Flash Tip: Shape Tweening Expanded: Controlling Alpha

Although we've already touched upon this as part of Lesson 4, here's a little quick reference on the basics of using shape tweens to control your alpha/opacity values to create a fade-in/fade-out effect with your shapes.

Follow these steps:

• Once your shape is created on your first keyframe, copy it over to another frame at the end of the duration of your color fade effect. Remember: do not make this into a symbol. Your tween will not work if you do.
• On your second keyframe, select the line and fill, and then move the Alpha slider in the Color Mixer panel to the right all the way down to 0%. (If you only want to make it semi-transparent, set it to a higher number.)
• Select the range of frames from your first to your last keyframes.
• On the Tween dropdown menu in the Properties panel at the bottom of the screen, select "Shape".

That should cause your shape to fade out until it's invisible at the end of your range of frames.