Tweening text transparency / fading in text

very easy, very fast
also... you can import gifs with transparencies no problem

sorry I missed this guys.

swish is ok for VERY basic things, like basic text effects. And since that's what you
wanted, great! I'm glad it worked for you.

But, if you plan to get more involved with making flash stuff, using flash mx is BY
FAR the better way to go. Since you're a prgrammer type, you'd like it too, cuz
everything you want to do in flash, you can do with 100% code rather than tweens.
This is usually preferred by coders like yourself and bigweb.

Flash is very flexible and powerful. Much more so than it's given credit for in the
general public. That's becuase of poor designers making poor flash designs.

So if Ed didn't resort to Swish to solve his problem, how would you solve the problem he originally had with Flash MX? might be nice to know the answer there as well.

thats for sure
cause i would rather use flash MX and get good at it then use swish.

Easiest way to get a text fade effect:

1. Create a new movie and change the size to whatever you wish, and type out
whatever text you want using the text tool. Set the font color to something other
than white.

2. Select the text box (so it gets a blue box around it), and make sure u are on
the arrow tool. Check the X,Y coordinates of the text box in the Properties window,
and adjust any thing this is not set to a whole number. For example: x=2.1,
y=1.4 should be x=2.0, y=1.0. this will ensure the text is crisp and not distorted.

3. Right click on the text and click convert to symbol or press F8. Convert the text
to a Movie Clip and press ok. A small circle with an + should appear now in the
center of your text, showing that it is now a symbol.

4. Now right click on the movie clip you just made, and go to the properties
window again. You should see a panel appear and at the right of the properties
box, including a color section. A drop-dwon menu should read "None" at this
point.

5. Change the drop-down menu to "Alpha." Just to the right of that, is a
percentage bar that will appear. Drag it down to 0%. You should see the text
fade down as you move the % bar. Going down to 0% will make your text
invisible.

6. Now, go up to your timeline and select frame 30. Right click in the frame and
select "Insert Keyframe."

7. Go down to your movie clip again, and select it. Go to the properties window
and and slide the & bar backup to 100%.

8. Select frame 1 again. You should see your text is not visible on this frame.

9. Make sure the movie clip is still selected, then right-click in frame 1, and select
Creat Motion Tween. This will add a purple color to the frames between 1 and 30.
Also an arrow is there as well.

10. Press Ctrl+enter to view the movie.

11. If you want your text to fade back out, insert another keyframe at frame 60
and change the alpha again to 0%.

that's it!

I've done as you explained, UNFLUX, and in Flash MX everything seems hunkydory, fading and all, but once I publish, the fading disappears...

What can I do to preserve the fading when I make the published flash movie? What could be causing this?

what do you mean by disappears?? can you explain a bit more?

and welcome to ozzu

once i publish, the text doesnt fade in any more. it just appears at whatever point the sprite starts on the timeline as if the alpha was all set to 100%.

thanks for the greetings. i'm glad to be here

I am having the same exact issue. I've done this before but it aint working now.

I've tried deleting my graphic symbol and recreating it, retweening, everything! not sure what I am missing.



-on edit.

for what ever reason... I had to make a bitmap image first then make it into a symbol. I read something on Macromedia that said it only works with bitmaps. (flash 5) even though I am using 7)