Flash 5 Cartoons and Games f/x and Design [Illustrated] [Paperback]

Bill Turner (Author), Richard Bazley (Author), James Robertson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 27, 2001

Covering Flash™ 5 from a cartoon and gaming aspect. Learn how to cohesively pull together and create all the necessary elements for an entertaining cartoon show. Create cartoon characters for television and music videos; then, discover how to use those cartoon elements when scripting and programming interactive games on the Internet. This book includes a CD-ROM with complete a full-length cartoon show and source codes for several games. With Flash 5 Cartoons and Games f/x and Design, you will go beyond the general description of the various Flash tools and discover what can be done with them!

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

There was a time when making an animated film meant, at the very least, a huge investment in time and equipment. Flash 5 Cartoons and Games demonstrates how things have changed, teaching a new generation of animators that all you really need is an ordinary PC or Mac and Macromedia's Flash authoring program.

Diverse and powerful, Flash can be used to create Web sites and multimedia presentations. Animation is an art in itself, and the book approaches the use of Flash from an animator's and game designer's perspective. Eleven chapters describe a production workflow, from early story development to using Flash to create a storyboard, adding sound, creating elements and movement, and creating backgrounds.

There are a number of outstanding features to this book: for one, it doesn't focus on the technology. There is as much information on using Flash as there is in composing a scene, using color and sound to evoke a mood, and using quick sketches for storyboard timing. Also, there is a strong emphasis on character animation. Chapter 5 is, in fact, called "Character Animation," followed by chapter 6, "Lip Syncing and Facial Expressions." These sections and others throughout the book show how to use Flash features like reusable symbols and libraries to create believable characters.

A little more than half the book focuses on animation. The second half covers game design, programming, and animation, with an emphasis on trivia and adventure games. You'll need to know a bit about Web scripting and how Flash scripting works to get the most out of the material.

The CD-ROM includes a wide variety of examples, including runtime files (*.swf) and the authoring files used to create them. This provides the beginner with an opportunity to see the finished product as well as look behind the curtain to see what makes it tick.

Beyond the golden age of cartoons (1930s to mid-'40s), it's hard to think of a better time in history to be an animator than right now. Not only are the tools to create entire films easily accessible, but reaching a global audience is a breeze, thanks to the Web and technologies like QuickTime and Flash. Flash 5 Cartoons and Games can show you how to harness these tools and take advantage of the new medium. --Mike

About the Author

Bill Turner, Turnertoons Productions, Inc., has created hundreds of cartoons and games for commercial use. He has worked with Shockwave.com and Atom.com in creating and converting desktop Flash games to versions that will play faithfully on the Pocket PC. Macromedia used one of his Pocket PC game creations in their keynote speech at UCON Net York in the spring of 2001. Bill is a member of the Apple Solutions Expert program and speaks at seminars concerning Flash character animation and video/DVD productions issues. Bill has coauthored several books including Flash 5 Cartoons and Games f/x & Design (Coriolis Group Books) and the Flash 4 Bible (IDG Books).

James Robertson has been using Flash since version 3 and helped take actionscript to a new level with games he helped develop. James' background includes coding and programming languages being well versed in HTML, JavaScript, VBScript, Java, and ASP. He also wrote a "Real3D" engine in Flash, followed by his first game "Pong" and has written the first Isometric 3D game to be written in Flash.

Richard Bazley has worked for the past decade as a Supervising Animator of three of the major animation studios including Disney and Warner Brothers. He has worked on such films as Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Pocahontas, and the recently acclaimed Flash show, the Tales of Edwin Carp.

Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Coriolis Group Books (February 27, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1576109585
• ISBN-13: 978-1576109588
• Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,319,325 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars There are Much Better Books Out There Now!, June 28, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Flash 5 Cartoons and Games f/x and Design (Paperback)

When I wrote my original review I criticized this book for extremely sparse games coverage. IMHO, those folks who are praising this book for its games coverage either a) have not read the book or b) are affiliated with it in some way!

Just ask yourself, Is coverage of two games enough? I think not!

The book I'd recommend for Flash games development (in addition to Flash 4 Magic) is Flash 5 Actionscript for Fun & Games by Gary Rosenzweig.

With 17 chapters, 11 of which cover an average of 3 games each, this book has something for everyone. No matter what type of Flash game you want to create this book can help you get started!

And, if you want to learn Cartooning you may want to check out Flash 5 Cartooning.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book for Flash cartooning, April 20, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Flash 5 Cartoons and Games f/x and Design (Paperback)

I hope this review will save a future Flash artist some time. I read the reviews for this book and "Flash 5 Cartooning". I wanted personal experience, so I went to a local store and read through both. I basically looked for things such as Flash fundamentals, reader-friendliness, use of examples, instruction style, and learning material on the CD-ROM. I overwhelmingly preferred (and bought) this book. I found it to be a very informative and readable title. I agree with the Amazon reviewer that this is THE BEST Flash 5 cartooning book. The contributors list reads like a "who's who" in Flash expertise. I can't guarantee your personal preference between this book and others, but I can guarantee that this is an excellent book for learning cartoon AND game creation skills for Flash.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very Innovative, April 5, 2001

By 

Susan B. (Los Angeles, Ca) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Flash 5 Cartoons and Games f/x and Design (Paperback)

This is a really good book for those who know how to use flash. It's not for beginners for sure but there are many others out there for that. The adventure game covered is truly amazing. I had no idea until reading this book that you could do that in Flash. Like an earlier review I was a little disappointed that the other games did not have the FLA files. However the FLA files that are included will take me some time to digest and could be used in othere situations. Being a decent still artist but confused animator I found the mannequin system supplied on the CD to be very helpful. After setting it up I simply draw over the mannequins with my own character and it works perfectly. Very innovative approach to learning human movement. Thanks guys!!!