Customer Reviews

Flash 4 Magic (WITH CD-ROM)

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(14)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

As an intermediate Flash user, this book was just what I was looking for. After reading some of the previous reviews by people, I noticed many were dissapointed the book just simply gave you 21 tutorials to refer to. I believe many people were expecting something else from Flash 4 Magic, but how the authors go very in-depth through 21 unique tutorials, they all teach you something very different through each one. The point of these is simply for users to learn the various techniques the authors illustrate and to not just use them to build what is shown in the book, but to take these techniques and use them in variety to produce whatever kind of advanced flash job you are doing. Flash is software that lets you use your imagination, and here the authors help you expand your work and bring your innovative flash ideas to life.

The examples in this book are outstanding. So are the graphics. The problem is, you cannot take the examples and learn from them unless you are already an advanced programmer or a mathematician. I have been using Flash for over 2 years, so I am at least intermediate in my knowledge, but I was confounded by the book and frustrated because I hoped for something more. Advanced Flash uses 3D grahics, duplicating Move Clips, and advanced Action Scripts [algebraic functions for plotting, e.g.]. The examples give you the algebraic scripts, but the book doesn't explain how or why they work, so for someone who is a novice in this area, like me, I could not apply the examples to my own sites. In other words, I could cut and paste the code, but I didn't actually learn how to do it for myself. By contrast, I'm told by friends who are already programmers, they've learned a lot from the examples. So if you know ASP, PHP, or C, you can probably use the book to great effect. If you don't, I would learn to program first before buying this book.

I have a very basic background in Flash but there are many aspects to this book that make it difficult to follow. Several times it omits information in its example, such as labelling a script or instance. Terseness is not a virtue in a step by step tutorial. For action scripts you are just given the script and you have to figure out how to entered it. If you have a good flash background, I guess this is no big deal, but if not you will be lost and your final product will not work. After alot of backtracking through the examples I worked on and referring to other books, I managed to get through the tutorials, and I guess did learn the hard way. Nonetheless, more detailed explanations would have been very helpful and alot less frustrating. I looked forward to this book when I bought it, but it just does not explain how to use action scripts at all, even though this is the heart of the lessons. If you want to learn flash programming, look elsewhere.

After you've done your homework in the basics, you've got to get this book to know how to APPLY your basic skills through its step by step examples. As the name implies, this book tells you where the "magic" is!

What first struck me about Flash 4 magic, was the amount of secrets that the authors are giving away. The tips and techniques in this book are amazing. This book reveals a lot of secrets and advanced techniques that newcomers and intermediate users rarely get access to. And considering the deceptive depth of Flash 4, advanced users are sure to find some new ways of doing things, as well as some hidden tricks that they would't have thought of.
One of the most interesting things about Flash, is how simple it appears when you first begin using it, but how deep the application really is. It used to take hundreds of hours of playing with the program to really get a grasp of its capabilities. With a book like Flash 4 Magic in hand, you can quickly get up to speed and tackle some of the complexities of creating flash movies/animations/stes/games/etc... Well to come to think of it, I'm not sure if I like the amount of secrets that they are giving away here...

When I first purchased this book, I was honestly excited about what I thought would be an upper-level Flash text which delved into the nuances of Action Scripting. Instead, I got a book with 15 or so tutorials with no explanation of how they work. You can easily find this code on the web - for free. Ironically, very similar tutorials can be found as freeware on websites maintained by the authors! There are also typos in a couple of the examples, which are still not listed on the book's support website. The PHP "Guestbook" tutorial in particular does not work. I only found this out after tracking down the email address for the author of that particular chapter. About half of each page in the book is wasted on redundant screenshots which are useless - particularly in an advanced text. A final note: when I asked one of the author's (via email) why there weren't explanations as to how the tutorials worked, he replied that there wasn't enough space to include them! hmmm...

Having exhausted the limits of learning Flash from the online help documents and web sites, it was time to buy a book. Bought this one (my first Flash book). There's tons of things to love about this book. Clean and clear layout is top quality, a bit empty a times, but you can't go wrong overall. Also, as the book states, some basic knowledge of Flash is recommended, which is good, since the book doesn't kill tress on explaining how to open a new file step by step, it's great I tell you! Tutorials are just as good/useful/fun. Finally, an e-commerce example in Flash! Guest books, cool customizable UI, etc. While I was a bit wary about the 'games' section included with the book, I found that just as with other tutorials, I can apply the newly learned skills to create what I want and need (there is a suggestion section after each tutorial), which is the main point of this book. Because while looking from the artistic point of view, most tutorials are composed of cartoon like quality, which might throw some "professionals" off while browsing through the book, but don't be fooled, the skills I acquired from going through this book will make me look at Flash for Experts Only books from now on :)

There are numerous 'meat and potatoes' books about Flash 4. FLASH 4 MAGIC, however, is 'prime rib', which should come as no surprise to those familiar with other books of Scott Hamlin. Even if you're quite familiar with Flash, don't imagine that you're just going to sit down and whip through this book in a few evenings. But If you really want to dig into FLASH 4 and learn something, this will do the trick. Be prepared to study and scratch your head -- you will actually have to figure some things out. But if you do, you will be a LOT smarter. No one who is serious about using FLASH should be without this book.

If you have Flash and have done the tutorials, feel like you have the basics down pretty well, and are wondering how to expand your capabilities you should look at this book. Great tutorials in an easy to follow format. You can learn a lot about the advanced features of Flash, especially Action Scripting (something that most of the other Flash books barely touch on). The FLAs included on the CD are 1st rate (check out the Flash Pack for some very interesting interfaces).

An excellent tutorial for creating advanced Flash movies. It is not, however, a how to book for learning Flash. If you're a beginner, this book is not for you. If you're ready to create something advanced in Flash, then get this book. WARNING: If you're a Mac user, you'll find the CDROM (which is vital to following along with the book's exercises), is a Windows only version. They made no refernence anywhere on the book or CD that this was the case. When I emailed them to complain, they told me they'd created a new mastered version of the CD that contains both Mac and Windows files, and would mail it to me for free. I'm afraid anyone else ordering the book (until its next printing at least) will go through this frustration as well. This is the only reason I didn't rate the book higher.