Tips for using pixel fonts in flash

Skills

Make a commercial flash animation friends believe that the pixel font must be familiar. It's small and cool, very beautiful and popular with most designers. Currently like the very famous 04-series font in the country (Figure 1)

(Fig. 1)

Official website of the 04 series font:http://www.04.jp.org/ You can download all the 04-series fonts in this box.

For the 04 series fonts, Flash support is not perfect. Not only for the 04 series, but for all other types of font support, because Flash is a vector animation software. He can solve the problem of distortion caused by zooming in or out of the image, but it is not supported by a single pixel, even the current FLASHMX. For example (Fig. 2)

(Fig. 2)

There have been many netizens asked me about pixel font processing methods, but because it is very troublesome, so not one by one, so decided to write this article, the pixel font in flash in the use of skills to solve various problems.

1. The basic use of pixel fonts
At this time there are netizens to ask, do not even use this font to explain it? Yes, because of the particularity of this typeface, it is necessary to explain his basic use. Each pixel font has its most appropriate size, if not meet this size will appear blurred, or lost the pixel font visual effects, etc., like the song body's best size is 9th font. The average pixel font is the best size for the number 4th ~15, at least for the moment I have not encountered a font beyond this range. Below I put the best size of the 04 series font out, for your reference.

14#	12pt
04b_03	8pt
04b_03b	8pt
04b_8	6pt
04b_09	8pt
04b_11	8pt
04b_19	14pt
04b_20	8pt
04b_21	8pt
04b_24	8pt
04b_25	12pt
04b30	15pt
04b31	12pt

As can be seen from the list above, the general pixel font is in size 8th, so generally we have 8th, if not, another one to carry out the experiment.

2. About pixel font coordinates.

Pixel font Its composition is composed of pixels, and for its coordinates in the scene, it must be an integer! This is a mistake made by many friends. If the MOVIECILP is embedded, the coordinates of the MOVIECILP in the scene must also be an integer, otherwise there will be an ambiguous condition. And for the flash embedded in the Web page to its size set must also be the size of the original animation, otherwise there will be blurred state.

3. Use in symbols

In order to better organize the animation structure, we generally use symbols to form animation. If you embed a pixel font in a symbol, be aware of it when editing. In the composition of the pixel font, must be in the home scene, that is, first in the home scene input text, and then press F8 key to convert it to symbols, if the gentleman into a symbol, in the symbol of editing, the font will appear fuzzy status. For a call to edit, it must not be invoked from the symbol library. Because each symbol is a small animation in Flash, and their coordinates in the home scene is not restricted, that is, a symbol has his own internal coordinate system. So if you want to correlate the main coordinate system in the main scene, first generate the element in the home scene, and then create the symbol to use the coordinate system of the main scene. When called in the home scene double-click the symbol to edit, the symbol still uses the main scene of the coordinate system, if from the symbol library to call, then separated from the main scene of the coordinate system.

It also requires that we develop a very good habit when making animations, otherwise you will need to recreate the entire symbol.
such as (Fig. 3)

(Fig. 3)

4. Error arrangement between pixels

Sometimes in the input font when there is no ambiguity, and the export of animation appears in Figure 2, the line text, this is the flash on vector graphics processing errors. To solve this problem is not difficult, but relatively troublesome.

To test whether the font is incorrectly arranged, you can use Ctrl+b to break the text pattern twice in a row. If this happens, undo the previous action, then use the line tool to sketch out the wrong pixels in the new layer, then clip it, press ctrl+shift+c on the text layer to paste the wireframe in place, split the wrong pixels, and then select Delete. (Fig. 4)

(Fig. 4)

5. Do not use dynamic fonts

Flash's text tool has a function is dynamically loaded fonts, that is, call the font fonts display the corresponding characters, which can be a good reduction of the volume of animation files. But before using this feature, please consider this: does the user who watches this animation have these fonts installed? For example, pixel fonts generally, non-professional users do not have such fonts installed. When watching the regiment into a regiment, very detrimental to the beautiful. I've seen a lot of careless friends. Use this feature to solve the problem of pixel font ambiguity, testing on your own machine is not a problem. Fonts that are installed by default, such as the general XXFarEastFont-Arial font, can use this feature.

6. Use Photoshop to assist

As mentioned earlier, the problem of pixel permutation can be sketched and then deleted, but suppose there are hundreds or even thousands of words waiting for you to sketch one at a time. So it is recommended to use Photoshop. He is very good at solving such pixel problems, and Flash also supports the introduction of transparent GIF. In Photoshop, we first type the text you want to enter, and then select "antialiasing None" in the text options. Then export a transparent GIF and then import flash, which can be a good solution, but the relative animation volume is relatively large. (Fig. 5)

(Fig. 5)

7. The attention of the Loadmovie () method

Flash site friends often use the Loadmovie method to read some of the animation, and if the use of pixel fonts in the animation, here is to note: Return to place the animation target can not be symbols, because I have said before, symbols and the main scene does not use a coordinate system, If you read the symbol, there will be blur, here we have to read the hierarchy, but some friends put forward: I need to read the animation has a specific coordinates, if so read the animation will automatically set the animation to x:0,y:0 coordinates. To solve this problem, the size of the read animation is set to the same size as the active drawing, and then the position of the active drawing is calculated in advance when the animation is read, so that the problem can be solved.

8. Surrounding resources

Because of the current abnormal pixel font, foreign countries have introduced a number of new pixel fonts, such as the Hooge series, the support for Flash is good. We can go to foreign websites to look for, I have not seen the domestic download. Or can visit my website, in my website also has these several series of font download, address:http://www.blackflasher.net

In addition, in the system, there is also a very good pixel font, and he is any Windows machine with the default font of the system: _sans font, use the dynamic font features, his best size is 9th. So he can reduce file size problems, but also to achieve a good visual effect. As shown in Fig. 6

Figure-6

OK, here's how to use the pixel font, and to remind you that if you want to make the font more beautiful, it is recommended that all letters be capitalized, because the pixel font itself is in the form of dots in the visual language. But the point must have the rule, otherwise will lose the existence significance. So using the whole size of the alphabet to use the pixel font will be more beautiful!

If you have any comments or questions about this article, please visit my website:http://www.blackflasher.net, put it in my forum. or send e-mail to mdiyuliehuo@blackflasher.net, Welcome to Exchange!