Depth Cues: Creating the Illusion of Depth - Flash 3D: Animation, Interactivity, and Games - page 47

Step 11: Create a movie clip and add a Blur filter
Adding the Blur filter to the shadow will produce the soft-shading effect. First, the
shadow needs to be converted into a movie clip. Click on the shadow. Select Modify >
Convert to Symbol. The Symbol Properties dialog box appears. Type in face shading for
the name. Make sure the type is set to Movie clip. Click OK. Go to the Filters tab and
add the Blur filter to the shadow movie clip instance. Increase the Blur X and Blur Y
factor to 25. This produces the soft shading (Figure 2.51).
Figure 2.51 The Blur filter creates the soft shading effect.
Step 12: Copy and paste the head fill into a new layer
Some of the soft shading spills out of the head shape and onto the neck. A mask layer
will correct this. A mask layer defines a visible area that reveals a nested layer below.
For this exercise, the shadow layer created in Step 7 will be the nested layer. The visible
area that will restrict the soft shading only to the head will be the head color fill itself.
Click on the Selection tool from the Tools palette. Select the filled shape in the head
layer and copy it (Edit > Copy). Do not select the stroke surrounding the head shape.
Only the fill is needed. Create a new layer above the shadow layer. Rename it to Mask
shadow . Paste the filled shape in place (Edit > Paste in Place). This keeps the registra-
tion of the pasted shape consistent to the head color fill shape.