|
|
The "Stage" is simply the visual workspace that you use in Flash. It is represented by a small white square, the "off-Stage" area is colored gray. Sometimes you'll want a graphic to begin outside the visual Stage area and then animate onto the Stage. You can see the "off-stage" area only when the View menu shows a check mark next to Work Area.
By default, the Stage is a rectangle with the dimensions of 550 pixels wide by 400 pixels tall. These dimensions can be changed quite easily in the Movies Properties Panel. However, the specific dimensions in pixels are less important than the resulting shape of the Stage (called the aspect ratio). The pixel numbers are unimportant because when you deliver your Flash movie to the Web, you can specify that Flash scale to any pixel dimension.
Hide the Image
NEW TERM: Aspect ratio is the ratio of height to width. Any square or rectangular viewing area has an aspect ratio. In the case of computers, most screen resolutions have an aspect ratio of 3:4 (480x640, 600x800, and 768x1024). You can use any ratio you want in a Web page; just remember the portion of the screen you don't use will be left blank.
NEW TERM: To scale means to resize as necessary. A Flash movie retains its aspect ratio when it scales, instead of getting distorted. For example, you could specify that the Flash movie in your Web page scale to 100% of the user's browser window size. You could also take a movie with the dimensions 100x100 and scale it to 400x400.
Not only can you deliver your Flash movie in any size (Flash scales well), but while working in Flash, you can zoom in on certain portions of the Stage for a closer look without having any effect on the actual Stage size.
Page Updated on March 1, 2003
