Subtitles of the Movie

We now get to the Pen Tool. The Pen Tool is the only tool in the Flash Tool Box that doesn't resemble a tool from everyday life. Although by looking at the tool right here it resembles, a lot like an ordinary pen, it works quite a bit different. The purpose of the Pen Tool is to allow you to draw more complex shapes by combining both straight and curved lines in the same shape. Shapes created with the Pen Tool consist of paths, anchor points, and tangent handles, which you can then modify with the Sub-selection Tool, which I'll cover in the next Section of the Tutorial. I find that the Pen Tool, if you haven't used a tool like it in another application like Illustrator or another drawing tool, is quite a bit more complex and requires a lot more practice than some of the other tools. If you have used other vector-based drawing programs then you'll be instantly comfortable, probably, with the Pen Tool in Flash because it works much the same way. If you haven't used the Pen Tool before, as I said, it could take some getting used to. It'll probably require a good deal of practice on your part before you become real comfortable with it. You'll notice that there's also a variety of tools underneath the Pen Tool: the Add Anchor Point, Delete Anchor Point, and Convert Anchor Point Tools. I'll be reviewing those other three or four tools a little bit later, but for now let's focus in on the Pen Tool. You create Straight Line Segments by simply clicking on the Stage, like so. Notice that if you start and then end in the same location it creates a new object for you the next time you click on the tool. If you don't close the tool, notice that it just keeps adding to the existing shape until you actually close it. You'll notice that when I do close the tool the Icon changes to a little, a little zero there, a little o. Notice right there as I close it you see a little o next to the Pen Tool, that indicates that I'm going to be closing off that shape. Let's go ahead and erase all of those straight lines. Now, you'll be creating curved line segments by clicking and then dragging with your mouse. Again, closing it by clicking back where you started. I think this is the part of the tool that's a little bit hard to understand and work with. So, notice that I'm clicking there to create the first point and then I'm dragging and as I drag, I have my hand on my mouse button and I'm dragging down, and you'll notice that I get this, it's called a Bezier curve. If I let go those curves are still visible and then I can take the Sub-selection Tool, which I'll cover in more detail in the next section, and actually adjust the level of curvature between the two lines. If I take my Bezier Tool and move it in, notice that I've got the Selection Tool chosen and I don't have the Bezier curves. I can just move the line segment. But if I take the Sub-selection Tool and click on that end point I get these curves here, or these points, that allow you to adjust the level of curvature between nodes, or points, there. The longer the Bezier curve, the more curved the line segment is, and the shorter the Bezier curve the more straight it is, until if you move the end of that Bezier curve right onto the point you actually get a straight line. So, when the curve on the initial straight line is shaped the way you want it to, you just release the mouse button and the end result appears, while the control lines will disappear, notice that the control lines are done now, so let's go back and click on the Pen Tool and create again some more curved line segments. What I typically do with this tool is I have my students draw the shape of waves, and that really gives them an idea of how much control they have over the shapes and how well they're doing with the Pen Tool, so I have a file here in the Work Files Folder called Pen Tool and in the Time Line I have locked a layer with this wave diagram, so that's locked. Let's go ahead and close the Time Line there, and now what you can do is click on the other layer of the Time Line and then use the Pen Tool, and using a combination of straight and curved lines try to mimic the shape of these waves. You'll notice that it's going to require some both curved lines and straight lines, so I'm clicking and dragging to get that. So, you can then get a rough wave shape and then zoom in on that wave, probably at this point I can go back to my Time Line and hide the underlying shape there, and let's go ahead and close the Properties Inspector, close the Time Line, and then take the Sub-selection Tool and then you can modify individual points here using these Bezier curves to really get a fine-tune of that wave shape. Notice that I didn't do very well here so I need to go back and modify that. That might be a good little exercise in the next Section of the Tutorial when I talk more about modifying existing graphics that you created using the various tools here in the Tool Panel. So, to summarize, use the Pen Tool when you need to draw precise paths as either straight lines, or smooth flowing curves, or perhaps both. Use the Pen Tool when you want to convert curved lines to straight lines, or the reverse. You want to convert straight lines to curved lines. Use the Pen Tool to display and modify points on lines that you've created with other Flash drawing tools, such as the Pencil, Brush, Line, Oval, or Rectangle Tools, or when you need to adjust those lines. Now, the Pen Tool provides feedback about its current drawing state by displaying different pointers. Notice that there's a pointer with a plus sign, and then there's one with an x, and there's one there with a carat. These various drawing states are indicated by these pointers, so let me move on to the next movie and describe and discuss in more detail these various drawing states that are unique here to the Flash Pen Tool.