Quick Tip: How to Create Perfect Alpha Reflections

2010 will see several changes here on Activetuts+, one of which you’ll see implemented across all the Tuts+ sites: Quick Tips. Quick Tips tuts will be short, informative, simple, effective and will demonstrate something achievable during your lunch break!

Bruno is kicking off the Quick Tips here at Activetuts+, with a great tip on creating perfect reflections. Got 5 minutes? Off you go then..

Final Result Preview

Let’s take a look at what we’re aiming for here..

Introduction

This method allows you to take any kind of movieclips, even those containing video, and make a true reflection without worrying about the fading background.

Step 1: Stage Setup

Open up Flash and create a new Actionscript 3 FLA.

Step 2: Scene Setup

Create the following layers:

Step 3: Object

In the Objects layer create the movieclip that you want to reflect.

Step 4: Reflection

Copy the movieclip from the Objects Layer and paste it in the Reflections layer, scale it vertically at -100%, that will make it flip vertically

Step 5: Cache as Bitmap

Check the cache as bitmap box.

Step 6: Instantiate

Give it an instance name of “reflection_mc.”

Step 7: Gradient

Create a gradient filled rectangle with alpha.

Step 8: Mask

Convert it to movieclip (F8) and give it an instance name of “mask_mc.”

Step 9: Cache as Bitmap, Again

Check the cache as bitmap box.

Step 10: Making Magic

Select the actions layer and type:

reflection_mc.mask = mask_mc

Conclusion

If you want you can add an alpha to the relfection_mc, I applied one of around 60%. Hope you liked this Quick Tip, thanks for reading!