In this tutorial you will learn how to make a cool reflection effect for your animations. I am using Flash CS3, but most versions of flash should work. Here is an example of what we will be making.

1. Open a new flash document or an animation you have made previously. If you are starting from scratch do steps 2a and 3a. If you are using a animation you have made previously do steps 2b and 3b.

2a. Hit Ctrl+F8 to create an empty movie clip (MC). Call it something like ‘Animation’, it doesn’t really matter. You should have an empty stage and an empty timeline.

3a. You need to do your whole animation in this MC. When you have finished return to the main stage.

2b. Highlight all the frames on the timeline. Right click on them and select ‘Cut’.



3b. Hit Ctrl+F8 to make an empty movie clip (MC). Right click on the frame in the timeline (there should only be one) and select paste. Your whole animation should now be inside this MC.



4. Return to the main stage and drag the newly created MC out of the library. Place it on the top half of the stage. Select it and hit Ctrl+C to copy it. Create a new layer underneath the current one and hit Ctrl+Shift+V to paste the MC in place. Flip it vertically (Modify > Transform > Flip Vertical) and move it down to the bottom half of the stage. Make sure when the animation plays the two MCs don’t overlap.

5. Select the MC that has been flipped and give it an alpha of about 50.



6. Create a new layer inbetween the two layers that are there now. Draw a rectangle that covers the whole bottom MC.

7. Select the rectangle and open the color panel (Shift+F9). Choose a linear gradient that is the color of the background on the right and left, but give it 0 alpha on the left. Also make sure the rectangle has no border.



8. Now select the gradient transform tool (F) and rotate the gradient on the rectangle so that the solid color is down the bottom and the transparent color is in the top. You may need to resize and move the gradient around to get the right effect. If you hit Ctrl+Enter you should get a reflective effect.