Fill
Techniques
- Bitmap Fill
by
kirupa
In case you stumbled here without having
first completed the first few pages, please click
here. The earlier pages contain some
useful information that may not be emphasized in great
detail in these pages.
Method the Last: The Bitmap Fill
All of the previous fill methods you have encountered
involved applying a color to your object. The Bitmap fill is
different, because, instead of filling your object with a
color, you will be filling your object with the contents of
a bitmap image:
First, in order to use a graphic, we must first find one.
Copy the image from this
link and paste it into your Flash document.
Once the image has been copied into your Flash document,
press Delete or something to get rid of it from the work
area. Don't worry - the image should automatically be
stored in your Flash Library.
Select your rectangle, go to the Color Mixer, click the
fill type drop-down menu, and select Bitmap. Select
the picture of the peppers that is displayed:
[ select the
peppers graphic that is displayed ]
Your rectangle should now have the peppers image as its
background. If not, click the Paint Bucket Tool and apply
this Bitmap fill to your rectangle.
Your rectangle may look similar to the following image:
[ how your
rectangle looks now ]
If you want, you can adjust the fill's properties using
the Fill Transform Tool. Yes - the Transform tool works
for images also! Click the Fill Transform tool and select
your rectangle again.The following is how my image looks after I zoomed out and
adjusted the orientation of the peppers a little bit:
[ The Free
Transform Tool is Awesome ]
Note
The above method I mentioned (paste
and delete) for adding a bitmap fill is actually a
roundabout method. The easiest method would be to
simply select Bitmap from the drop-down menu in the
Color Mixer Panel first, and then browsing for your
image. Another way would be to simply import your
image to your Library by going to File | Import.
Either way, the image will be selectable via the
Bitmap option in the Color Mixer Panel.
The reason I chose this method is, I
was unable to get the images to display properly.
When I applied the Bitmap fill using an image
directly imported into the Library or browsed and
imported via the Bitmap option, here is how the fill
displayed:
Notice that the image
is scaled down and tiled throughout the bitmap. This
is, of course, illogical because the image is
dimensionally larger than the actual rectangle.
You can use the Fill
Transform tool to resize the images into its normal
shape, but I feel that is not needed when the
roundabout method I mentioned in the tutorial should
help. I am not sure if this is an annoying bug, but
if anybody could point out why it does that, I would
be more than happy to hear about it.
With that said, you have learned almost
everything about Fills in Flash MX 2004 - for now!
Got a question or just want to chat? Comment below or drop by our forums (they are actually the same thing!) where a bunch of the friendliest people you'll ever run into will be happy to help you out!
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This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.kirupa.com/developer/mx2004/fills4.htm
