deadlygeek.com

Groovy geometric shapes and easy kaleidoscope effects in Flash

This video is not available.

Introduction

Do you remember those paper snowflakes we made in school as kids? You’d fold up a sheet of paper, make some random cuts with plastic scissors and unfold it to reveal your hidden artistic genius?

A few years back while teaching a Flash course I developed an exercise a lot like that. It was intended to illustrate how MovieClips can be placed inside other MovieClips. The exercise turned out to be a lot more fun then expected. My students and I got lost in the endless art and design possibilities of this simple technique.

This video tutorial doesn’t focus on the technical details of embedded MovieClips but it does show you the simple steps needed to create some beautiful and emergent design patterns in Flash.

Create the Base Layer

The first step when making this type of button is creating the base layer. This layer defines the shape of your button and will eventually hold it’s background colour and stripe effect.

Creating the base.

SciFi Pattern

First we will create a SciFi pattern.

Using Letters

Next I use a simple letter ‘S’ to create some unexpected designs.

Icy Snowflake

Using short straight lines I will create a traditional style snowflake. If there is such a thing as a traditional snowflake!