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Foundation ActionScript Animation: Making Things Move! (Paperback)

~ Keith Peters (Author)
Key Phrases: ball movie clip, line movie clip, simple easing, Macromedia Flash (more...)
4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
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Product Description

Sure you can animate using motion tweens, in fact we'll help you do that with our Flash Cartoon Animation book, but isn't there something extra special in making things move with just a few lines of code? In this book Keith Peters guides us through some basic animation theory and then demystifies the math and physics behind creating realistic animation, looking at trigonometry, velocity and acceleration, and bouncing & friction. As you'd expect, the book intersperses theory with practical demonstrations of the techniques covered. A basic knowledge of ActionScript concepts is all that is required to get up and running with the tutorials. Keith goes on to cover more advanced animation topics such as collision detection, particle attraction, and kinematics. The book concludes with looking at 3D animation techniques, including building a basic 3D engine, 3D lines, fills and solids, and matrix math. Table of Contents

* Part I – ActionScripted Animation Basics

o Ch. 1 – Basic Animation Concepts

o Ch. 2 – ActionScript Basics for Animation

o Ch. 3 – Trigonometry

o Ch. 4 – Rendering Techniques

* Part II – Basic Motion

o Ch. 5 – Velocity and Acceleration

o Ch. 6 – Bouncing and Friction

o Ch. 7 – User Interaction: Dragging and Throwing

* Part III – Advanced Motion

o Ch. 8 – Easing and Springs

o Ch. 9 – Collision Detection

o Ch. 10 – Bouncing off Angles

o Ch. 11 – Billiard Ball Physics

o Ch. 12 – Particle Attraction

o Ch. 13 – Forward Kinematics

o Ch. 14 – Inverse Kinematics

* Part IV – Three D

o Ch. 15 – A Basic 3D Engine

o Ch. 16 – 3D Lines, Fills, Solids

o Ch. 17 – Advanced 3D: Backface Culling & Lighting

o Ch. 18 – Matrix Math

* Part V – Tips and Tricks

o Ch. 19 – Tips and Tricks

About the Author

Keith Peters

Keith Peters lives in the vicinity of Boston, MA, in the US with his wife, Kazumi, and their daughter, Kristine. He has been working with Flash since 1999, and has coauthored many books for friends of ED, including the groundbreaking volumes, Flash Math Creativity and Extending Flash MX 2004.The site recently won an award at the Flashforward 2003 Flash Film Festival in the Experimental category. In addition to the experiments on this site, Keith has produced several highly regarded Flash tutorials that have been translated into many languages and are now posted on websites throughout the world. Keith is currently working full time on Flash development and various writing projects.

Keith's other books include: Flash MX Studio, Fresh Flash: New Design Ideas with Flash MX, Byte-Size Flash MX, Flash MX Most Wanted, Flash MX Games Most Wanted, and New Masters of Flash: Volume 3

Product Details

  • Paperback: 400 pages
  • Publisher: friends of ED; 1st ed. 2005, corr. 3rd printing edition (October 17, 2005)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1590595181
  • ISBN-13: 978-1590595183
  • Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 7.3 x 1.3 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #277,903 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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    #93 in  Books > Computers & Internet > Graphic Design > Web Design > Flash

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Keith Peters
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
ball movie clip, line movie clip, simple easing, coded animation, empty movie clip, function init, motion code, screen wrapping, two movie clips, movie clip instance, fla file, hit testing, rotate everything, movie clip symbol, init function, named ball, linkage name, main timeline, depth sorting, clip events, registration point, coordinate rotation, graphical content, walk function, matrix math
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Macromedia Flash
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Customer Reviews

34 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.6 out of 5 stars (34 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent animation tutorial for the ActionScript enthusiast, November 28, 2005
Being an old-fashioned programmer, I generally avoid script languages and try to do everything in traditional programming languages with one exception - ActionScript. From my first introduction to the language I've been hooked by its combination of power and simplicity. If you already have an intermediate grasp of ActionScript and want to learn how to make realistic animations using this language, this is the book for you. This book was written for someone familiar with ActionScript to some degree but with little knowledge of math or physics. As a matter of fact, if you are a mathematician or physicist, you probably will not truly appreciate this book due to its accessible style. This book is NOT about controlling tweens and simple animations. Instead, each chapter lays out the rules of physics, trigonometry, matrix algebra, vectors, and 3D mathematics very plainly and clearly while applying it to an animation problem. Part four of the book takes the principles you learned in the first three parts of the book and applies it to 3D animation. Each chapter intersperses code with equations and explanatory diagrams, and then at the end usually summarizes key algorithms in numbered steps. This book has a simply excellent treatment of both forward and inverse kinematics to the point that I would recommend its tutorials to robotics students that are having a hard time finding anything readable on the subject. If you don't think your ActionScript skills are up to the challenge of this book, might I recommend the excellent "Essential ActionScript 2.0" by Moock. If you don't know ActionScript, you will by the time you finish that book.
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19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars An Indispensable Tome, December 24, 2005
By Adam Pasztory "adampasz" (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
I've been working in Flash and Actionscript since 2001. If I'd had this book when I was starting out it would have saved me countless hours of research and experimentation. Foundation Actionscript Animation is stuffed to the gills with useful programming techniques, yet is also very readable and concise.

