the canvas has been changed to black to accomadate a better fade in.

Update: HA!!! I don't need you, you uneducated little mother... Just kidding. You guys are awesome. I'm just celebrating my overinflated ego. I just performed what is probably the most basic flash ever. I created a lightening bolt. Damn straight. And it makes the page flash. It also looks terrible, but goddammit, I did it... lol jk. I would like to be able to draw the lightening bolts better, but I can seem to get the brush to not suck. And it really, really sucks. lol

[BLiZZaRD]

Never, ever, EVER use the brush tool. EVER!

use the square tool, choose your colors, draw a square.

then go to a side, any spot and press and HOLD the "alt" key then left click your mouse and drag in or out. Release both mouse and alt key. You have just created a new "point"

Continue down the side of the square until it resembles a lightening bolt. then go back and click and drag without the alt key to "finalize it.

Don't ever use the brush tool for anything!

I wish they would remove that worthless POS. People that are used to PSP or Paint love the brush tool, and in Flash all it does is make a mess.. LOL

Congrats on your achievement though!

[Aragoth]

I have no idea wtf you are talking about. I try to hold the alt key, etc., but it just draws a second square. Do I have to change the tool that I am using?

[BLiZZaRD]

LOL, my apologies, for not explaining well. Yes, you will draw your square with the square tool and the choose the select tool (black arrow)

When you being the arrow close to the edge you will see a little curvy line under it, this indicates you are on a side, or you will see a little right-angle line, which would indicate you are at a point.

Draw your square, then look for the curvy line, hold down alt and manipulate the hell out of your squre.

This is good drawing practice as well.

____________________________________________________________

Off Topic:

To practice drawing, use above technique. First import an image you want to draw, say a picture of your cat. Put this image on its own layer, and lock that layer.

Add new layer, over lay squares (minus the border line to start... shading and that comes much later) Manipulate your squares to match the picture below. Once complete you should have a flash rendering of the image you imported.

Of course it wont be near as pretty, as you haven't done depth/shading yet, but it is great practice. This technique is called tracing

[djr33]

iMovie cannot import/work with/improve or do anything else with flash graphics. iMovie is apple proprietary and works only with quicktime file formats while flash is Adobe proprietary (used to be macromedia).

And, just for the record, I use iMovie myself, but for filmmaking....