Buttons that glow - please help

[Marc]

Hello Everyone

I’ve been searching around everywhere not finding the info I want so now I,ve decided that someone here is bound to know how to make a realistic glow effect. Like a kind of animated light that slightly pulses a coloured glow. It is for an interface I am attemping to build.

Could I get away with generating all the graphics in Flash MX? I want these lights to be links too. I’m thinking of making a button with graphics on different layers animating on the <i>hit</i> and <i>over</i> states to create this effect. Could I get a mc on to a <i>hit</i> state and so on?

[system]

is it this effect you’re after?

blink

or something more realistic?

the white blink’s color can be changed to your liking of course…

[system]

That <i>is</i> the type of effect I’m after.

[system]

All u do is make your button or whatever, make a new MC, draw a shape that resembles your button, but without the outline, get me?

If u disable the outline, and draw a shape in white (i.e), you can (when the shape is marked) go to modify->shape->soften fill colors.

then just play around with the alpha of that mc… thats all there is to it…

here’s the fla, u can use it as u like!

blink.fla

[system]

Many thanks

[system]

no prob

that’s what we’re here for.

[system]

Checked your fla. out. Nice one. Softening fill edges, just looked through this. I didn’t realise I could do this in Flash; just made the exact glow effects I was looking for. Thanks again.

Now for that tricky part, well tricky for me being new to Flash, how do I get this “animation” to work as a button? With different coloured “glows” at the <i>hit</i> and <i>over</i> states?

[system]

well, do u have a fla i could see?

[system]

Tripod is making the fla. file unavailable for download. Now what have I done wrong?

I’ll put it on a site that I know will allow it.

I won’t be beaten. Anyhow for me this is a learning experience.:rambo:

[system]

hehe, i looked at your zipped swf, nice!

Always nice to know when you’re helping someone…

But, the fla link u gave me doesn’t work, tripod doesn’t allow direct linking like that… sorry… but u can mail me the fla if u’d like…

[system]

Just poped in to you profile to send it via email and there is no way of making an attatchment

[system]

oh, i forgot i uses this forum as a sender… hmm, well, i u are using outlook as your mail service prg, send it via that!

[system]

Eilsoe,

You can either right click the link and select “Save Target As…” or right click the link and select “Copy Shortcut” and then paste it into a new window. It will work both ways.

[system]

well whaddya know…

thanks lost!

[system]

No problem, I used to have my site on tripod so I knew the drill:)

[system]

WOOT I learned something new about flash. Thanks eilsoe!

But after trying this out for a while, it doesn’t look like it’s going to work with complex shapes like text. I’m trying to make a neon glow effect for an interface, and I don’t really know how to approach it. I’ve tried importing from photoshop, but getting it to blend in with the fla isn’t going well.

anyway I appreciate all tips.

-typo

[system]

…anyone?

[system]

Yes, I will make a quick something for’ya…

hold on, back in a jiffy…

[system]

www.avalon-rev.dk/neon/neon glow.html

that is the swf, heres the fla:

www.avalon-rev.dk/neon/neon glow.fla

if it’s what you’re after, I’ll explain what I did…

(NOTE: heh, look at my posting time took me only 7 minutes to make the gfx in ps7, export into flash and tween, publish, upload and write this post! lol)

[system]

I’m going to bed now, so i’ll explain it quickly anyway:

Save your glow layer as a “.png” in photoshop, and make sure the background layer is transparent (use the background eraser tool).

This gives multiple levels of transparency when importing to flash. Take a look at the fla i gave you, the glow layer is imported, then symbolized into a MC, THEN you can alter the opacity of it too! Hella clever huh?

U can go absolutely nuts with this actually… just remember, png’s are NOT vector based… so don’t overuse them…