Boxes with Straight Corners?

[RCarlton]

How is it possible to get boxes with straight corners in Flash MX? How does Macromedia do this in their web site's current Flash animation? (This one: http://www.macromedia.com/home_movies/home_fma.swf)

If you look at the top right corner, at the square right of "Navigation", when you zoom in, you can see that the box has straight corners. How did they do this? How would you do it?

I have tried to convert lines to fills, however this does not fix the "smooth corner" problem (when I zoom in, the corners are still not straight).

I thank you for any suggestions.

RCarlton

[geoffp08]

Im not quite sure i follow. But, this might help... when you select the rectangle tool, notice the options that appear at the bottom of the tool palette. there should be one option there for rounded corners. you may have that selected or set at an interval other than 0. hope that helps
geoff

[RCarlton]

geoffp08:

I have "Rectangle Radius" set at 0, and under "Custom" I have "Sharp Corners" checked. None of this has helped so far.

RCarlton

[geoffp08]

maybe a stupid question... but do you have the lines for the rectangle tool turned off? (as in fill/lines)

[Ask The Geezer]

How far did you zoom in?

Go here and at the bottom left of the page, get the free download for ColorPic. Install it, open it, run your cursor over the corners of that nav box. Now you can see every line.

http://www.iconico.com/

I have been experimenting with this for weeks now. In MX, you can magnify the stage up to 2000, not 800 like the drop down says. Just type in 2000 or any % less than that.

To make square corners you need to work at at least 800%. Convert to fills, then use the eraser over the end of the fill to get rid of the round ends. Then resize the fill to fit, move it into position. Do each line on a different layer, or they will stick together. You can put right and left lines or top and bottom lines on a single layer, cause they never touch. If they touch, they stick together.

Set the line width when drawing the line. After converting to a fill, it won't want to go less than 1 pixel.

[RCarlton]

iaskwhy:

I zoomed in to 2000% (tried more than that, but you are right, that's the deepest you can go so far).

I am not sure if I understand correctly when you say "use the eraser over the end of the fill to get rid of the round ends. Then resize the fill to fit, move it into position. Do each line on a different layer, or they will stick together."

Do you mean that I should use the "Line" tool instead of the "Rectangle" tool to make rectangles with sharp corners?

RCarlton

[Ask The Geezer]

You can start with the rectangle tool. Draw a box, then use the black arrow tool to pick each of the 4 lines. They are separate entities. If you just magnify the box lines, you can see that sometimes they don't always have exact corners.

Me, I just draw the box, using separate lines, cause I like to make shadow effects. If you erase the end of a 'line' it just remains rounded. I convert to a fill, then erase, which gives it a sharp, squared end, then use the Info panel to resize the length to fit. Play around with it, you'll see what I mean. Also, when you convert to fill, the colors change slightly, so you need to use the color panel to change the color, and use the fill color box, not the line box.

[RCarlton]

"I convert to a fill, then erase, which gives it a sharp, squared end, then use the Info panel to resize the length to fit."

Thank you, iaskwhy. This does seem to be a very reasonable way to solve this problem (until Macromedia finds a solution to this).

RCarlton

[Ask The Geezer]

If I was just going to make a box with a sharp line, I wouldn't bother. I started doing it this way because I can add other lines right next to the outline to make a shadow or 3d effect. If you really want to get into it, you can do pixel art this way. I can't find my bookmarks, but have seen complete lifelike pictures done one pixel at a time. Too tedious for me, but it can be done.

[erik_a_olsson]

make the border of the box invisible, or delete it once the box is drawn. i'me pretty sure this works, my corners look alright

[RCarlton]

erik_a_olsson:

The problem is that it is the box's outline what I wanted to keep, not the fill.

RCarlton

[brad_sk88]

turn on the grid and set it to the desired size, turn on 'snap to grid' and try using the square tool, gave me sharp corners.