Adobe After Effects – Importing Assets

You can import graphics, sound, and video into Flash. With the exception of video, assets are actually imported into FLAs, not just linked. In other words, after importing a graphic, you can delete it from your hard drive. It will still be available in the FLA file and generated SWF.

SWF files can only contain JPEG and PNG graphics and MP3 audio (and some video formats, which are discussed in a later chapter). However, you can import many other standard types, and Flash will convert them into JPEGs, PNGs, and MP3s for you.

Let’s import several assets from a layered Photoshop file (Flash allows you to do this with Illustrator files, too).

1. Copy the Chapter_02 Project Files folder from the DVD to your hard drive.
2. Choose File > Import > Import to Library. Select the file world.psd from the Chapter_02 Project Files folder and click Import to Library.

Tip: Transparency Support

Although SWFs can contain JPEGs and PNGs, only the PNG type supports transparency.

Note: Import a SWF into Flash

You can import SWFs into Flash, although you can’t edit them. This is useful if you’ve generated a SWF in another application, such as After Effects or Illustrator. You can bring it into Flash and incorporate it into your project. However, if you need to make changes to it, you’ll have to use whatever application you created it in.

The Flash Library

The Library is similar to the After Effects Project panel. It’s a storage area for assets. As you can see from the Import options, you can also import directly to the Stage. We don’t recommend this. Let’s say you knew you were going to need ten JPEGs to complete your Flash project and you imported them all to the Stage. They’d wind up on top of each other. Importing them to the Stage would be like dragging every After Effects asset from the Project panel to a comp’s first frame rather than dragging them into the comp as needed. A better workflow in Flash is to import all assets into the Library and then drag them to the Stage as needed.

3. In the Import to Library dialog, select the plane layer, hold down the Shift key, and then select the water layer. You should have 5 layers selected.

Note: Open External Library

The Open External Library option allows you to access assets inside another FLA. After choosing that option, select any FLA on your hard drive or network, and you’ll have access to graphics, sounds, and videos inside it.

4. Select the “Create movie clips for these layers” check box. Leave Instance name and Registration unchanged

Note: What Is a Movie Clip?

A movie clip is an animatable unit in Flash. In other words, by converting each Photoshop layer into a movie clip, you make those layers animatable. (If you don’t convert them, you can still use them as static background elements.) The term movie clip is a bit of a misnomer. Movie clips are not movies (as in QuickTime movies); they are animatable objects.

5. Under Publish settings, choose Lossless from the Compression drop-down menu.

This converts all the Photoshop layers into PNGs. If you’re animating for the Web and worried about file size, you might want to experiment with the Lossy option, which allows you to set a percentage-based quality setting (100 is full quality; zero is lowest quality).

6. Deselect the layer named cursor.

You don’t want to import this layer into Flash as it is not used in the final animation. Fortunately, when you import a layered Photoshop file, Flash allows you to choose which layers you want to import. We sometimes use layered Photoshop and Illustrator files as image libraries with each image on a separate layer. We then import the whole file into Flash but only select layers containing images we want.
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7. Click OK to add the files to your project’s library.