Menu Roll-Over Animation Help w/ Flash MX 2004

[Loren Scott]

Hi Gang,

I am relatively new to Flash, and am currently using Flash MX 2004. I am trying to create a menu effect similar to that used on comedian Richard Schimmel's site ([url]http://www.robertschimmel.com[/url]).

Specifically, as the mouse passes over each menu item, the blur effect is applied to the menu text. I know how to do that specific effect on a mouse-over. But...

Here is the part I cannot figure out.... As you move from mousing over one menu item to the next, not only does the animation START on the next menu item, but it completes running on the previous menu item. In other words, mousing over the second menu item does not make the effect on the previous menu item immediately snap back to a non-mouse-over state.

That part stumps me.

Could someone please give me specific steps and/or a small sample .FLA to achieve this task?

On a similar note, I need to create a roll-over (or on-click) effect for a photo gallery. For example, when the viewer clicks an image thumbnail, it zooms in and displays text about the image. I can do that part so far. However, what stumps me is this.... When they then click a different thumbnail, I want to have the currently-zoomed image (if any) to zoom back down to the thumbnail as the newly-clicked image zooms in. All I get in my current attempts is that clicking on the second image cause the other image to snap back to its thumbnail state and then the next image zooms in. :(

I'm guessing that these two tasks probably use similar techniques. Any assistance on this would be GREATLY appreciated.

Thanks,

--Loren--

[Loren Scott]

Anyone... Anyone.... Bueller?

[DEJ885]

Dear buddy,

this is really quite a simple effect.

I would assume that the effect is a small animation inside a movieclip.

This clip is stopped on a blank frame at "1".

When the mouse rollsOver the clip it plays all the way through to an end frame
which has an action on it saying:

gotoAndStop("1");

Simple.

Do you understand?

[DEJ885]

Oh, and in reply to the second part of you question:

I am assuming you have the "zoom-out" effect in your thumbnail movie.

You need to add an "if" statement to the on(release) handlers of your
thumbnail movies telling each to play the "zoom-out" part of the other movie if
they are stopped at a certain frame.

So perhaps something like this for movie1_mc:

on (release) {

this.gotoAndPlay("2");

if(this._parent.movie2_mc._currentFrame ==
("stopped"))this._parent.movie2_mc.gotoAndPlay("zo omout");

}

I hope this makes sense.

I have used this type of effect and it works fine.

[Loren Scott]

Ahhh.... So each of my animated menu items should be saved in the library as
Movie Clips? That is something I was not already doing. I just had the
static text there as a button, and on the mouse over event, I was having it
jump to another frame in the scene, which included another copy of that text
that used the blur effect, then it would complete and loop back to frame 0.

So, if I understand correctly, if I have the animated version of the menu
item saved as a movie clip, and place that on the stage over (or under) the
static text and have it do the same jumping to that frame where the movie
clip will play, then it would continue playing to completion even if they
have already moved the mouse cursor over another menu (which would then
animate as well)?

I am VERY new to this. So, pardon me if my questions are fairly brain-dead.
:)

Thanks for the assist!

--Loren--



"DEJ885" <webforumsuser@macromedia.com> wrote in message
news:c4l2va$kql$1@forums.macromedia.com...

> Dear buddy,
>
> this is really quite a simple effect.
>
> I would assume that the effect is a small animation inside a movieclip.
>
> This clip is stopped on a blank frame at "1".
>
> When the mouse rollsOver the clip it plays all the way through to an end

frame

> which has an action on it saying:
>
> gotoAndStop("1");
>
> Simple.
>
> Do you understand?
>

[Loren Scott]

As with my previous reply to your suggesting, I was not using the zoom
effect in a movie clip at all. In this case, I was just using a shape tween
to transform the scale of the image. Once the mouse clicked on the
thumbnail image (in frame 0), I just had it jumping to another frame in the
timeline where the tween for that image takes place. But, as I mentioned,
as soon as they click on another image, the first image would snap back as
the next image zoomed out. So, I will try your suggestion.

Still, I'm not 100% certain I follow how it knows to scale the zoomed image
back down to the thumbnail size once another thumbnail has been clicked (and
starts to zoom in itself). But... I will research using movie clips some
more and see if what you suggested makes more sense then.

Thank you for your assist!

--Loren--

"DEJ885" <webforumsuser@macromedia.com> wrote in message
news:c4lltb$7n3$1@forums.macromedia.com...

> Oh, and in reply to the second part of you question:
>
> I am assuming you have the "zoom-out" effect in your thumbnail movie.
>
> You need to add an "if" statement to the on(release) handlers of your
> thumbnail movies telling each to play the "zoom-out" part of the other

movie if

> they are stopped at a certain frame.
>
> So perhaps something like this for movie1_mc:
>
> on (release) {
>
> this.gotoAndPlay("2");
>
> if(this._parent.movie2_mc._currentFrame ==
> ("stopped"))this._parent.movie2_mc.gotoAndPlay("zo omout");
>
> }
>
> I hope this makes sense.
>
> I have used this type of effect and it works fine.
>
>