Adobe Flash Professional CS3 - Manual (Page 220)

FLASH CS3
User Guide
214
About changing instance properties
Each symbol instance has its own properties that are separate from the symbol. You can change the tint, trans-
parency, and brightness of an instance; redefine how the instance behaves (for example, change a graphic to a movie
clip); and specify how animation plays inside a graphic instance. You can also skew, rotate, or scale an instance
without affecting the symbol.
In addition, you can name a movie clip or button instance so that you can use ActionScript to change its properties.
For more information, see Classes in Learning ActionScript 2.0 in Adobe Flash or Objects and classes in Programming
ActionScript 3.0. To edit instance properties, you use the Property inspector (Windows > Properties > Properties).
The properties of an instance are saved with it. If you edit a symbol or relink an instance to a different symbol, any
instance properties you’ve changed still apply to the instance.
Change the color and transparency of an instance
Each instance of a symbol can have its own color effect. To set color and transparency options for instances, use the
Property inspector. Settings in the Property inspector also affect bitmaps placed in symbols.
When you change the color and transparency for an instance in a specific frame, Flash makes the change as soon as
it displays that frame. To make gradual color changes, apply a motion tween. When tweening color, you enter
different effect settings in starting and ending keyframes of an instance, and then tween the settings to make the
instance’s colors shift over time.
Note: If you apply a color effect to a movie clip symbol that has multiple frames, Flash applies the effect to every frame
in the movie clip symbol.
1 Select the instance on the Stage, and select Window > Properties > Properties.
2 In the Property inspector, select one of the following options from the Color menu:
Brightness Adjusts the relative lightness or darkness of the image, measured on a scale from black (–100%) to white
(100%). To adjust brightness, click the triangle and drag the slider or enter a value in the box.
Tint Colors the instance with the same hue. To set the tint percentage from transparent (0%) to completely saturated
(100%), use the Tint slider in the Property inspector. To adjust tint, click the triangle and drag the slider or enter a
value in the box. To select a color, enter red, green, and blue values in the respective boxes, or click the color control
and select a color from the Color Picker.
Alpha Adjusts the transparency of the instance, from transparent (0%) to completely saturated (100%). To adjust the
alpha value, click the triangle and drag the slider or enter a value in the box.
Advanced Separately adjusts the red, green, blue, and transparency values of an instance. This is most useful to
create and animate subtle color effects on objects such as bitmaps. The controls on the left let you reduce the color
or transparency values by a specified percentage. The controls on the right let you reduce or increase the color or
transparency values by a constant value.
The current red, green, blue, and alpha values are multiplied by the percentage values, and then added to the constant
values in the right column, producing the new color values. For example, if the current red value is 100, setting the
left slider to 50% and the right slider to 100% produces a new red value of 150 ([100 x .5] + 100 = 150).
Note: The Advanced settings in the Effect panel implement the function (a * y+ b)= x where a is the percentage specified
in the left set of boxes, y is the color of the original bitmap, b is the value specified in the right set of boxes, and x is the
resulting effect (between 0 and 255 for RGB, and 0 and 100 for alpha transparency).