Editor’s review:

A lot of people use Flash’s hitTest() method for setting up collisions between 2 symbols, which is great, except when using on circles, hit test takes the outer dimensions of the entire symbol (a square), so it’s not an exact collision. This short Flash tutorial describes how to set up collisions of 2 circles where the collision is the curve lines of the circles rather than the symbol area. Pretty neat!

Also, nice explanation of the code accompanied by a short trigonometry lesson. But don’t worry, you don’t need to know trigonometry to complete this tutorial, it just helps explain what the code is doing.

ActionScript 2.0 and ActionScript 3.0 code is provided, although I couldn’t get the ActionScript 3.0 code to work correctly. Also, be careful when doing a copy/paste, as the AS2.0 code uses the HTML code for the less than symbol (“&lt;” vs “<”) on line 10. User will need to swap in the less than symbol if doing a copy and paste. Otherwise, the AS 2.0 code worked great!

View Tutorial: Flash Tutorial: Circle Collisons

Additional Info
Version: All
ActionScript: 2.0 and 3.0 code provided (note: editor could not get 3.0 code to work properly)
Online example: Yes
Source files available: No
Video Tutorial: No

Editor’s review:

Pretty nifty effect, and very easy to add. Would really like some more in-depth explanation of the code, but still a pretty good tutorial. Unfortunately, when I first tried to execute, I got a few errors (which is why I would have liked better explanation of the code). Using the “Output” window in Flash helped me troubleshoot, but for beginners, they might find this tutorial a little confusing.

Here are the 2 errors/changes I made for it to work:

//Create the mask which follows cursor movement (master mask)
var masterMask:MyMask=new MyMask(1);

In the second line of the code above, I simply removed the “1″ to read:

var masterMask:MyMask=new MyMask();

The other error was in this code:

//Create a new mask with random scale
var newMask:MyMask=new MyMask(scale);

Again, I simply removed the “scale” from between the parentheses to read:

var newMask:MyMask=new MyMask();

That did the the trick for me. Again, with more explanation, it would be easier to for a beginner to edit. Still, a great little effect, and if you know what to look for in the error output window, a pretty easy to implement Flash tutorial.

View Tutorial: Flash Tutorial: Random Mask Effect in  ActionScript 3.0

Additional Info
Version: CS3 and above
ActionScript: 3.0
Online example: Yes
Source files available: No
Video Tutorial: No

Editor’s review:

Very well explained tutorial for creating an effect that I’ve found many readers wondering how to do. Short and easy to follow, shouldn’t take more than 15 minutes even for Flash ActionScript 3.0 beginners.

Author’s Quote:

This tutorial will provide you with a step-by-step guide on how to create a custom cursor in Flash CS3 using AS3. This a simple trick for beginners which they can use in a Flash website, a game, or even an animation. This tutorial does not require any pre-requisite knowledge.

View Tutorial: Creating a custom cursor in Flash using ActionScript 3.0

Additional Info
Version: CS3 and above
ActionScript: 3.0
Online example: Yes
Source files available: No
Video Tutorial: No

Editor’s Review:

Another very simple to follow tutorial from www.flashessential.com on how to draw curved lines using only Flash ActionScript 3.0 code. Sort of a “Part 2″ to their tutorial on Drawing Lines With AS3, this is another great starter tutorial for individuals looking to start to learn Flash AS3. Very clear, and nice descriptions to explain each line of code. Simple lines of code, and you can change the colors/coordinates to do your own experimenting.

Note: If you copy and paste the code from the page, you will need to keystrok the “x” in line 3 where it says “0×333333″. The “x” in the example code does not translate correctly into the Flash Actions panel. Took me a couple minutes to figure it out, but once I changed that, it worked great.

View Tutorial: AS3 Guide Drawing Curves

Additional Info
Level: Beginner
Version: Flash CS3 and up
ActionScript: 3.0
Online example: Yes
Source files available: No
Video Tutorial: No

Editor’s Review:

Pretty simple to follow tutorial on how to draw lines using only Flaxh ActionScript 3.0 code. Great starter tutorial for individuals looking to start to learn Flash AS3. Very clear, and nice descriptions (and illustrations) to explain each line of code. Simple lines of code, and you can change the colors/coordinates to do your own experimenting.

Note: If you copy and paste the code from the page, you will need to keystrok the “x” in line 3 where it says “0×333333″. The “x” in the example code does not translate correctly into the Flash Actions panel. Took me a couple minutes to figure it out, but once I changed that, it worked great.

