New Masters of Flash (WITH CD-ROM) (Paperback)

by Joshua Davis (Author), Eric Jordan (Author), Yugo Nakamura (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Learning by doing is always good, especially if you have good role models to follow. As part of the publisher's "Showing It" series, this book brings together 19 of the most innovative designers who are working in motion graphics, and gives them lots of page room to talk about their work in general, their inspirations (movies, games, etc.), and how they created some of their best projects. Some of the best-known participating artists include Tomasz Jankowski of Mondo.com, Todd Purgason of Juxt Interactive, Eric Jordan of 2advanced.com, and Irene Chan of Eneri.net.

Following along is easy; large screen shots and step-by-step narratives guide readers through each process--often telling not just how to do a particular something, but also why. How you then apply these methods to your own work might not be spelled out, but by re-creating the projects you'll gain the confidence and experience that you need to push your skills to the next level.

Projects range from thevoid's fairly basic, tween-heavy ripple animation to an interactive menu that's driven by dynamic ActionScripting from James Paterson of presstube.com. Simple text effects are covered, too, along with an introduction to ActionScripts, 3-D animation using only Flash, ActionScripting and Swift 3D, deciding between bitmap and vector art, discussions of download time, integration of Photoshop and Director, and many other topics. All project files are included on the companion CD-ROM, along with some extras.

This is a great addition to the Flash library, but the book unfortunately gives off an overpowering ink smell. The layout of the chapters is sometimes confusing, too. Neither of these issues applies to the CD-ROM, however, which reproduces everything in the book in animated form. All you have to do is sit back and watch. And there are some great interview movies, through which you can get to know some of the personal motivations and philosophies of favorite Flash gurus. --Angelynn Grant

Topics covered:
Profiles of 19 designers who work in Flash, with illustrations of their work and influences

Basic and advanced instruction in Flash, including the following:

• Tween animation
• Simple, intermediate, and advanced ActionScripting
• Interactive menus
• Coordinating multiple movie clips and timelines
• Integrating Photoshop and Director
• 3-D animation
• Using sound

Product Description
New Masters of Flash is both global showcase and practical tutorial. Twenty of the planet's most awe-inspiring Flash designers share their influences, ideas and objectives in individual introductory essays. They then take the reader through a step-by-step tutorial explaining in detail how to create in Flash 5 the interfaces, applications and effects that they have made famous. On the accompanying CD, watch interviews with the designers, follow animated versions of the tutorials and download the FLAs for Flash 5 (F4 FLAs are also available from the support website). The author-designers are some of the most legendary Flash innovators currently working - from the US to Japan, Europe to South Africa: Yugo Nakamura, Joshua Davies, Manuel Clement, Irene Chan and Tomato's Joel Baumann together with fifteen other leading Flash practitioners. These are the designers who are expanding the horizons of interactive interface design with Flash. Join them.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 550 pages
• Publisher: Peer Information Inc.; Bk&CD-Rom edition (October 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1903450039
• ISBN-13: 978-1903450031
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 9.5 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (42 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,064,248 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

69 of 72 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars decent book, but not for learning Flash 5 correctly..., November 15, 2000

By A Customer

I agree with Water monkey. Don't get me wrong, this is a good book for getting design inspirations and ideas, but not for learning Flash 5 the right way. There's enough books on Flash about doing the basic to intermediate stuff, but what everyone wants is a good Actionscript book. This book is better than the Flash 4 Magic book (which has tons of scripts but no explainations), and it actually does try to explain the definition and reason behind the applied scripts. One major complaint I have is quite a few chapters have scripts showed in Flash 5(a good thing) action window, but its obvious the codes are converted over from Flash 4 format, not written in the efficient manner using the dot syntax format of Flash 5. SO IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR A BOOK TO SHOW HOW TO CODE PROPERLY IN THE FLASH 5 WAY, THIS BOOK WILL DISAPPOINT YOU. The codes in this book still use the // and ../ or /: way of addressing, which is what Macromedia trying to phase out with version 5. Well, that's my two cents on this book, great for visual inspirations, not for learning advanced Flash 5 script properly.

29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars YOU NEED TO KNOW THIS, January 22, 2001

By	W. Todd Dominey (Decatur, GA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Before you plunk down a bunch of money to buy this book, you should know that all of the examples given use Flash 4 actionscript. Not a big deal, right? Well...it is. Flash 5 (the latest version) features a heavy re-write of the Actionscript code that powers all of your movies. In some cases, the syntax is completely different. If you know the differences between Flash 4 code and Flash 5, you should be able to easily understand what to do. If you don't, you'll be stuck learning code that is outdated. It's a shame they couldn't wait a little bit longer and publish this book with up-to-date actionscript. The examples and methods are good, but whenever they show the actionscript code that powers the movie, it's Flash 4. Don't use this book to learn actionscript. Get a book on Flash 5 actionscript instead. This book is good for inspiration and not much else.

44 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Nice Flash showcase that can be found on the web, November 10, 2000

By	Water Monkey "Marc B." (Santa Clarita, Ca.) - See all my reviews

When I first saw this book I was hoping for a good reference book on some of the more advanced Flash topics, like the various scripting languages and ODBC connectivity. Lets face it there are no truly advanced Flash books available. All Flash books assume you know little more than rudimentary tweening skills.

This book does expect you to know more than just your tweens, which is good. Many of the topics in this book can't be found in any other books. The designers even do a decent job showing you how to re-create their designs (although little concept and reasoning is applied to their actions).

The problem with the book is the tutorials are specific to the design created. This is probably the same reason advanced Flash books are not published. There are no generalized tutorials. If you are lucky enough to pull pieces from the designs and use them within your own , great.

As far as the designs themselves, they are inspiring, but you can view them on the web for free. By going to the designers web sites you can view their protfolios and see their work. Of course, they won't provide the tutorials.

This is a nice book to get ideas from, I just wish it had more instruction and reference material.