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Flash Reference Guide

Aug 22, 2003

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In this section of the Flash 8 Guide, you'll be looking at two new features related to images in Flash 8. The first is improved image bitmap rendering quality and the second is a new scripting feature called Blend Modes.

Bitmap Rendering Improvements

In the past, you have more than likely noticed that Flash has not always played nicely with bitmap images. Particularly complex images with a lot of color and movement are not always presented correctly. You'll be delighted to know that this problem has been significantly addressed with Flash 8. In the image below you can see a Flash 7 and Flash 8 screen shot of the same image:

Figure 6

The differences are subtle. Look at the Flash 7 image, focus on the people's heads, and then compare that to the Flash 8 image. You will see that image presented is less choppy, or what is often called "pixilated."

With Flash now supporting a wider range of bitmap images, including JPG, GIF, and PNG, it is good to know that the Player will present exactly what you're displaying.

Working With Blend Modes

A blend mode is a filter that you can apply to a movie clip, which will affect the presentation of the image or movie clip below it. A blend mode is essentially a mask that applies photo filter effects such as inverse, difference, and invert color effects.

A blend mode can only be applied to a movie clip. Anything that lies beneath the movie clip will be affected by the blend. For instance, below is a movie clip with a bitmap image:

Figure 7

Below the movie clip is the following image:

Figure 8

You can now apply a blend mode to the movie clip to change the appearance of the image below it. The following demonstrates the effect "Invert" applied to the top movie clip:

Figure 9

It's not hard to add a blend mode to a movie clip. All you need is a movie clip with a name and an object, such as an image, below the movie clip. You can treat the process in exactly the same way you would in creating a mask.

In the example above, I created a movie clip with the name "mc." Below the movie clip is the image of the sail boat. To add the invert blend mode I wrote the following ActionScript:

mc.blendMode = "invert";

Test the movie and you'll see the new blend mode applied to the movie clip.

There are 14 blend modes you can use. They are:

"normal"
"layer"
"multiply"
"screen"
"lighten"
"darken"
"add"
"subtract"
"difference"
"invert"
"overlay"
"hardlight"
"alpha"
"erase"

Try using each of these effects to see what they produce.

Writing a Blend Mode Application

To help you get started with blend modes, I've written a little application. The focus of the application is to allow you to see quickly how each blend mode affects a movie clip. The final result will look like this:

Figure 10

You will have a drop-down ComboBox that will list all of the blend modes. When you select a blend mode, it will be immediately applied and the name of the blend mode will be posted to the label at the bottom of the screen.

For this application to work, you need to add the following to your Library:

You need two bitmap images
Create a movie clip, name it "mc," and add one of the bitmap images to it
Create a second movie clip with the Linkage name "blend"
Drag an instance of the ComboBox and Label Components into the Library

Open the "blend" movie clip. Drag an instance of the bitmap image you have not used onto the Stage. Drag an instance of the "mc" movie clip into the "blend" movie clip and place it directly on top of the bitmap. Add the ID "mc" to the properties panel to the instance of the "mc" movie clip.

Go to the main timeline and select frame 1 from layer 1. Add the following ActionScript:

var blend_array:Array = new Array("multiply", "screen", "lighten", "darken", "normal", "layer", "add", "subtract", "difference", "invert", "hardlight", "overlay", "alpha", "erase");
_root.attachMovie("ComboBox","cbx1",10);
cbx1._x = 15;
cbx1._y = 200;
cbx1.dataProvider = blend_array;
cbx1.rowCount = blend_array.length;
_root.attachMovie("Label", "lbl1", 20);
lbl1._x = 15;
lbl1._y = 230;
lbl1.text = "";
lbl1.autoSize = "left";
_root.attachMovie("blend", "blend_mc", 30);
blend_mc._x = 15;
blend_mc._y = 20;
var cbListener:Object = new Object();
cbListener.change = function(evt_obj:Object) {
	blend_mc.mc.blendMode = cbx1.selectedItem;
	lbl1.text = "The blendMode you have chosen is "+cbx1.selectedItem;
};
cbx1.addEventListener("change", cbListener);

Now, test your movie. You'll see that the Array at the beginning of the ActionScript dynamically populates the ComboBox. A Listener added to the ComboBox reacts when you select an item.

As you can see, you can have a lot of fun with blend modes. You can think of them as a programmatic extension to your masks.

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