© Xara Group 2008

In this short tutorial I’m going to show you how to create

this effective seasonal Flash animation - with only 3 key-

frames!

If you don’t have time to follow this tutorial and create

your own animation, no worries - you can download the

xar files for my finished animation and snowflake designs 

(to change the company name to your own, simply edit the

text in Frame 2 and 3, see below).

Or you can follow these steps to recreate the animation:

Choose File > New > Animation to open a new animation

document.

Set the page size to the size of the animation, in this case

240 x 400 pixels: File > Page Options...

My animation starts with a blue background. So to

start, create a rectangle with the Rectangle tool

that is the exact page size. By default it will be

black so open the Color Editor (right click on the black

rectangle and select Color Editor) and then edit the colors

until you find the shade you’re looking for. To make things

easier for me later on I gave my color a name: click the

Name icon on the top of the Color Editor, enter a

name (I chose ‘Theme Color 1’). Now you should

see your new Named Color as a square on the left

hand side of the Color Line.

Note: It isn’t necessary to use Named Colors for Flash but,

as with any image, using Named Colors makes it a lot

easier to experiment with the colors later (see below).

Apply a graduated transparency to the background

rectangle (go to the Transparency tool and drag

from the top to the bottom of the rectangle).

Name the rectangle ‘Background’. This is an important

point to remember for Flash animations - all objects that

are going to change must be given names when you

first create them. Click on the Name icon on the

Selector Tool InfoBar, enter the name ‘Background’,

click Create.

Next, draw your snowflakes.

I created 6 different flake designs.

(You can download them here).

Xara Xtreme - Xmas Flash Animation -1-

Click the right arrow below to move to the next page

The final 3 frame Flash animation

Create the theme color

Name every object as you create it