Use Multiple Layers in Flash

hey this is Ralph and in this video I

want to go over using multiple layers in

Flash I just want to get a quick review

of that so I've got a new Flash movie

set up nothing on the stage and there's

only one layer and there it's an empty

key frame so there's nothing on that key

frame I'm going to go and create a

couple quick layers and on layer on the

top layer here I'll go ahead and put in

a uh square if I can spell

it next layer I'll put a

circle and the bottom layer I'll put a

star so now I have three layers I'm

going to click on frame one of my square

layer and I will

draw a square I'm going to go to frame

one of my circle layer use my oval tool

change the

color and I'll

draw an oval then I'll go to frame one

of my star

layer let's change the color again

choose a poly star over on the

properties panel um I'll go to Tool

settings options star five point stars

fine draw

Star and I'll select it and just move it

so we can see all the objects so now I

have a square a circle and a star and

each one is on a separate layer if I

click

on my key frame for my circle layer my

circle or oval is selected if I click on

frame one of my star layer my star

selected whenever your flash movie is

going to have multiple parts and it

pretty much always

will you want to get in the habit of

using multiple layers especially if

they're going to be animating in

different ways if we were to put all of

these shapes by the way they're called

merge shapes but if we had all of these

shapes together on one on one layer you

really run the potential of these shapes

merging into one of other uh one another

and it really can kind of mess them up

so it's very beneficial that each one is

on a separate layer now if you get

overwhelmed by looking at a bunch of

layers at once you can hide them by just

clicking on the little view button here

the eye so I've hidden two of my three

layers so that I can only see the one

that I want to work with and then I can

turn those back on when I want to see

them

again now since they're layers they can

be treated as such I can go ahead and

move

these so that they are overlapping oops

let me show you another little problem

let me control Z to undo

this and the layer that you're working

on should be the unlocked layer so if I

select frame one now my square is

selected so I can move that very

carefully I'm going to click on my

circle and I can move just that and very

carefully I can click on my star and

just move that but that's pretty risky

there so I often advise locking the

layers down except the one you want to

manipulate so then you won't

accidentally mess up one of your your

previous or one of your other layers so

keep just one layer unlocked at a time

to minimize um

mistakes so now you can see the star is

behind the oval the oval is behind the

square and I can rearrange my layers

just by clicking and dragging so now my

star is on top and sure enough the star

is on top so you can just click and drag

your layers to put them in the order

that you want you can lock down the

layers that you don't want to edit and

you can hide the layers that you don't

want to see at that particular moment

they're still part of the movie they're

just hidden from view while you're

working there's a little button down

here to also create folders so you can

create folders for

um groups of layers that are related as

we create some bigger flash movies this

is really going to come in handy and

it's pretty easy just click the button

to create a new folder and then you can

take your objects your layers and you

can move them into that particular

folder so now all of these are inside of

a folder and I can collapse that so I

still have my three folders but they're

just not taking up as much room in my

timeline