Importing a Flash 3 Effect Directly Into Your Movie
From your main movie, create a new movie clip symbol. Name this to reflect the effect that will be imported. This will take you into editing mode for your new symbol. Import your Flash 3 effect by going to File>Import or hit Ctrl+R. Once you have imported your effect, there will be a series of keyframes that appear on the timeline of your movie clip. A number of new symbols will also show up in your library. I like to immediately place these into their own folder so as not to get them confused with any of my other symbols. Left-click the top symbol then shift-click the last of your new symbols. This will highlight all of your new symbols. You can then right-click and choose "Move to New Folder". Again, choose a name that reflects your imported effect. This becomes more important with each new effect that you import into your movie, since each effect will create as many symbols as there are letters in your text string, as well as one for the "space".
Now, you want to go to the last keyframe on the timeline of your movie clip and right-click to copy the frame. Paste this into the first frame of a new layer and delete all the frames in this layer except for the first. Name this layer "Placement Guide". You will use this to line up your movie clip in your main timeline and can be toggled on and off between being a guide layer and not for when you need to adjust the placement of your clip. If you don't want your effect to loop, add another layer for actions and place a stop action on the last frame of your movie clip. You may now return to the main timeline and drag an instance of your new effect movie clip onto the stage and adjust the placement. When you have it where you want it, double-click it to edit it in place and right-click your Placement Guide layer and choose "Guide". This will render it invisible when you return to the main timeline and it will not be published with the rest of your movie.
If you want your effect to fade out, rotate, change transparency, etc. then on the main timeline, right-click and insert a keyframe at the point where you want the effect to begin. Insert another keyframe where you want the effect to end. This will give you three keyframes for a simple effect that appears then fades out. The first keyframe contains your effect movie clip. Unless otherwise instructed, this will begin to play as soon as the playhead reaches the frame that contains the clip. The second keyframe is where you begin your fade effect. Go to the Frame Properties Docker Panel and select motion tween. You can adjust the easing at this time to get a more natural look to your animation flow. The third keyframe is where you go to the Effects Docker Panel and set the alpha to 0%. Since Flash still uses processor power to draw transparent objects, you want to delete all of the frames following the last keyframe to avoid this.
There are a number of more advanced techniques involved for determining whether a movie has loaded yet, loading multiple swf's, for using your effects within buttons, etc. These are separate subjects that can be explored to enhance your control over your SWfx effects.
