Foundation Flash CS3 for Designers [Paperback]

David Stiller (Author), Tom Green (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 24, 2007 | ISBN-10: 159059861X | ISBN-13: 978-1590598610 | Edition: 1

Flash is one of the most engaging and innovative, and versatile technologies available—allowing the creation of pretty much anything from simple slideshows, animated banners and icons and cartoons, to rich Internet applications, Interactive videos, and dynamic user interfaces for web sites, kiosks, or DVDs. The possibilities are endless, except that now, it just got better.

In 2007, Adobe released Flash CS3, boasting a whole host of new features, including fully customizable workspace, full ActionScript 3.0 support, a PSD importer, a tween-to-code animation converter, and much more.

This book is all you'll need to learn Flash CS3 from the ground up, or learn about all these new features, if you already have previous Flash experience. Flash experts Tom Green and David Stiller take you step-by-step through all facets of Flash CS3, with the emphasis firmly on good design techniques that you use in your own projects.

You can discover more about this book, download source code, and even view video tutorials at the book's companion site: FoundationFlashCS3.com.

• Learn Flash design from the ground up, or just get to grips with the new features, with a series of step by step tutorials
• Provides an easy introduction to ActionScript 3.0 coding, but the focus is mainly kept on design
• Learn from the experts: written by renowned Flash designers Tom Green and David Stiller

What you’ll learn

• The ins and outs of the Flash CS3 interface
• How to use all of Flash CS3's essential features, such as text, graphics, and animation
• How to use video and sound effectively in Flash
• The basics of ActionScript 3.0
• Building Flash user interfaces rapidly using components.
• How to populate a Flash movie with dynamic data such as XML.
• The Basics of creating Flash Lite applications (Flash for mobile devices)
• Using Cascading Style Sheets with Flash
• Optimizing and publishing your Flash movies

Who this book is for

This book is for both beginners who want a solid grounding in Flash CS3, and designers with previous Flash experience, who want to get up to speed with the new features.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

David Stiller is a career multimedia programmer/designer whose portfolio includes NASA, Adobe, and major U.S. automotive and boat manufacturers. He likes anaglyph 3D photography, finely crafted wooden game boards, Library of Congress field recordings, and Turkish coffee. David is self-taught and gets a kick out of sharing "aha!" moments with others through consultation, mentoring, and regular contributions to the Adobe Flash and ActionScript forums. He is a resident author at Community MX, a web development training site geared toward Adobe products. David lives in Virginia with his amazing wife, Dawn, and his beguiling daughter, Meridian.

Tom Green is a professor of interactive media in the School of Media Studies at Humber College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning in Toronto. He has written four previous books on Macromedia technologies, and many articles for numerous magazines and web sites, including the MX Developers Journal, Community MX, and Computer arts. Lastly, he has spoken at over 20 conferences internationally, including FITC, MX North, Digital Design World, TODCON, and SparkEurope.

Product Details

• Paperback: 600 pages
• Publisher: friendsofED; 1 edition (July 24, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 159059861X
• ISBN-13: 978-1590598610
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 1.2 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (46 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #892,399 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Where are the source files? May 4, 2008

By Su Doku

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Torn between 4 or 5-stars, it is the question "where are the source files" that makes the book less than perfect. Anyone that reads this book will ask the same question and hunt for the answer, so I'll answer it right now. Go to their website at www.friendsofed.com. Click on Downloads. Then scroll down and click on the title of the book. You'll get 2 ways to download the files - 1 big zip file (444 MB - about 2 hours w/DSL) or 14 smaller chapter files. I chose to download the individual chapters because it's quicker and Chapter 8 (video) is 324 MB by itself (Hint: download later!).

The book is so well thought out with a great layout, that I think it's unbelievable that they would overlook such a major omission. All of the content is upfront, even the tech reviewer and cover designer have their own bio pages. In fact when I looked at the blank white page that immediately follows the "introduction" but precedes the "layout conventions" I began to suspect that I probably missed it - and I did. It's written in micro-print as the last line on the copyright page (where?) just before the credits. So what gives? Probably a little joke on the readers and a gentle shove to visit their website for the clicks (uh, content).

