Regular static ads don’t cut it anymore. When it comes to getting people’s attention, it’s of grave importance to be different. Everyone’s seen square ads with a photo of a girl with a headset. Don’t do it!!
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This walk-through assumes basic knowledge of Flash of Photoshop.

1) We begin with a stock photo of a woman relaxing. The background doesn’t matter, but we would like it to contrast with the animation. In this case, green and our proposed sky backdrop work well together.

Final image:

2) In Photoshop, we will add a background layer to begin cutting out the woman. Make sure the background layer contrasts with the foreground. I picked light blue…

3) Begin erasing the background from the woman. I like to start from the edge of the subject, and do that in great detail, so the rest will be easier.

4.) Use the lasso tool to grab the remaining background and erase it, leaving the woman layer with no background. You should be able to see the background layer
completely.

5) Delete the background layer so we can create the transparent .PNG image.

6) Find a sky photo with some clouds. Size the photo about the same height as the ad, but having enough horizontal space to scroll sideways.

7) Copy the background once, and erase the overlap with a fuzzy brush. This will give the illusion of a continuous seamless sky

Open flash, and create an .FLA movie 400 w x 300 h, with a framerate that will allow smooth animation. I like to use something 24 fps to 32 fps. Anything above that is not really necessary, unless you’re creating a flash game.

9) Drop the transparent woman .PNG along with the long sky background onto the stage into separate layers. Toward the end of the movie, put the original photo into the last few frames with fade in using Motion Tweening. Below I’ve shown you the timeline as well as several elements of the movie.

10) Create a movie clip of the sky, by right-clicking and selecting ‘convert to symbol’

11) Double clicking into the new sky movie clip, create a motion tween that scrolls the background and then resets. You will need to use some trial and error by testing the movie clip and working toward a seamless animation that looks like the sky is continually moving. The movie clip will automatically loop, so there’s no need to put any actionscript to get it to replay.

12) Click back to Scene 1

13) Add some text transitions using different fonts. Don’t be  afraid to experiment. Here, I’ve picked Bell MT and Bell Gothic Std Black. Using fonts within the same family is somewhat easier, though not required.

You can see that I haven’t labelled anything in my timeline, though you should if your movie has more than 2-3 elements! Tweening and transitions are the key to putting finesse in your flash projects.

An example of the seamless scrolling sky:

Here’s the finished project (click here to reload the page):