Customer Reviews

Macromedia Flash: Super Samurai

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I picked this sucker up - and at first i thought it was some kind of ego play. Super Samurai? Who do these guys think they are? But I thumbed through the book anyway, and wow! I have to admit there is some amazing coding going on here! The audio chapter perked my attention, the component thing was cool, and all of the 3D and physics looked tasty. I haven't put the book down since I bought it and I'm learning great & useful things with each turn of the page. i love it!

Usually when I buy a book of this nature I like to sit down and read a couple of pages first. I went to Borders last week looking for a book on Flash and XML. There were numerous books with those words in their title and after reading a few and finding none that my mind could get a handle on I scanned the shelves. I eyes saw this flashy cover and name and decided to browse through it. To my surprise I found the portion on XML and flash very helpful. I ended up walking out the store with this book under my arm. I have not read the other chapters with the math sections in them and might never get round to doing it. I think the sound and 3D sections will be very useful.

I just got the book and it looks GREAT! Authors really know what they're talking about and I'm learning a tremendous amount from them. The chapters I really love are the ones on 3d, database integration, physics and XML. This book skips over the BS and goes right to the important stuff. If you're tired of the so-called advanced books that explain all the basics to you, this is the book to get. The authors don't play around, they get right to the point. Great work guys!

If you are an intermediate to advanced programmer in ActionScript and you are looking for a resource that provides basic recipes for for a lot of the "cool" things being done in Flash, then I would say this is a good buy. Some of the chapter are not very useful, but the 3D and audio sections are indispensable.
My chief complain is that some of the sections (like Component Architecture) discuss a single approach, but do not conisder alternative methods.

These days there aren't many books out that deal exclusively with ActionScript. There's one from Colin Mook which I like, and the couple others that are out there aren't that impressive. This one isn't worth it's weight in gold but I still find it quite valuable because each chapter is written by a different author, and each of them really seems to know what they're talking about. Assuming that you know your way around Flash, this one won't waste your time going over the usual basics. At times it's a bit difficult to find your way around the sample files, but I'm learning so much just from dissecting them, and the chapters in the book explain reasonably well what's going on. Book looks a bit cheap, but then again, it's not like I'm gonna be using it much once the next version of Flash hits the shelves...

I have a total of 8 Flash books, 6 from friendsofed, two from Macromedia. This one from MM, Super Samurai, is actually the best in teaching me intermediate level Flash. For learning the basic principles of 3D, and using Flash with database, the relevant chapters in Super Samurai beat other books in my possession by miles. The explanations are clear and detailed, and the examples work. I especially love the shopping cart example used to demonstrate how to link Flash to a database using XML and ASP.

On 3D, there is simply no comparison between Super Samurai's chapter and Flash 5 Studio's chapter. Super Samurai's is easy to understand and detailed, while Flash 5 Studio just give you a few examples without much explanation. I wonder if the author of F5S really understands the examples. Even the 3D example in Flash MX Designers ActionScript Reference by Friendsofed looks muddled when compared with SS's. I have learned so much from this one book.

Strangely, when I looked for other books by the author of the chapter on XML, Michael Grundvig, the only other book that he co-wrote on this topic got a really lousy review. It just shows that publishers can give quite inconsistent quality books even with the same authors.

This book is hit and miss. Some chapters provide very useful information and reference, such as the physics modeling, while others seem to act as filler material. The subject XML and Flash, for example, can easily be found in greater depth on the net. Other chapters provide somewhat useful examples, but certainly not worth the paper they were printed on.

Another problem with this book is that most of the ActionScript is useless if you're coding with Flash MX. The chapter on using widgets, for example, is pointless, as Flash MX is now a functional OOP environment. Although the examples in the book give a general idea of advanced ActionScript--it's really geared for Flash 5--and a great deal of Flash 5 ActionScript has been replaced (depreciated).

Becuase the book is also from different authors, the writing is a bit hit and miss as well. One chapter, "Flash Interface Design", fills pages of code and screenshots, but fails to reveal the logic behind the code, or exactly how the code works at all. Instead, I'm left to hunt through the flash file on my own, and that's something I don't need a book for.

I think this has been a very popular book in the past, but with the release of Flash MX as well as the overall lack of effort on the authors part to make this more digestable, I would not recommend purchasing this book--borrow it if you need to.

After going through the chapters, I must say there are a few things that disappoint me about this book. The book's layout and design are poor. The information is not well laid out and even though the authors are very well versed, I believe some editorial help on their writing style would have improved the books content dramatically. Understanding that each chapter is written by a different developer, the reader will see that the quality of the explanations varies.

The book has some very interesting concepts and given time and effort an intermediate/advanced flash AS programmer will understand the concepts and theory behind some of the more interesting flash movies on the net.

The authors are true samurai, so if you want to join their clan you're going to need to understand the concepts in this book. If you have your advanced math books from school, you'll want to take them out so you can review some trig and calculus theories, your going to need them.

Novice Flash developers better wait to get this book, trust in my words, you will minimally understand the theories. But if you are adventures, and think you have what it takes. Go for it.

When I bought this book about a month ago I wasn't so into actionscripting. Now that i've read all the juicy bits, i realize all the cool things i've been missing - i feel like i've wasted so much time! The chapter by Eric Dolecki on system architecture is stuff that i couldn't have imagined even needing to know just a few months ago. This book has taught me a lot! On a slightly negative side, if there has to be one, i'm not sure what level it's aimed at. It was good for me because i had the basics of AS down, but if you don't know any scripting i'd keep away for now and start with something more basic.

$64 for techniques the online developer community offers for free. All these scripts/tutorials and more are available to download if one visits enough flash sites.

Yes the authors do know their stuff, then again you should if your getting published.