Creating Transparent Smoke

Periodically you want your fill or lines to be transparent. This tutorial will show you how to make a simple smoke effect using transparent fill.

Example=>

You may want to download the FLA file to examine this movie.

1. Double click on the word layer1 and rename the layer background.

2. Right click on the background layer and select new layer.

3. Double click on layer 2 and rename it smoke.

4.  On the background layer

• In frame 1 draw your smokestack.
• Click on Frame 20 and the hit the F5 key to extend the frames out to frame 20
• Lock the background layer.

5. On the smoke layer

• Click on the fill color and select grey.
  
  
  
  
   
• Open the Mixer panel by clicking the menu WINDOWS => PANELS => MIXER
• Your fill color will appear in the fill window on the left. Set the alpha value to 65% to make the fill transparent.
  
  
   
• Select the Paintbrush tool on the tool bar.
• Paint in Frame 1 of the smoke layer a small patch of smoke over your smokestack.
• Select the arrow tool.
• Right click on frame 20 and select INSERT KEYFRAME.
• On frame 20, Resize the smoke in frame 20 by clicking the resize tool and enlarge it above the smokestack.
• Mouse over the edge of the smoke until you have the arc arrow tool or angle tool and Stretch the edges of the smoke to make it look more random.
• highlight frame 20 on the smoke layer and adjust the mixer to fill color Alpha=0%

• Click on Frame 1 of the smoke layer.
• Open your frames panal by clicking
  WINDOWS => PANELS => FRAME
• Select Tweening = SHAPE.