Working with Guide Layers

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Working with Guide Layers

Flash offers two types of guide layers: guides and motion guides. Plain old guides can contain any kind of content: lines, shapes , or symbols. The contents of a regular guide layer merely serve as a point of reference to help you position items on the Stage. Flash doesn't include such guide layers in the final exported movie.

Motion guides, however, do make up part of the final movie. Motion-guide layers contain a single line that directs the movement of an animated object along a path . (To learn more about creating and animating with motion guides, see Chapter 9.) Another distinction to remember is that Flash creates motion guides by adding a new layer directly to the Timeline. To create plain guides, you must redefine an existing layer as a guide layer.

To create a plain guide layer:

1. Do one of the following:

   • To create a new layer, in the Timeline, click the Insert Layer button. Flash selects the new layer.

   • Select a layer that already exists.

2. From the Modify menu, choose Layer to display the Layer Properties dialog box.

3. In the Type section, click Guide (Figure 5.34).

   Figure 5.34. Select Guide as the layer type in the Layer Properties dialog box to change a normal layer to a guide layer.

   

   You can rename the layer to identify it as a guide, if you want.

4. Click OK.

   Flash turns the selected layer into a guide layer and places a little T-square icon before the layer name (Figure 5.35).

   Figure 5.35. Select a layer (top) and define it as a guide layer. In the Timeline, Flash identifies the guide layer with a T-square icon; compare that with the icon for the motion-guide layer (bottom).

   

5. From the View menu, choose Guides > Snap to Guides (Figure 5.36).

   Figure 5.36. Choose View > Guides > Snap to Guides (top) to force items that you draw on layers beneath a guide layer to snap to the lines or shapes on the guide layer (bottom).

   

   Flash forces items that you draw or drag to snap to the lines or shapes on guide layers.

Tips

• You can create a guide layer quickly by Control-clicking (Mac) or right-clicking (Windows) the layer you want to define as a guide. Choose Guide from the pop-up contextual menu that appears.

• When you've placed guide elements where you need them for a certain scene, lock the guide layer so that you don't move the guides accidentally as you draw on other layers.

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