Illustrating With Macromedia Flash™ MX 2004 (Internet Series) [Paperback]

Robert Firebaugh (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1584503157 | ISBN-13: 978-1584503156 | Publication Date: April 2004 | Edition: 1

Macromedia Flash has evolved into the perfect tool to create innovative vector graphics and animation for the Web, due mainly to its simple-to-use features, high-quality output, and relatively low cost. Illustrating With Macromedia Flash MX 2004 provides users with a complete process for creating vector illustrations in Flash using step-by-step tutorials. Beginning with a tour of the basics, including learning to use Flash drawing tools to create impressive effects and interfaces, the book then progresses to using Flash to draw in a variety of different stylescartoon, anime, and photorealistic. The book concludes by teaching users how to create a photorealistic optimized vector graphic in Flash that takes up a very small amount of file space. This is the only guide users need to master Flash illustration techniques.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Robert Firebaugh (Foster City, CA) is the founder of vectorkid.com, a vector art community site that educates developers about the illustration possibilities in Flash. He has over 10 years of illustration and game design experience, and he is the creative director and co-founder of Electrotank, Inc. The games he has designed have won numerous international awards and have been acknowledged by many publications. He is an active member in the graphics community, publishing many other Flash works in magazines (Computer Arts, Computer Arts Projects, Web Designer, Practical Web Projects, and more). He contributed a chapter on gaming graphics in Macromedia Flash MX Game Design Demystified and is the author of the first edition of this book, as well as the forthcoming, Macromedia Flash® Professional 8 Game Graphics.

Product Details

• Paperback: 450 pages
• Publisher: Charles River Media; 1 edition (April 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1584503157
• ISBN-13: 978-1584503156
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,675,314 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A unique flash book for aspiring illustrators, July 14, 2004

By 

Jarrad (Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Illustrating With Macromedia Flash™ MX 2004 (Internet Series) (Paperback)

I am a flash developer and like most advanced flash users they tend to get caught up all doing actionscripted effects and can forget about Flash's amazing creative vector drawing tools.

From what I've read so far the book has a focus of creating highly optimized quality vector graphics and focuses on how you can use all the tools to your advantage.

This book reintroduced me to flash's vector drawing tools and made me fall in love with them.

However I was abit dissapointed towards the end that the book became more like a wad of tutorials, it says chapter 10 is tutorials but it seems more tutorially in chapter 5 and onward.

I was hoping to have more illustration ideas/tricks in chapter 5. I really like the perspective stuff this book has.

In conclusion this book is great for beginners and good/okay for experienced users, this book applies to Flash MX as well (so you dont need 2004).
Everyone could benefit from the techniques presented in the book.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Well done!, June 12, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Illustrating With Macromedia Flash™ MX 2004 (Internet Series) (Paperback)

I found this how-to book to be very easy to read with many clearly written tutorials. It starts off with a good foundational explanation of illustrating with vector graphics, then a comparative explanation of the other comparable illustration programs, it then gives an explanation of MX 2004's newest features. The many tutorials take the reader through various illustration basics as they apply to this latest version of Flash MX. The step-by-step tutorials, along with the suggested illustration techniques, are the highlight of this book. The included tutorial CD complements the contents of the book and allows the reader to "test-drive" their newly learned illustration skills with a trial copy of the software. Overall, an excellent resource for those who want to develop or expand their illustration skills using Macromedia's Flash MX 2004!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good information and techniques, but exercises inconsistent and difficult, January 18, 2006

By 

Akm (San Diego, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Illustrating With Macromedia Flash™ MX 2004 (Internet Series) (Paperback)

This book provides plenty of information and techniques on illustrating within Flash MX 2004. It also includes background information on web and graphic design principles within Flash. A general overview of Flash's tools and interface is also provided in the early chapters. However, the main emphasis is on creating optimized vector graphics. Most of this is demonstrated through step-by-step exercises including a chapter dedicated to tutorials. The book also includes a companion CD with all the exercise graphics and a frame by frame break down of the steps involved in creating them.

By reading the material and working through the exercises I acquired a better understanding on how various effects are created in Flash. I also learned plenty about the drawing tools that I didn't know or just hadn't utilized before. But of course, there is some material that I found as just a review as well. Nevertheless, the main technique utilized in this book is the proper use of the line tool and gradients to create detailed optimized graphics. Some of the most detailed graphics on the CD like the steel pan and fruit only exported out to about 2-3 KB in size. So the graphics are definitely optimized and yet still very detailed.

This book does have quite a few flaws though. Overall, most of the exercises were inconsistent and just difficult to follow. Certain exercises provided plenty of detail and were simple to follow. But, other exercises were just the opposite, with vaguer details and generally harder instructions. At times, it was even difficult determining whether a certain section was meant to be read or followed. It didn't help that many of the exercises, mainly in the later chapters, were overly complex to start. Creating some of these graphics proved a bit too difficult even with all the figures demonstrating the steps. One of the most difficult and time consuming aspects was trying to create the complex gradient outlines required for these graphic (Especially based on colorless images). The break down of the graphics on the CD does help at times. A final problem was the excess use of shortcuts without actually providing the key strokes or even the original menu location.

If optimized vector graphics are necessary and there is ample time to create them, then this book can be a great help. However, many of these graphics would be quicker and easier to create in other programs (although larger is size). I did feel that too many exercises were overly complex and even hard to follow. In spite of this I was still able to improve by illustrating abilities in Flash.