Masks and Masking

Summary

You’ve seen that masks in Flash can help achieve a range of pretty snazzy effects. You can make masks as simple or complex as you want, and you can encapsulate masking functionality inside movie clip symbols.

You saw that

• A mask is created on a special mask layer.

• A mask layer is applied to a masked layer (or layers).

• The mask layer and all the layers it’s applied to must be locked for the mask effect to be displayed.

• A mask can be static or animated.

• A mask can be useful for hiding and revealing selected parts of an animation, achieving a sense of depth, and animating bitmap images as if they were vectors.

In the next chapter, you’re going to examine advanced animation and commands, as well the filter, a new feature of Flash.