Introduction Introduction
Adobe is not exaggerating when it says that Flash CS4 Professional is the “industry-leading authoring environment for creating engaging interactive experiences.” You only need to visit a few sites that use Flash to understand how compelling it is. Using graphics, animation, sound, and interactivity, Flash can excite, teach, entertain, and provide practical information.
With this version of Flash, Adobe has introduced some valuable new features, as well as further integrated Flash CS4 into its suite of products. Thats a powerful thing—when products like Photoshop, Illustrator, and Fireworks can be used to help you create graphics for use in your Flash movies. This interoperability only increases as time goes on.
More than half a billion users already have the free Flash player that enables them to view Flash movies. As of the writing of this book, more than 95% of computers connected to the Internet not only had Flash Player version 9, but more than 55% have the latest version, Flash Player 10. The fact that Adobe continues to distribute this software so effectively means the potential audience for Flash content is huge and continues to grow.
The tools needed to create Flash movies are within your reach. After you purchase Flash, the only investment you need to make is time to learn. You can even download a trial version of Flash from http://www.adobe.com, and use it for 30 days for free. People can grow from fiddling with Flash to making entertaining movies. Imagine a great musician picking up and learning an instrument in a matter of days. It really is that amazing. If youre motivated, with just a moderate time investment, you feel as though a powerful communication tool has been given to you.
Flash is so unique that sometimes its better to have less experience. If you have preconceived ideas about Flash or how youre supposed to use drawing tools, it might be best to try to forget everything and start fresh. This book is organized in such a way that you should start seeing successes quickly. With each task, you prove to yourself that youre acquiring knowledge and skills.
We dont need to give you a pep talk because youll see for yourself. In just a few one-hour lessons, you are creating drawings that you might have thought you werent capable of. In a few more hours, you are making animations. Finally, after 24 one-hour lessons, you are unstoppable. Where you take your skills is up to you, but you get a great foundation here.
You might not feel like a pro overnight, but you will feel you have a powerful communication tool in your control. When you cant wait to show others your creations, you know youre on your way. Get ready to have some fun!
Whats New in This Edition
This is the sixth edition of this book. To prevent the material from getting stale, we change quite a bit in each revision, as well as cover the new CS4 features with some depth. Unlike many other dramatic software upgrades, Adobe Flash CS4 Professional is not that different from the CS3 version. However, the way people use Flash and Flash in general has definitely broadened significantly. Its not just Flash anymore; its the Flash Platform. Technologies, such as Apollo and the Flex Framework, have attracted a new set of developers all delivering Flash content. The CS4 upgrade is offers a few new tools, techniques, and further integrates with other Adobe CS4 products.
This edition doesnt try to cover everything; there simply isnt time to do that in 24 one-hour lessons. Instead, we focus on animation techniques, graphics, and delivering to the web. You also spend a whole hour exploring new features including video with the full-screen mode; Inverse Kinematics, the art of animating things connected to other things; and 3D animation.
This book contains minimal, but crucial, coverage of ActionScript. We try not to go too much in-depth, but we cover enough to give you an idea of how it works. ActionScript is an entire computer language on its own, and once you have a sense of how it works, youll be comfortable learning more using additional resources. ActionScript isnt getting any less complex; it is becoming much more consistent. So, what you learn in the ActionScript introductory hour (Hour 16, “Basic Interactivity”) applies to the rest of the code you see pop up in the book. We do cover Flash Components—ready-built and self-contained objects that include advanced ActionScript code, but also keep you insulated from that code. This edition also includes hours that cover using basic ActionScript and Components.
ActionScript 3.0(AS3) is the latest version of ActionScript. You see AS3 in most of the code samples that appear in this book. But, in some cases, we show how to perform a task using AS2. Although AS3 is a cleaner version of the ActionScript language, its also less forgiving. Programmers generally like the strictness of AS3, but many intermediate Flash users prefer to do things the old way as in AS2 because they can successfully make moderately complex tasks work or theyd rather dig into AS3 at a later date. Dont get hung up on which version of ActionScript appears here.
The most important point is that these 24 hours will get you started in Flash by developing good foundation skills. Its easy to pick up bad habits in Flash, but you definitely get started on the right foot with this book.
Who Should Read This Book
New users to Flash should read this book first. If youve been doing Flash for a while and want to step back to make sure youre headed in the right direction, you could find some gems throughout the book, but it might be tough to relearn the basics. If youre someone who can learn on your own, you might think you dont need a book like this, and, honestly, you might be right. But, this book moves quickly enough and provides tons of hands-on tasks that its worth investing the time to read 24 hour-long chapters. If you learn by doing, this is a good book for you. If youre looking for any of the following Flash topics, theyre not covered here: writing class files in ActionScript 2.0 or ActionScript 3.0, developing content for mobile phones, using Flex Builder, building true 3D environments in Flash (although we do cover the new 3D tool), integrating with back-end web servers, or using Apollo. Some of these topics are mentioned in the book—but at best we only briefly discuss these more advanced topics.
How This Book Is Organized
This is a hands-on tutorial book. Its not a project-based tutorial, however, because each task explores a single topic. Occasionally, you find a series of tasks that build upon one another. Generally, we introduce a topic, then, as quickly as possible, jump straight into a task where you get your hands dirty.
Throughout this book, you will see “Try It Yourself” sections. They are designed to take you through the steps of actually performing the tasks you have been reading about. Do not skip these sections. They usually provide additional information about the topic and are a great chance to practice the concepts.
At the end of each hour, weve included a Q&A (Question and Answer) section with common questions weve either heard from students or topics that could be confusing to new users. Theres also a quiz at the end of each hour. The goal of both the Q&A and quizzes is to provide an additional way to learn. There are lots of ways to learn, and these questions exercise a different part of your brain.
The book as a whole is organized in a linear manner. Later hours rely on the knowledge you acquire in earlier hours. The 24 hours are broken into four parts:
- Part I: Assembling the Graphics Youll Animate in Flash
Here you concentrate on getting the graphics to look exactly as you intend. It might seem like a lot to spend 25% of the book on static graphics, but the time is well spent as it makes your animations look better.
- Part II: Animating in Flash
This is where you start moving things! You learn everything from 3D animation to tweening to Inverse Kinematics with the Bone tool. You also learn about valuable time-saving tools, like the Motion Preset Library and the Motion Editor.
- Part III: Adding Interactivity and Video
In this part of the book, you take a big step into writing instructions so your Flash creations change based on the users input. Video is also covered here.
- Part IV: Putting It All Together for the Web
Although its fun to create things inside Flash, youll want to put your creations online so your friends, family, and customers can see it. This part of the book shows you how, plus you learn some fine-tuning adjustments to optimize performance and download speeds.
Whats on the Books Website
Source files for tasks in the book can be found on the publishers website.
If you have trouble, you can see what the finished project looks like and investigate how it was built. Weve also included media files, such as images, audio, and video, necessary to complete a few of the tasks.
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