Masking is revealing portion of your picture or graphic in the layer below. This tutorial will teach you the basics of masking in Flash MX 2004. The download .fla file is also included at the end of the tutorial.

Please note:
1. You need to have Flash Player 7.0 installed to view the Flash animation.
2. Flash MX 2004 must be installed in your system to complete this .fla tutorial.

Steps to follow:

Inserting Layers and Naming them

1. By default you will have a layer in your timeline window. Insert one more layer, totally you need two layers to mask an object.
2. Rename the top layer to "Mask" and the layer below that to "background".
   

Creating Shape Tween

1. Import your picture to the "background" layer.
   
2. Using Oval tool from your tool box, draw a circle in your "Mask" layer and delete it's border.
   
3. Drag the circle to one end of your picture.
   
4. Now go to"frame 40" of your "Mask" layer and press "F6" to insert a new keyframe.
   
5. Now go to "frame 40" of your "background" layer and press "F5" to insert frames, so that your background image is available all through your mask.
   
6. Select "frame 40" of your "Mask" layer, that is your new keyframe, Keeping the playhead on "frame 40" of "Mask" layer, drag the circle to other end of your picture.
   
7. Now go back to "frame 1" of your "Mask" layer, keeping the playhead on "frame 1" of your "Mask" layer, select Shape tween in your properties window.
   

Masking

1. Right click on the "Mask" layer (the area where you named the layer not where the frames exist) and select Mask.

Below is an example to give you more ideas on Masking.

Click here to download "Masking" Fla File

Masking in Flash Animation

To read about Shape Tween, Click here.

To read about Motion Tween, Click here.

To read about Fade in Effect, Click here.

To read about using Layers , Click here

Related downloads

Click here to download Masking Fla File