Use of polystar tool in flash CS4

We will learn how to use a polystar tool in flash CS4, this tool is somewhat similar to a circle or a rectangle tool that you are creating basic shapes with it, but it has a few options that we need to highlight for you, with a polystar tool you can create two things, you can create polygons, a triangle, hexagon, octagon etc, or you can draw a star shape with it.

The polystar tool is hidden under the small arrow in the right bottom of your rectangle tool, you can simply click on the arrow and drag  the cursor to the polystar tool. You will notice to the properties panel that the stroke and fill color are already there, apart from that you will find an options panel to work with.

When you click on options button a pop up will appear on the screen, like the pic below.

As you select the style you can either choose from a polygon or a star style, lets say you choose a polystar, then you can select the number of sides, if you choose 3, you will land up drawing a triangle, if you choose 4, you will land up drawing a rectangle or square, if you choose 5 you will get a polygon, likewise you can choose 6,7,8,9,10 etc
Assuming you have selected a polygon and selected 5 sides to it, let’s just draw a polygon on stage.

You can move it around by holding on to shift button and dragging the cursor around.
Now let’s draw a star on stage, click on the style and select star from the tool settings as shown in pic3. and select star, let’s say you want a 5 side star like how the kids usually draw, keep the point size to 0.50 and draw one, again you can position your star by holding on to shift button on your keyboard and releasing the mouse when you are convinced about the positioning.

Let’s now make the point size to 0.10 instead of 0.50 and see how the star looks

It has a much different effect, just by changing the point size.
Likewise try making the point size to 0.90 instead of 0.10 and see what happens.

You will see the centre much bigger, the easier way to remember is, the bigger number of point size is the fatter the star. Another point to remember is your point size will not get bigger than 0.99, so if you try 5,15 or even 25 point size it will much look like the point 0.90 point size star.

Lets again create another star by clicking on the number of sides as shown in the options panel in pic3. say make it 9 points and keep the point size to its default 0.50 and see how it looks.

So a polystar tool will be of much help apart from an oval or a rectangle tool,