A spinning ring is a great effect for beginning animators just trying your chops at Flash. It's simple and you can make it in five minutes. Best of all, you will introduce yourself to Flash's drawing tools, timeline and ActionScript. Read on to learn create a spinning ring effect in Macromedia Flash Pro.
Instructions
1. Open a new document in Flash (if it's Flash CS3, open the document as ActionScript 2.0). Choose "Document" from the Modify menu and set the speed to 48 frames per second (fps).
2. Draw a circle with the oval tool. Hold the shift key down to constrain it to a perfect circle. Choose the black and white gradient for the fill and no stoke. Draw a smaller, white-filled circle over the top and use the align palette to align them at the center.
3. Select the gradient circle. Open the color palette and change the gradient type to "Linear." Drag the white gradient slider to the center and add second black gradient stop at the opposite end. The gradient will shift from black to white to black and make it possible to see the rotation (if the fill was solid, you couldn't see the spin).
4. Shift-click on both circles to select both. Convert them to a symbol (F8). Choose "Movie Clip" as the symbol option and name the symbol "Ring." Double click on the symbol to open they movie clip's timeline.
5. Animate the timeline. Click in Frame 48 and convert it to a keyframe (F6). Now click anywhere on the layer and choose "Create Motion Tween" from the Insert menu Timeline submenu (this may vary depending on your version of Flash). Finally, click on the black circle in Frame 48 and enter a rotation of 180 degrees in the Transform palette.
6. Add action script. Create a new layer and add a keyframe in the new layer's Frame 48. Click on the new keyframe and type "gotoAndPlay(1);" in the ActionScript editor window.
7. Return to the main timeline and choose "Test Movie" from the Control menu. If you did everything correctly, you will see the ring spin.
Tags: black white, Macromedia Flash, spinning ring, white gradient