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Create a Soft Mask in Flash CS3

By: Tom Green , David Stiller ,

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You may have gone through the masking section and thought, "Gosh, the masks all have a hard edge. Is there a way to create a mask that fades the image out along the edges of the mask?" Great question. Prior to the release of Flash 8, it could be done, but the process was rather complex and, we might add, time-consuming. With the release of the Filters and Blend modes in Flash Professional 8, this task has become quick and painless.

In this exercise you are going to create a soft mask. Here's how:

1. Open a new Flash document.
2. Select File > Import > Import to Stage, and import the background.jpg image from the support docs to the stage. When the image appears on the stage, select it and convert it to a movieclip named softmask.
3. There is obviously a lot more stage than there is image. Click the stage, and in the Property inspector, click the Size button to open the Document Properties dialog box. Click the Contents radio button to shrink the stage to the size of the image, and click OK.

   If you are designing Flash movies and the stage is larger than the stuff on it, get into the habit of reducing the stage size. Wasted space, in the Flash universe, translates into increased download times. Remember, when you think Flash, think small.

4. Add a new layer to the timeline.
5. Select the Oval tool in the toolbox. Turn off the stroke and pick a fill color in the Tools panel.
6. Make sure you are not in Object Drawing mode, and draw an Oval on the new layer, large enough to cover a lot of the image (see Image 1). This shape will be used to create the mask.
7. Select the Oval and convert it to a movieclip named Mask. You can now delete Layer 2, which was only needed for creating an appropriately sized oval.

   
   Image 1. The stage is set for a soft mask

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Keywords
Flash, Flash CS3, Masking, Mask, Masks