Hi there - I have created a peice of clothing in Illustrator that
looks 3D because of the gradient meshes I'm using. The artwork is
intended to be used in a Flash application online - specifically the
Flash app will allow the user to change colors on the outfit itself -
like a simple paint tool.

The only way I can think of to let Flash change the colors of say, the
sleeves, is to put a red sleeve shape on a layer beneath the gradient
mesh sleeve and then simply change the color of that red shape.
Ideally the gradient mesh would basically just be shadows and a lot of
transparency.

From what I can tell, the gradient mesh isn't allowing transparency -
has to have white. If that's the case, the only way to let a color
show through in Flash is to change the transparecy of the artwork -
(Flash won't let me do a multiply effect or anything like that).
Changing the transparency doesn't seem to do the trick very well
because either the shadows are too lite or the colors are very pale
looking when they start to show through.

Any suggestions?

Thanks!

G