7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
LOVE THIS BOOK, September 13, 2009
This review is from: How to Cheat in Adobe Flash CS4: The art of design and animation (Paperback)
I love, love, love this Flash animation book! There are lots of great how-to instructions in some basic Flash animation effects. However, this book is not for the beginner. You need to have a grounding in how to use Flash before you can successfully follow this tutorial book without feeling frustrated. There are some basic techniques explained in Chapter One, such as how to draw basic shapes and use the brush tool and trace bitmaps, but you'll be tempted to move on too quickly to the more cool and spectacular effects, such as creating fireworks or using bones to make figures dance. There is also some ActionScript coding, and it's best to have some familiarity with using the programming language firstly. I was able to use the book to create the fireworks effects as part of a Fourth of July cartoon for my website, but I think I would have been confused if I was a novice Flash user.
I am an artist, not a programmer, so I can always appreciate computer books that are well-laid out and clearly explain how to create animation and effects. This is also a good book for persons strong on the programming/ActionScript side of Flash but want to learn how to improve their animation skills. The accompanying CD is helpful and there is an image index of what is on the CD. There are Twelve Chapters and it is profusely and attractively illustrated in lovely colors. It's a great resource for saving you some time trying to figure out how to create some basic effects. It's not going to teach you how to create games, for example, but is more geared toward basic animation and effects that can be incorporated into your website or Flash-based cartoon.
As above, Chapter One reviews some basic techniques to create images and keep the size files down for laying a foundation for more complex animations later in the book. Chapter Two reviews the envelope tool and how to successfully distort a bitmap. This lays the foundation later in the chapter for more complex stretching and warping effects, such as rotating a playing card.
Chapter Three was very helpful to me, as in my prior Flash classroom experience, masking was scarcely touched upon but a strong knowledge of masking is a very useful skill to have in creating some cool effects. After reading how to rotate a globe of our planet, I was surprised how easy it was, yet I had not considered doing it using the method that the author details. I can hardly wait to try this effect on my newest incarnation of my book website.
I won't go into too much more detail so I'm not handing the contents over to the author's competitors.
There are chapters on motion tweening, basic character animation, sound recording, using video, and Quicktime. There is some room in the book given to how to create other effects with Flash-related and sound editing programs, so not all of the information is immediately useful with just Flash CS4 (a little over a chapter's worth). There is information on how to create some weather effects, a basic walk cycle, page turns, lip synching, and basic movie type of effects (such as the iris effect) which can help get you running with your own animated cartoon. There is some basic information on IK animation in Chapter Twelve, which helps you get started, but I'd really like to see a book focusing just on tutorials on this new, and really cool, tool in this latest incarnation of Flash, because I lack the time to do a lot of experimentation.
Another thing I really like about this book is that it shows how to not only import and use video, but also how to export your Flash file to video, something other books I own lack. It does not tell you how to export for use on particular mobile devices. I recommend Adobe flash CS4 Professional On Demand by Johnson for this (linked below).
This won't be the ONLY Flash CS4 book you'd like to own, because it doesn't go into details about every aspect of Flash CS4, but it's a great jumping off point and a great addition to your Flash book library. For the nitty, gritty just how to do just this one part of Flash, I recommend this book,
Adobe Flash CS4 Professional on Demand which I'll review later.
I rate myself as an intermediate Flash User, so I cannot say how useful this book would be to advanced users.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Same book as the CS3 version. BUT still Excellent learning tool., May 22, 2009
This review is from: How to Cheat in Adobe Flash CS4: The art of design and animation (Paperback)
If you own the previous book "How to Cheat in CS3" than don't bother purchasing this book. It's identical to previous version CS3 with a few new images. Don't get me wrong it's an excellent book, but disappointing that ALL images are not included, for example: (JIB JAB) That's why I gave it 3 stars AND also because it's the same as previous book.
If purchasing this book series for the first time than 4 stars, again NOT ALL IMAGES included and you must use your own.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
How to Cheat in Flash CS4 Update from CS3, April 18, 2009
This review is from: How to Cheat in Adobe Flash CS4: The art of design and animation (Paperback)
Chris's revised book is everything you would want to know about using Flash CS4 as an animator. Great new chapters covering the new features of CS4 along with some of the tried and true methods applicable to recent versions of Flash.
Chapters requiring CS4 are clearly marked with an icon, so even if you your still using CS3 you can still use this book with some of the new updated content.
Great section on basic interactivity using ActionScript with examples in AS2.0 and AS3.0 (Thanks David Stiller).
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