Flash Animation - Symbols and Instances

Symbols and Instances - Graphic Symbols

One of the great things about Flash is that it allows you to create a graphic once and use it over and over again. This allows your Flash animation to download quicker. And as we all know, faster download is the object of what web designers. To speed up download times you will need to convert graphics to Symbols and to describe their actions with Instances. These tutorials will get you started in understanding the importance of Symbols and Instances.

Let's define some terms:

Symbol	An object that can be copied and reused. Once it is created it becomes part of your project file's Library.
Instance	A copy of the original symbol. The size, color, shape and position can be altered without affecting the original symbol
Graphic Symbol	Consists of artwork that can be either static or animated.
Main Timeline	This is the Timeline you've been working with so far, it is the default Timeline.
Graphic Symbol Timeline	Each Graphic Symbol has it's own Timeline.
Scene's Timeline	Projects can have multiple Scenes and each Scene has it's own Timeline.

Step 1 - Create a Shape on the Stage.

You know I don't really care if it's a frog or not... I have the frog so... I show you frogs!

Step 2 - Open the Libary panel (Window > Libary). Select your frog and drag it into the lower half of the Libary panel. This opens the Symbols Properties dialog box.

Name your Symbol, click that it's a Graphic, and pick a registration point.

What's a registration point? That's the point that you would use as the 'center' if you want to rotate the Symbol.

Click OK

Congratulations, you've just created your first Symbol.