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Product Description

Flash 5 is rapidly maturing into a professional animation, web site front-end and web application construction tool. Flash 5 builds on the strengths of Flash 4 by expanding ActionScript into an exponentially more powerful and flexible language, adding bezier tools, including XML support, and providing tools to smooth group workflow on larger-scale projects. Flash 5 is a professional tool with the power to change the way the web looks.

This book shares the skills and knowledge of working Flash professionals with their peers. It assumes you already know the basics of Flash, and offers up a smorgasbord of techniques, processes and advice for moving your Flash movies up through the gears. Whether it's storyboarding, sophisticated animation techniques, ActionScript programming structures or XML, you'll find it all here.

What you’ll learn

Who this book is for

Flash 5 Studio recognizes that the reader is intelligent, web savvy and able to put things together for him or herself. The book offers a wide-ranging set of professional tools and techniques that designers can apply to their own work and adopt to achieve professional results. The book assumes that you already know your way around Flash and that you want to develop the skills and practices to take you to the next level.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3824718 in Books
• Published on: 2001-03-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 500 pages

Amazon.com Review
Kudos to publishers Friends of Ed for figuring out exactly what a beginning, intermediate, or advanced user of Flash needs, and writing books that deliver the appropriate material to each level. This entry in the Studio series is aimed squarely at intermediate Flash creators--those who are out there already "doing it"--and promises to perfect their techniques and hone their skills.

Calling upon a talented group of over 20 cutting-edge "Flashers" (working Flash professionals) to helm different chapters, Flash 5 Studio covers advanced site management, content creation (like Smart Clips, cartooning, video, and sound), dynamic content (interactive movies that feed content dynamically from separate data sources--for example, news headlines), ActionScripting, and issues that are crucial to partial or full Flash Web sites (like preloaders or optimizing Flash for search engines). The motto of the book: "deeper, more serious, more fully explained."

Each chapter teaches a specific technique or concept through examples that capitalize on the particular talents of that chapter's Flasher/author. For example, Nikhil Adnani is a talented and humorous cartoonist/animator from Canada (his Web site is www.groovechamber.com), and his chapter walks you through practical steps for creating charming animations (such as making a cow strut), while dispensing good advice on character design, making convincing movement, and optimization. Richard Mapes from www.Moonfruit.com provides an introduction to ActionScript principles; if coding seems beyond you, this might just clear the fog. From there, readers can explore scripting used in 3-D effects or object-oriented games. (This chapter, along with a table of contents, can be found at www.friendsofed.com if you'd like to check it out first.) The CD-ROM contains project FLAs and SWFs, as well as color images from selected chapters, and trial versions of software.

The advantage of learning from a book many designers and coders have had a hand in writing is that you're guaranteed a discussion that includes real-life goals and pitfalls. Also, if the style of one chapter's author doesn't quite jibe with yours, perhaps the next one's will. You're sure to come away with a deeper understanding of Flash and ActionScript, and a whole mess of new ideas to try. --Angelynn Grant

Topics covered:

• Site design principles
• Content creation, including working with Smart Clips, combining Flash and external 3-D applications, cartoon animation, using video in Flash, sound, transparency, masking and text, buttons, and menus
• ActionScript principles and creating with ActionScript, including simple and 3-D visual effects and simple and object-oriented games
• Combining interactive Flash movies that draw data from outside sources, including using XML
• Efficiently integrating Flash into a Web site, creating a preloader, and optimizing for search engines

From the Publisher
Flash 5 Studio is the next step in the learning curve for web designers who have mastered the basics of Flash or have an appreciation of the wider field of motion graphics. Expert authors will not waste time and space with a tour of the Flash interface and basic Flash techniques, but will take the reader through practical examples and in-depth explanation of a wide range of more advanced features, including: ·

distribution ·

audio/video ·

3D interactivity ·

ActionScripting ·

using Flash to create front ends for web applications and dynamic content ·

integrating Flash with Director, Fireworks and other packages Flash 5 Studio will be a place for web designers to receive as much as there is to know on advanced Flash features from proven experts. Comprehensive reference sections will extend the use of the book to a ‘never be without’ desktop tool that leaves the reader ready to launch into their own area of Flash expertise.

About the Author
Sham Bhangal has worked on books in new media for five years, during which time he has authored and co-authored numerous friends of ED books, including critically acclaimed, award-winning, and bestselling titles like Foundation Flash, New Masters of Flash, Flash MX Upgrade Essentials, Flash MX Most Wanted, and the Flash MX Designer's ActionScript Reference. He has considerable working experience with Macromedia and Adobe products, as well as other general web design technologies (such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc.). In addition to speaking appearances at FlashForward, the biggest Macromedia Flash developer conference, Sham has also been a beta tester for Macromedia and Discreet products for a number of years.

Brendan Dawes is creative director with interactive agency magneticNorth, based in the U.K. His portfolio of work includes projects for Disney, Golden Wonder, Benetton, Club 18-30, Volvic, Fox Kids, Kellogg's, Coca-Cola Schweppes, and Channel 4. As well as commercial work, Bren also has personal projects including BrendanDawes.com, the highly acclaimed Saul Bass website, and its quirky offshoot, Psycho Studio, an application built entirely in Flash that allows you to edit your own version of the Psycho shower scene! Over the years, Brendan's work has been featured in many industry publications, including Cre@te Online, Graphics International, and Creative Review, and he has received various awards, including Shockwave Site of the Day three times, a nomination in the New York Flashforward Film Festival, and a nomination in the 2001 Webby Awards in San Francisco. He also writes Dreamweaver extensions and wrote the official QuickTime extension in conjunction with Apple and Macromedia. Bren is heavily involved with product development at Macromedia in San Francisco as part of the alpha and beta testing teams for many of their products. Before becoming an interactive designer, Brendan dabbled in the music industry, landing a record contract with Liverpool dance label 3 Beat Music. Before that, he worked as a photographer for national newspapers in the U.K. Both disciplines have helped him understand sound design and visual composition in interactive design. He's a regular speaker at design seminars across the world, including Flashforward in New York and San Francisco, Macromedia Web World in Seattle, Internet World in Los Angeles, and the New Media Age Congress in London. He was a co-author of the groundbreaking first volume of New Masters of Flash from friends of ED, and in 2001, he published his first solo book for New Riders, Flash ActionScript for Designers: Drag, Slide, Fade. Brendan's work has also appeared in a book by Californian design house Juxt Interactive as one of the 10 featured creatives.

Torben Holm has been in the computer business as a developer since 1987. He has been working with Oracle since 1992—his first four years as system analyst and application developer (Oracle 7 and Forms 4.0/Reports 2.0 and database administrator), then two years as developer (Oracle6/7, Forms 3.0 and RPT, and database administrator). He spent several years working for Oracle Denmark in the Premium Services group as a senior principal consultant, performing application development and database administration tasks. He also worked as an instructor in PL/SQL, SQL, and database courses. Torben now works for Miracle A/S (MiracleAS.dk) as a consultant, with a focus in application development (PLSQL, mod_plsql, Forms, ADF) and database administration. He has been at Miracle A/S for more than 10 years. He is an Oracle Certified Developer and a member of the OakTable Network.

A bio is not available for this author.