Painting Tools

   

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The Brush, Eyedropper, Ink Bottle and Paint Bucket are the painting tools that make up the remaining tools in the toolbar. Table 6.3 outlines the different painting tools and their utilization.

Table 6.3. Tools for Painting

TOOL	UTILIZATION
Brush	To create paintlike lines
Eyedropper	To pick style and color of an object
Ink Bottle	To change the stroke attributes of a line
Paint Bucket	To change the fill attributes of a shape

Brush Tool

The Brush tool draws strokes just as a paintbrush would. This tool allows for various stroke widths that can mimic a calligraphy-type effect. Brush-stroke fills can be gradients, bitmaps, or solid.

The Brush tool has several modifiers associated with it. The Brush Size and Brush Shape modifiers are drop-down menus that let you choose a specific size or shape of Brush tool. The Brush Shape modifier provides several angles of stroke. The Brush Lock Fill option is a toggle that controls how Flash handles bitmap or gradient fills. When activated, all areas that are painted with the Brush tool use the same fill.

Eyedropper Tool

The Eyedropper tool lets you sample the color or style of an existing object. When you hover over a line with the Eyedropper tool, a pencil image appears next to the icon. When you click on a line segment, the Eyedropper tool is automatically converted to the Ink Bottle tool.

When you hover over a fill, a brush icon appears. When you click on a fill object, the Eyedropper tool is automatically converted to the Paint Bucket tool.

Ink Bottle Tool

The Ink Bottle tool is used to change the stroke attributes of any and all line segments within a Flash MX document. This tool comes in handy when you need to change the stroke attributes of multiple lines at one time.

Paint Bucket Tool

The Paint Bucket tool is used to fill closed areas. Once you have a color selected for the fill, simply click anywhere in the enclosed area to be filled. The Paint Bucket tool can also be used to define the light source of gradients in a radial fill, and the direction of a linear gradient.

The Paint Bucket tool has one modifier with the following options:

• Don't Close Gap. The gap has no effect on the fill.

• Close Small Gaps. Any small gaps are closed.

• Close Medium Gaps. Small and midsize gaps are closed.

• Close Large Gaps. Small, midsize, and large gaps are closed.

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