Customer Reviews

Flash 4 Web Animation f/x and Design

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I bought this book solely because of J. Croteau's contribution. oy. J. Croteau is undoubtedly a Flash genius but he's no technical writer. Ideas and concepts need to be presented in a more logical format. He assumes a knowledge level that will frustrate beginning and intermediate users. His instructional writing style would give Stephen Hawking a nosebleed.

i specifically bought this book for flash's action scripting. they (the authors) never really explain in detail how to use it. no examples, even the cd is vague, they go into detail technically, but no real life applications. it's almost if it was copied from an owners manuel. if you want real life examples you must go to their web site. which is fine, but i wish i would have known that before i kicked down the money for the book.

A "Must have" for any one struggling to learn Flash 4, also a great knowledge builder for Flash 3 users. Even though this book provides highly technical information about a pretty complex technology but it has a reader friendly tone...not loaded with obscure Jargon! The book is broken down into 13 chapters, each filled with "To the point" info about the tools and application of some "Nifty" techniques. As a web developer I loved chapter 9 " Automating Flash with ActionScript" This chapter alone pays off the book! Flash 4 Color Studio - is very cool. It shows quite a few examples of Flash in Live Action. If you are looking to buy "One Book" on Flash 4...then this book is all what you need! The only complaint I have is the lack of REAL SCOOP on Expert Level Production Tricks...But still a great companion to a "Fully loaded Mac G4 and a pair of 21' Trinitrons"

I find the book is very helpful for someone who wants to use Flash as a drawing program. The greater part of the book is spent learning how to use the drawingtools, how to modify Clip art (why would anybody want to do that? ) and different painting techniques. On the other hand only 30 pages is dedicated to ActionScripting which is the main reason to use Flash 4 and the biggest change from Flash 3. Also it's a expected that you are familiar with some programming language to understand the chapter about ActionScript - it doesn't really teach you anything apart from what commands can be used in Flash. I was also interested in learning more about FS Commands but find that the book only tells me what commands are available and not how to use them.

Although I'm a beginner with Flash, I still need to jump into advanced usage of it, and this book is simply far too basic -- mostly concentrating on the drawing tools, and very little to do with actions and interactivity. Even the drawing examples could be better. Examples of Flash-y sites were shown in the very small color plate section -- but then weren't discussed, and when I looked them up on the web, many were already 404. I had picked it up because it was on Lynda Weinman's recommended list but it has none of the clarity of her books. I've returned "Flash 4 Web F/X.." and am turning to the Flash Bible with my fingers crossed...

If you are a beginner and have no prior knowledge of Flash, you may find this book to be very aggravating. Although the author claims that this book is for beginners to intermediate users, unless you are an intermediate user you will probably have trouble following the exercises. If you are an intermediate user, I feel you would be very disappointed. Prior to reading this book, I was already familiar with Director 7, which helped in understanding some of the basic concepts used in Flash. I do not recommend this book to beginners or advanced users of Flash. If you are an experienced user you more than most likely have already learned half of the tricks in this book. I would advise you to look for a better reference source. The author does not complete his own thoughts. I found my self re-reading most of the exercises to accomplish the tasks at hand. The book contains mostly advise on how to draw and utilize clip art. Overall I was very disappointed with this book.

First off, I am not an expert at Flash, but I'm not a total newbie either. I was actually impressed, initially, with the book's layout and seeming wealth of information, but over a matter of weeks it lost it's shine.

It covers drawing, timelines, and bitmap tracing fine. It also touches on other software integration, quite well. It fails, however, on the most powerful aspect of Flash (and the one covered least in ALL Flash books)...actionscripts.

By neglecting this detail, I was left stunted in what I was learning, and even found myself referring back to the manual. Actionscripting is the lifeline of Flash. It's what keeps Flash "cutting-edge," providing interactivity and productivity for both surfers and clients.

Not a bad book, but not quite what I was hoping for, either.......................

Oh, this book is treating their readers for granted. A large part of it is mainly on drawing lessons. Very disappointing. Even if the author wanted to allow user to have a good knowledge on drawing in Flash, it should put it in an easier and lighter way. Learning from this book is like reading a long boring storybook. If given a choice, I will return this book to the authors again.

This book provides an excellent introduction to Flash animation and vector graphics for those of us who are reasonably competent technically, but who have no graphics training.

I found the suggestions for turning raster graphics into vector objects particularly useful. Working through the exercises provided me with a repertoire of tricks and procedures, as well as a library of useful effects and professional looking images. The animation examples give a very nice demonstration of what Flash can do.

This is a book which mainly focusing on teaching how to draw in Flash. Well, I find the tutorial installed in the Flash program itself is much better. With that, I don't think this book should concentrate so much on drawing techniques. For interactivity section, it's been very disappointing because with little visual illustrations, it's not very easy for beginners to pick up. Moreover I find that some of the explanations are too long-winded which kill off my learning desires.