Calvin’s Hub

Sunbursts is a nice effect as a background for your vector work. It will make your project look lively compared to with having only solid or gradient backgrounds.

Here’s an easy way on how to create sunbursts on Fireworks. I will be using Fireworks CS3 here to take advantage of the Shapes feature.

Before learning this easy way, I used to do this with the Star vector and just adjust the points till I get my result. But that’s too complicated to explain so we won’t be doing that.

Ok enough babbling. Let’s do this.

1. First install Fireworks guru Aaron Beall’s Sunburst AutoShape. Click the link to download the .mxp file and open it.

2. Adobe Extension Manager will launch and catch the .mxp file you just downloaded and will install it for you.

3. Open Fireworks and create a new document. I’m going to try a 340 by 200 one.

4. Go to your Assets panel and into the Shapes tab. Select the Sunburst AutoShape that you just installed.

5. Drag the AutoShape to your canvas. Feel free to adjust the yellow points and the size of your sunburst. Go ahead, rescale, skew or distort it to get a better result.

That’s it! That’s how you create sunbursts in Fireworks.

Additional Styling

Here are a couple of things you can do to style your sunburst background.

1. Add a background with radial gradient. I will use the same color scheme of my sunburst as my radial gradient fill.

2. You can also apply the same radial gradient fill on your sunburst but this time, set the gradient halfway to the left.

3. (Optional) You can also set the opacity of the sunburst to 50 to make the effect more subtle.

Now let’s add our dancing silhouettes to make use of our new sunburst.

There you have it. Your sunburst-powered vector image created using Fireworks.

Thanks to Fireworks guru Aaron Beall for making this effect very easy.

You might also be interested in:

• How to create flowchart arrows in Fireworks
• How to create the sticker peel effect in Fireworks
• How to create speech bubbles with Fireworks
• Creating the “reflection” effect in Fireworks

Filed under: Fireworks Tutorials