Mathematical functions within Flash seems to be an area that most people like to stay well clear of. Of course, this area of Flash can be very daunting and difficult to get a hold of, so to ease you in, I thought I'd write a tutorial that takes a mathematical theory that we all know and mix it up with just enough Actionscript to help you into the thought-provoking world of maths in Flash without straying too far away from the graphical advantages it also offers.

Roll your mouse around the area below to see what I'm going to help you create:

[ an example of what you will create ]

Can you see what's happening? The transparency (alpha) of the different movieclips on the stage are changing depending on how close your mouse is to them! Pretty neat, eh?

1. First off, open up your document properties by clicking on "Size" on the property manager when there's nothing selected. Change the dimensions to 325 x 240, change the framerate to 25 (just so our final movie is a little smoother) and click ok.
2. Create a new movieclip by clicking on the "Insert" menu and selecting "New Symbol". Choose the "Movieclip" behaviour and enter a name of "circle".
3. Using Flash's drawing tools, draw a borderless circle (it doesn't have to be red!) freehand on the stage. It doesn't matter if it's a perfect circle or even what size as you should now change it's width and height to 70x70 using the property inspector. To do so, just select your circle and type in these details like below:

   

   [ if you can't see the property inspector, hit Control+F3 ]

4. Now center the circle on your stage by selecting it and then using the "Align Horizontal Center" and "Align Vertical Center" buttons on the "Align" panel shown below:

   

   [ bring up the align panel by hitting Control+K ]

5. Create another movieclip. You can use the steps shown in step two but whilst you're messing around, why not learn a few shortcuts. This time, hit Control+F8 which will do the same thing. Give it a name of "distancing" and make it a movieclip. Hit OK.

Note

The movieclip you have just created isn't actually going to contain anything! Instead, we have created it so we can use a wicked piece of Actionscript called "onClipEvent (enterFrame)" (which is only available to movieclips). This allows us to have a set of commands executed over and over, each time the playhead of that movieclip is reached.

6. Hopefully that note made sense to you, if it didn't come through too clear, don't worry! Things should become more evident soon. For now though, open up your library (Control+L) and change to your "circle" movieclip by double-clicking it.
7. Now, whilst we're inside our "circle" movieclip, drag a copy (or "instance") of the "distancing" movieclip onto the stage. You now have a movieclip inside a movieclip!
    

Ok, we're all set! Dare you click through to the next page and delve into some filthy Actionscript!?

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