Very Simple Flash Animation Help

[TupeloTechie]

For a production of To Gillian on her 37th Birthday I need a sliver of light to shoot across the stage on the actors faces (to represent a shooting star, however more symbolic than realistic.)

We have decided to go with a cheap DLP projector mounted on our position similar to a balcony rail(we don't have a balcony.) This is going to be the only effect the projector will be used for and will be repeated several times. When it is not used it is to be black. We are not going to worry about the "video black" as the director likes this anyway for scene changes.

I have very little experience with flash however I think that this would be the best program to create such an effect.

My general idea is just to create a simple motion tween of a white blob on a slight arched path (we are going to fuzz the focus of the projector.)

However I would like to be able to control this with the enter key or possibly a mouse click. I would like to have a black screen, and when the enter key is pressed the animation executes, leading directly into another black screen, which I could then trigger the animation again and again by the enter key or mouse click.

I have no idea how to do this or a method to get this animation to go full screen so no windows stuff will be visible. Is there anyone out there that can help me or provide suggestions?

 

[dsm]

You should be able to set up a simple onClick and/or onKeyPress event which plays the movie. I don't know actionscript specifically, but it should have an option, probably called something very similar to that.

As regards full screening it, you should be able to use displayState = "fullscreen". It'll have the same sort of effect as fullscreen with youtube, etc, so you may have a "Press Esc to cancel full screen" pop up for a bit.

Google is your friend, as are the flash help docs, so you should be able to find helpful information on these topics through them if you have no luck here.

 

[NickJones]

I LOVE Flash MX (I have 7 to but don't like it) but you can do the same effect a lot more easily in either Powerpoint, using custom animation. Thats super simple and almost anyone can use that. Or (Slightly more out there idea) get an old Over Head Projector, and cut a "Shooting Star" shaped cut in it, you could just slide it across a few times. Enough gaffa on it and it will work fine.
Good Luck,
Nick