How do you make flash movie/games?

[♠Dameon♠]

I've been wondering for a while know...How do you make flash movie/games?
I have an Idea for one, but I don't even know where to start... Any help would be very much appreciated. ^_^;

[Loki]

A lot like a GIF, actually. Make frames, animate it. Make buttons, add it, and so on.

[ZetaZero]

PF...That doesn't help at all. I have been wondering about this for a while too.

[Serenade]

Micromedia Flash Player.

I've never used it myself, so I don't exactly know how to use it. I've heard it costs quite a bit though...

For game, I use Game Maker. But, sincce it creates .exe files, it's not like flash or java, meaning you have to download the file. There are advanteges and disadvanteges to that, like I said having to download the file instead of just playing it in the web browser.

But, some GM people are working on projects called, "GJava" and "GFlash" which convert GM D&D actions and eventually code into Java code and whatever Flash uses. It's not quite working yet, though, but they're making progress.

But, if you want to make flash games and movies, Micromedia Flash Player. If you want to make .exe games (which with GM are easier to make than with some other things) Game Maker.

To answer your question, though, and also to repeat what I said above, Micromedia Flash Player. Google it or something.

[dualR]

It's Macromedia, not a player, and now its Adobe. Adobe Flash 9/MX/CS3 whatever they are calling it now - And it's really expensive.

For animations it is a lot like a GIF like PF said, but you can have stuff like motion and shape tweening - None of that matters if you are just using sprites.

Game creation is far too complicated to explain like that, basically Flash has a programming language ActionScript. Don't compare Game Maker, Multimedia Fusion or any of those programs to Flash, they're not the same at all.

GM and MMF are supposed to be easy to use. ActionScript is actually a scripting language, you actually have to learn and memorise stuff like a programming language.

[Type-BLUES.EXE]

For game creation, I'd recommend using a program like Game Maker instead. It's much easier to use, and the only reason I'd really use Flash for game creation is because it supports PNG transparency (whereas Game Maker is all or nothing.)
Making a flash movie is simple. There will the menu bar, and then there'll be a bunch of little boxes (with the tag Layer 1, Layer 2, etc unless you rename them). These are the layers which hold frames for your animations. Frames flow from one to the next in a sequence. Keyframes are different from normal frames- Say you have 3 frames. 3 keyframes means each keyframe can be different from the other, whereas 3 frames make them the exact same frame, just lengthened. You'd be best googling up "Macromedia Flash tutorials" or something.

[Serenade]

I don't know what it's called, I don't know how it's changed, I never got into after getting Game Maker. I wanted to get it, but I saw that the price was like $800 so I strongly decided against it.

Game Maker does have it's own programming language, but you don't have to program the main loops and such, so it's still easier than other things.

And, a piece of gml (Game maker Language, GM's programming language that you use to write scripts in it)for the above poster:

image_alpha=.5

That would make a sprite half transparent. There's also image_blend that blends it with a color. It's not quite all or nothing.

The only reason I would use Flash instead of GM, is because you can play it in a web browser without downloading anything. But that's just me.