Flash MX Most Wanted: Effects & Movies [Paperback]

Sham Bhangal (Author), Chad Corbin (Author), David Doull (Author), Keith Peters (Author), Adam Phillips (Author), Jordan Stone (Author), Todd Yard (Author), WideGroup: Digital Motion (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1590592247 | ISBN-13: 978-1590592243 | Publication Date: July 10, 2003

Some friends of ED books concentrate on more serious aspects of Flash - this one concentrates on the fun. Flash can be used for many purposes, but making visually stunning effects to impress your boss, your friends, and anyone who looks at your site is one of the most rewarding. Friends of ED have scoured the web and the Flash community, discovering the most requested and popular Flash effects in action today. We have investigated the visual effects and actual design techniques that Flash beginners have been asking for. The visual inspiration and detailed explanations of how to recreate these effects are combined together in this book. The eight leading designers in this full color book take these effects apart, showing you how to adapt your basic Flash knowledge to achieve results exceeding anything you thought possible. The effects stay true to the tried and tested friends of ED design-centric approach, with full exercises and explanations for each effect. Topics include: ground-breaking site navigation; a dynamic MP3 jukebox; cartoon animation; and Flash math visual effects. All you need to use this book is a knowlegde of the Flash MX interface, and some imagination. So sit back, relax, and open up your mind to the visual potential of Flash MX. As with all books from friends of ED our support is fast, friendly and free. Your queries will be passed onto the editors and authors who put the book together.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Adam Phillips is a Senior Special Effects Animator for Disney, with ten years’ experience in professional animation. Film credits for Walt Disney Animation Australia include The Little Mermaid 2, Jungle Book 2: Return to the Jungle, and Beauty and the Beast. He lives in Sydney, Australia, and displays his work at www.oohbitey.com.

Chad Corbin is the designer and programmer behind lo9ic.com, an award-winning Flash website recognized for technical excellence and innovation (Bronze Medal, Interactive Media Review, ID Magazine). Chad received a degree in Mechanical Engineering from Cornell University and, after graduating, taught himself Flash, HTML and JavaScript to launch his career as a web designer and developer.

David Doull is an Australian freelance Flash developer specializing in building applications and games in Flash. He has been a finalist in the Flash Film Festival three times and picked up a Macromedia Site of the Day award for his Flash 3D interactive house plan tool at smallblueprinter.com. David has contributed to a number of books from friends of ED, including Flash MX Components Most Wanted, the Flash Usability Guide and Flash Games Studio. Plenty of fun Flash games can be found at his business site artifactinteractive.com.au and he is also behind urbanev.com.

Jordan Stone is a handsome ex-rodeo cowboy from Texas who works in developing new navigational structures with Flash to improve user interaction. His sofake.com was a Featured Site of the Day at FlashKit.

Keith Peters is the creator of the Flash experimental site bit-101.com. As an established member of the Flash community, he moderates the Math and ActionScript forums at www.were-here.com and is committed to helping others learn ActionScript. Keith has contributed to several books from friends of ED including Flash Math Creativity, Fresh Flash: New Design Ideas in Flash MX and Byte-Size Flash MX: Adventures in Optimization.

Sham Bhangal originally started his career as an engineer specializing in industrial computer-based display and control systems. In his spare time he took up freelance web design, a hobby that grew until it became his main career. He writes extensively for friends of ED, is engaged in all aspects of web design, and lives in rural Somerset, England.

WideGroup :: Digital Motion (www.widegroup.net) have been heading the revolution in rich content on the web since their inception in 1997. Specializing in high impact sites, online branding for the entertainment industry and corporate identities, they have established a stellar reputation for quality work. Their clients include DreamWorks SKG, America Online, and Showcase Cinemas. The Flash intro in this book is taken from their project for MirCorp (www.mir-corp.com), which was voted by FWA (favouritewebsiteawards.com) as their Site of The Month, December 2002. Their own rebranded website is FWA’a Site of the Month, May 2003, while Macromedia awarded WideGroup for their site design and film trailer for DreamWorks’ The Tuxedo (www.thetuxedo.net).

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Apress (July 10, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590592247
• ISBN-13: 978-1590592243
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 8.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,084,992 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A real professional, February 6, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Flash MX Most Wanted: Effects and Movies (Paperback)

Adam Phillip's chapter stands out in this valuable book. Finally, advice from a real professional(Disney) animator. Well respected as a character, special effects and Flash animator, Adam's advice is invaluable to anyone seeking to animate in Flash.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Well laid our tuts-at last!, January 12, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Flash MX Most Wanted: Effects and Movies (Paperback)

I own two dozen web design books. After exhausting the Peachpit series of books which got me going in web design, I needed something more in depth. I am really thrilled to have come across this book as it teaches a number of very interesting techniques by showing step, by step how to build the flash file from design principles to what the different lines of ActionScript actually do.

The ActionScript explanations are far better than what I found in the Macromedia Flash MX Advanced Guide. With this Friends' of Ed book you download the files from their site, which has a message board, and a corrections page and information on their other books. I did not have a problem with this at all. I'd hate to pay for something I could download for free. After downloading the files you have examples of finished sites and partially finished sites. The designers, themselves show how to build these sites and there is a real accent to teaching not just regurgitating ideas, as I found in the Macromedia and to a certain extent the O'Reilly books.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Okay..., January 4, 2003

By 

Greg (Ohio) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Flash MX Most Wanted: Effects and Movies (Paperback)

Well, I cannot tell you how long I have waited for this book to come out. Once I found out that "Wide Group" was contributing their techniques to this book, I had to have it. Unfortunatly after reading the book I could not figure out how the writers of "Friends of Ed" decided that these were the most wanted in the world of Flash MX web design. I love "Friends of Ed" publishing but they could have chosen better work to display. And the fact that there was no CD to see the particular effects hurts the book as well. I guess they would rather you visit the site.