Unlike so many authors, Keith Peters is not out to impress us with his cleverness and intellect. His main purpose is to share a wealth of practical knowledge that he's been building up over the years in a practical way. You won't find any cartoons or jokes in this book. Nor will you find digressions and distracting sidebars. Though it covers a number of complex topics in Math and Physics, it does not read like a textbook -- the author strives to explain only what is necessary to get things working.

Sometimes he is downright apologetic when he has to cover a difficult subject. At the start of the chapter on Momentum, he writes "I have reached a point where I just can't ignore mass any longer. Mass is just so tied up in the subject of momentum that I'm just going to have to confront it head on." If anything, this constant apologizing becomes a bit tiresome!

Flash has been an evolving platform over the years, and Actionscript Animation does an admirable job putting everything into a helpful historical perspective, showing how things have changed from Flash 5 to Flash 8. Chapter 2, is such a perfect overview of common techniques for building Flash applications that I have recommended it to some co-workers who are programmers, but who haven't had experience with Flash. The Flash 8 examples are usually in their own section of a chapter, and can be ignored if you're working with an older version.

I recommend this book even to veteran Actionscripters. Though this is not an OOP book, most of the examples are only about a function or two long, so you can easily convert them into methods for your classes. Furthermore, even topics you are comfortable with can worth reading about because Peters may surprise you with a new way to do something. For example, after covering the basics of Trigonometry, he immediately provides a number of useful examples of pulsing and elliptical motion that can be achieved with trig functions, including an interesting example that applies the function to the scale of a movie clip to create a pulsing effect.

The final chapters of the book cover basic 3D animation techniques. While I didn't feel ready to build the next Quake, I was grateful for the author's gentle introduction to a topic that is often presented in a very confusing way. When I was done, felt prepared to tackle a more difficult book on 3D graphics.

Though it's not designed to be a reference book, Foundation Actionscript Animation will certainly find a home near my computer. And next time I'm creating an SWF that involves collision detection, gravity or matrices, this is the first place I'll go for a refresher.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Scripts and theory for the interaction designer, game programmer, experience and user interface developer, November 7, 2005
I found this book to be an excellent collection of scripts and theory for the interaction designer, game programmer, experience and user interface developer. The book covers ActionScript basics, OOP and best coding practices, classes, new Flash 8 features, lots of trig, and physics formulas for velocity, acceleration, friction and gravity. I would actually highly recommend this book to any designer who is thinking about picking up ActionScript. The coding practices and sample code will immediately spark your imagination, while setting you on the right track as to how to think about programming and structuring your code. You'll get instant gratification from learning how to build very interactive widgets quickly, while also enhancing your code libraries.

If you are a seasoned ActionScripter but never experimented with particles, collision detection, IK or 3D there are plenty of advanced scripts and theory for you as well. I was happy to see coverage of matrix math and the matrix class, considering their usage in Flash 8

Overall a great compilation of code and theory. It's complete, well written and for Flash 8!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential read for every actionscripter
I have read a lot of books, covering a lot of subjects. This must be one of the more complex subjects (trigonometry mainly), yet one of the easiest to understand. Read more
Published 18 months ago by Tycho L

5.0 out of 5 stars Everything you wanted to know
I'm only on chapter 5, but this book really lays out all of the tools you need to prototype and/or develop video games in Flash. Read more
Published 21 months ago by Aaron

5.0 out of 5 stars well done
Foundation ActionScript Animation: Making Things Move! is a surprisingly well-written book. I started with Flash 3, moved to server-side languages with Flash MX, and now, years... Read more
Published 23 months ago by Real Men Use Notepad

5.0 out of 5 stars Easy to use and understand, even for the novice
I was tasked with producing eight Flash simulations for an engineering dynamics course this past summer. Read more
Published on October 15, 2007 by Dr. Dave

1.0 out of 5 stars Must Love Actionscript
I will atest that this is a great book IF you are an actionscript junkie, but if your not you will hate this book. Read more
Published on September 22, 2007 by Tracey L. Grimes

5.0 out of 5 stars Incredibly well written
I bought this book along w/ about 4 others that I needed. This one was the splurge... I was simply going to browse through it and see what I could pick up from it - not really... Read more
Published on September 10, 2007 by Daniel Summers

5.0 out of 5 stars Indeed a great tool for making animations
I was looking for a script animation book and I finally found the one that cater to my needs.
Published on July 12, 2007 by Romeo G. Savellana

5.0 out of 5 stars Just what I was looking for...
I started learning Flash 8 about 6 months ago, hoping to make some physics simulation programs and games. Read more
Published on July 11, 2007 by Brennan Johnson

3.0 out of 5 stars A Code Warehouse but Beware....
Lots of great code and comprehensive in scope (covers lots of movement topics). However, explanations are frequently vague, ambiguous, and illustrations will frustrate rather than... Read more
Published on April 28, 2007 by Mark Twain

5.0 out of 5 stars A Moving Thing, Really
This is my favorite Flash book! Every time I open it I learn something new and get to the root of what I'm trying to do: make things move with code. Read more
Published on April 18, 2007 by Tim Harris

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