If you can get over the fact that the pages are written in b&w or having to create your own cd (flash drive!)- it's really a great book to read and work with. I'll use Chapter 1 (Learning the Flash CS3 Professional Interface) to explain my reasons why. The title is a bit modest because it introduced a lot of material like concepts, keystrokes (PC & MAC), tools, timelines, symbols, movie clips, library, objects, layers, motion and more --- in every day language. Along the way, you're actually using them. At the end, I had a really good general understanding and a nice comfort-level with the features of Flash while being hungry for more. Perfect timing because the remaining chapters are more in-depth and build on Chapter 1. Moreover, I was excited to realize that it bridges the learning curve for the other CS3 programs. Afterwards, I jumped into another newbie book (Adobe's Dreamweaver CS3 On Demand) and nope - no fog! I haven't written a review on it yet but it's looking pretty good and it's in color.

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Solid book for the beginner March 24, 2008

By R. Alvarez

Format:Paperback

I have never used Flash before. I purchased this book in order to learn how to put together some cool animations for video title scenes that I am working on. I am very happy with this purchase. I am not an expert after having gone through it, but learned exactly what I needed to in order to get my job done. That is one of the strengths of this book, after the first three chapters, you really can jump around and focus on what you need to.

Overall this book is well written. The authors managed to anticipate all of the questions that popped in my head as I was reading and following the examples. I did get a little frustrated in the "Building a Flash Movie" section of chapter 1. This section offers step by step instructions on the elements of creating a flash movie. Unfortunately, not all of the instructions are clear cut for the novice. For example, there is a set of instructions on creating a moon shadow that I followed precisely many many times. The confusion comes about when you are instructed to "click" on an object. There are different ways to click on an object in FLASH which the authors do not cover in chapter 1. In addition, I had "object drawing mode" turned on, which is not explained until chapter 2. This was very frustrating to me because I was following the instruction precisely and it was not working out. I persevered through it and can now tell you exactly what was wrong.

Chapter 2 is a real eye-opener if you manage to get through "creating a Flash Movie" in CH1. In chapter 2, I learned about the fundamentals of the features that had frustrated me in chapter 1.

Chapter 3 rounds out the last of the essentials that you should really have under your belt. There was a section on 9-slice scaling that I feel was not well done and the example used was in poor taste. The authors used images of a cross-dressing man in green leotards that dresses up as Peter Pan. I found the images to be quite disturbing and had the misfortune of having to work with this image in order to learn 9-slice scaling which I never learned because maybe I was too distracted by the fact that I was working on an image of a grown man dressed in pantyhose, a green dress and shiny shoes. Whatever happened to images of flowers and mountains? Really guys? Peter Pan? Was the Cinderella guy too busy to pose for you that day?

Peter Pan aside, this book get a full 5 stars for content. I really learned a lot and the authors made this book fun and easy to read. I do recommend that the novice reader not dwell on the building a flash movie in section 1 if things are not working out. It will all become clear in subsequent chapters. Also, maybe it is written in really big letters somewhere and I missed it, but I could not find one reference in the book to tell you where to go to download the companion zip folders that contain the sample files that the reader will need. I had to google it and when I did find a source, the Chapter 8 files kept coming in as corrupt files. I had to go to a secondary source to find Chapter 8. (you can find the files on the friends-of-ed website.) With these small few exceptions, I highly recommend this book.

21 of 25 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Code for Designers! September 1, 2007

By W. Rainey

Format:Paperback

In a word... Excellent! Challenging material made clear and accessible. It's not surprising to find that one of the authors is a long time teacher.

I've been reviewing this book for use as a textbook in community college level interactive multimedia classes. Since our department has grown out of a traditional graphic design program, we still face some resistance when it comes to teaching any kind programming. Now that so many artistic pursuits involves pushing around 1's and 0's, the institutional tendency to separate art and science, right brain/left brain, is no longer workable. The artist/designer of the future will have to be skilled in logic and at least the rudiments of programming. (for an excellent rant on this, see Aral Balkan's forward to ActionScript 3 for Animation by Keith Peters)

So, imagine the smile on my face when I saw the index to this book. ActionScript in chapter 4... well before animation in chapter 7... in a book with "for Designers" in the title! The inclusion of ActionScript so early in the learning process will allow us a much more integrated approach - something that is critical now that Flash is all grown up.