View Tutorial: AS3 Guide Drawing Lines

Additional Info
Level: Beginner
Version: Flash CS3 and up
ActionScript: 3.0
Online example: Yes
Source files available: No
Video Tutorial: No

Editor’s Review:

This tutorial has not yet been reviewed. Please feel free to add your own review in the comments below.

Authors quote:

You have two ways of creating animations in Flash. You can create them using the timeline, or you can create them using code. For code-based animations, I’ve always written about using variants of EnterFrame. One thing I’ve never talked about is using the tween class to create animations, and it’s time to change that with this tutorial….

… In this tutorial, I will explain how to use the Tween class to create an animation using code. Before diving into the code though, let’s look at tweening using the timeline.

View Tutorial: Tweening with Code

Additional Info
Level: Intermediate
Version: CS3
ActionScript: 3.0
Online example: Yes
Source files available: Yes
Video Tutorial: No

View Tutorial: Flash ActionScript 3.0 Fountain (particle effect) tutorial

Editor’s Review:

Very short tutorial with some nicely commented code that shows you how to do a colorful particle effect. While this tutorial simply creates a set of colorful circles bouncing up from the bottom of the stage, if you dissect the code a little and experiment a little bit you can probably find some great uses for this type of effect (personally, I’m thinking “sparkler”… I’ll have to play around a little bit when I have the time).

Bottom line, nice effect using a short amount of ActionScript 3.0 code (it only looks like a lot of code since it’s well commented).

Additional Info
Level: Beginner
Version: CS3
ActionScript: 3.0
Online example: Yes
Source files available: No
Video Tutorial: No

View Tutorial: Bouncing text flash animation

Editor’s Review:

Very short Flash tutorial that shows how to create a nice little bouncing text animation. Nicely commented code, and very easy to follow. However, there is one step that the writer didn’t mention that might cause problems for beginners. After you break apart the text, you need to click on each separate letter and convert it to a movie clip symbol (Modify > Convert to Symbol or F8). Now that each letter is a symbol, you can apply an instance name to each, and then follow the rest of the tutorial as stated.

A little self promotion here, but I found this tutorial particularly interesting because it creates a similar effect created in one of my own Flash tutorials on www.mikestickney.com: Flash zoom tutorial. Differences being my tutorial is written for AS 2.0 and uses tween animation, while this animation is done purely in ActionScript to get a similar effect.

Overall, pretty easy Flash tutorial worth checking out to get your feet wet with Flash ActionScript 3.0.

Additional Info
Level: Beginner
Version: CS3
ActionScript: 3.0
Online example: Yes
Source files available: No
Video Tutorial: No

View Tutorial: Creating an XML Gallery with ActionScript 3.0

Editor’s Review:

This tutorial has not yet been reviewed. Please feel free to add your own review in the comments below.

Authors quote:

For any dynamic Flash project, XML will be a powerful tool (…) I will be talking about how to use Flash and XML to make a simple, yet superfly, gallery.

OK, now that we’ve looked at the XML we need to make it work with ActionScript 3. In Adobe Flash CS3 I created a new AS3 FLA doc and a new AS doc. In the FLA I simply created some very basic MovieClips for my left and right arrows and I placed a TextField at the bottom of my stage (which I set to 600 X 700 with a black background). After naming my instances and setting up the Document Class linkage I was done with the FLA side of thing and the rest is ActionScript.

Additional Info
Level: Intermediate
Version: CS3
ActionScript: 3.0
Online example: Yes
Source files available: Yes (Flash and XML)
Video Tutorial: No

View Tutorial: Custom Scrollbar in Flash AS3

Editor’s Review:

This tutorial has not yet been reviewed. Please feel free to add your own review in the comments below.

Authors quote:

This is a simple and quick tutorial for creating a custom scroll bar. We’ll dynamically load in our text using an array in Actionscript then we’ll connect a custom scrollbar. In the files below we have three Movie Clips on the stage, two hands and a square. The two hands will act as our pointers allowing us to gradually scroll up and down. The square will act as our slider allowing us to slide the content up or down as you would do with a normal scrollbar slider.

Additional Info
Level: Intermediate
Version: CS3
ActionScript: 3.0
Online example: Yes
Source files available: Yes (start and finish)
Video Tutorial: No