Flash Tool - Fast to Symbol 2 (BETA)

Introduction:
Convert a selection into a symbol positioning the center of the symbol at the mouse current position and do that without a symbol dialog box, making the symbolizing process faster and painless.

This is a essential tool. Much better them the default symbol conversion that comes with flash!

How it works:
Just select what you want to convert to symbol, put your mouse where you want the middle of the symbol to be and hit the command (This means that this command NEEDS TO be a shortcut... I use F8).

By default Fast to Symbol will create a graphic, single framed symbol using the default Flash naming of "Symbol" in all of them. You can change those settings in the menu.

Using the menu:
If nothing is selected when you hit the shortcut for the fast2symbol command a menu will open with several options so you can configure your preferences.

Choose symbol naming: Enter the name that you want as a default name for symbols.

Choose symbol type: You can choose between Graphic (default), Movie Clip and Button. If type is not Graphic the symbol loop is ignored!

Choose symbol loop:You can choose between Single Frame (default), Play Once and Loop.

After convertion: Choose between Keep Selection (default) of the symbol or deselect the symbol. Very useful if you draw everything and then you do a pass of symbol conversions before you animate.

Change Tool: Choose between Don't Change (default) your tool or change it to Free Transform. Very useful if you are animating and need to create more symbols on the fly, tween them etc...

Paint closed drawings: Choose between Paint or Don't Paint (default) closed drawings. It paints only the lines and fills on the selection. Very, very, very useful for fast animatics, storyboards and some kinds of stylized animation.

Choose painting color: Choose between 6 default colours to use on the Paint Closed Drawings process.

Tips:
The best way to work with symbols is to try to draw things horizontally or vertically as much as possible... Do your symbols like that and will be much easier to deform them later.

Instalation:
This extension was tested in FlashCS3 only!
You will need Adobe Extension Manager to install this tool.
If you already have it just Download the 2.1 release and double click it.

To install a new release just download the MXP file, double click it and replace the old files with the new ones!

If you dig this tool and want to help me develop more like this one, feel free to DONATE!

Bugs:
Known bugs of the 2.1 release:
-Doesn't fully work in other versions of Flash (just in Flash CS3).
-If the frame being converted has a previous synced tween frame the conversion isn't made: 'unsync' or 'untween' the current frame before you use the tool.

known bugs of the 2.0 release:
-When using the paint feature and Fill color is set to "none" on the Flash toolbar panel: Crashes Flash!!!

If you found a bug or wish to request a feature for this tool, just leave a comment here!

Flash Tool - Fast Tween

Introduction:
Assign tweens to layers automatically.

How it works:
F3: Switch between no tween, harmonic and constant tween.
F2: Assign ease in tween.
F4: Assign ease out tween.

You can Assign tweens to the selected layers or, if no layers are selected, to the unlocked layers.
All the tweens assign are custom curves.
Harmonic tweens are slower at the beginning and the end of the movement.

Instalation:

You NEED TO assign F2, F3 e F4 shortcuts to this one command to make it work properly.

You will need Adobe Extension Manager to install this tool.
If you already have it just Download the tool and double click it.

If you dig this tool and want to help me develop more like this one, feel free to DONATE!

Flash Tool - Turn to Ghost (BETA)

Introduction:
Switch layers between ghost(guide with a grey colour) state and the layer initial state(before the use of the tool).

How it works:
Select a group of layers (like 2 or 3) and hit the tool to make them ghosts. Now select all layers (ctrl+alt+A) and hit the tool again to exchange the ghost for the non-ghost layers. This tool is very useful to render different group of layers in separated archives (Like, to bring separated layers to composition in After Effects for example).

The ghost layer are nothing but a guide layer with a especial grey colour (#e6e6e6) on it!
That means that: If you create a guide layer by the layer properties menu and change it colour to the grey above you got yourself a ghost layer :)

The difference between the Turn2Guide and Turn2Ghost is that now you can turn a guide layer, a guided layer, a mask layer or a masked layer into a ghost or back to their initial states and switch very fast between both states in all layers at once. Even if you save and open the file again Flash will remember the initial state and organization (parenting) of the layers.

Known bugs so far:
This is a BETA tool which means that it stills in development. Below a list of known bugs:

• It doesn't work perfectly with closed folders yet!
  

If you got yourself a new bug with this tool please report it with a comment at this post and help me to help everybody else :)

Instalation:
You will need Adobe Extension Manager to install this tool.
If you already have it just Download the tool and double click it.

If you dig this tool and want to help me develop more like this one, feel free to DONATE!

Flash Tool - Fast Key Framing

Introduction:
Create a column of key frames depending of what is selected. If nothing is selected the command create a column of key frames on the unlocked layers.

How it works:
Select the symbols on the stage and use the command to key frame them at each frame you need to animate. Don't select anything to key frame all the layers left unlocked. Select layers instead of symbols if you wish!

Instalation:
You will need Adobe Extension Manager to install this tool.
If you already have it just Download the tool and double click it.

If you dig this tool and want to help me develop more like this one, feel free to DONATE!

Flash Tool - By 1,2,3...

Introduction:
That is a set of 3 tools to grows or shrink a selection of keyframes inserting or deleting frames between them. Just work in 1 layer per time.

How it works:
Just select the frames and use the By_More to grow the exposition of the selected frames. Use the By_Less to shrink the exposition of the selected frames. Use the ByOne to keep just the key frames of the selection.

Instalation:
You will need Adobe Extension Manager to install this tool.
If you already have it just Download the tool and double click it.

If you dig this tool and want to help me develop more like this one, feel free to DONATE!

Flash Tool - Key Navigation

Introduction:
Function like the native next and previous frame functions, but it jumps to the next or previous key frame.

How it works:
You can assign shortcuts to these commands like Page Up and Page Down or Shift+> and Shift+<.

Instalation:
You will need Adobe Extension Manager to install this tool.
If you already have it just Download the tool and double click it.

If you dig this tool and want to help me develop more like this one, feel free to DONATE!

Flash Tools

Hello World!!!! And welcome to the new area of the blog where I gonna give some free tools for flash animators. Some of then I use for years now and some will be like beta test versions.... One way or the other you will do things faster and easier... Enjoy ;)

List of Flash Tools available:

• Fast2Symbol 2
• Fast Tween
• Fast Key Framing
• By 1,2,3...
• Key Navigation
• Turn2Ghost
• Turn2Guide

You will need Adobe Extension Manager to install any of those Flash tools.

All the tools are made for Adobe Flash CS3 but some may work with Flash8.

If you have any questions, bug reports or if you want to suggest a modification e-mail me: diegostoliar at yahoo dot com or leave a comment at the tool post.

And if you tested and liked some of the tools, feel free to help me do more and DONATE :)

Flash Tool - Turn to Guide

Introduction:
This is a simple but effective tool that switch a group of layers to guides or back to the normal state.

How it works:
You just need to select some layers and hit the tool. You can also create a Shortcut for this tool.

Instalation:
You will need Adobe Extension Manager to install this tool.
If you already have it just Download the tool and double click it.

If you dig this tool and want to help me develop more like this one, feel free to DONATE!