So, to create a sphere, open Flash. You do not need to worry about the frame rate because it will not be animated. On your stage, draw a circle, by selecting the Oval Tool. Hold shift as you draw your shape to maintain a perfectly circular shape. At this point it does not matter what color your circle is.
Now, click on the selection tool. You may have a stroke around the outside. You can change or delete it by clicking it with the selection tool. If it is a black stroke, there's no need to change it, whereas if it's bright pink, you might consider removing it. Now, click in the middle of your circle. You can tell it is selected as lots of white dots appear.
Now, open your Color window. It should already be on the right side of the screen by default, but if it is not, press Shift + F9 to bring it up. Within the color mixer, you will see a drop down menu that says "Type:" and "Solid" will be selected by default. Change solid to Radial.
Now you need to adjust the lower part of the Color Mixer window. You will see two bars going across. The long thin one is where we add and change the colors we want to make up the radial effect. The bigger rectangle shows what the effect will look like. We are using black and white at seperate ends for this effect. Double click the small square under the line (if there is no square simply click the line and another will appear). You should then be able to choose from a range of colors. Select black. Do the same with the other little square, except this time, make it white. You can drag the small squares too. Just click and drag them. Move the white to the left and the black to the right. It should now look like this.
The effect will be added to the middle of your circle, like so.
You could leave it as it is, but if you want to move the radial effect, you need to select the Gradient Transform Tool from the tools menu. Once you have selected it, click on your circle. You will see some handles appear. They are called handles because you use them to move about and rotate the radial effect. You will see a small white dot in the middle of your circle, with a triangle above it. Click and drag the dot to the top left.
Click off your circle and you will be finished. You may want to refine the size and position of the radial effect if you wish, but you now know the basics of making a sphere in Flash. If you had a problem with this tutorial, tell us about it on the forum.
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