Kristian Besley

The Flash MX video object is a wondrous thing, but 90% of people seem to be happy keeping it constrained in a small, square window. Why? Video can be anything that you want it to be, and then some. The experiments in this book will take you through simple video manipulation, kaleidoscopes, emulating TV effects, 360-degree displays, animating vectors over film, dynamic masking, fake blue-screening, blur and focus, combining video with the Comms Server, and much more. But it's not just for fun. As the world turns broadband, video becomes a more and more obvious choice for content delivery. This is where the web goes another stage further than passive TV though, Flash allows video to be truly interactive and grab viewer imagination. In this fickle world, no-oneís going to sit still for very long to watch videos play straight across their desktop. So, nowís the time to get inspired by some of the hottest designers around, and see what is possible when it comes to adding a twist of creativity to the mix. This book is about learning key skills without realizing it, and producing fantastic results. All of the assets and FLAs needed to recreate the effects are on the CD that ships with the book.

ActionScript is the native scripting language of Flash. ActionScript knowledge is essential within the world of Flash design and development, as Flash remains a leading tool for cutting-edge interactive design and development. ActionScript is what gives Flash its power, but with that power comes a certain level of complexity, which can be intimidating. This beginners' book, significantly updated since the last edition, covers all of the basics of ActionScript using version 8 of Flash. The skills acquired by working through this book will enable you to move on to more advanced friends of ED books, such as Foundation PHP 5 for Flash, Foundation ActionScript Animation or Foundation XML for Flash. This book contains all you need to understand and make use of ActionScript, and to have some fun while learning. The Foundation series teaching style is ideal if you're a non-programmer who wants to learn Flash programming quickly and thoroughly. The authors teach the basics, and provide an all-around proficiency in ActionScript, as well as Flash components within Flash 8. You'll gain the practical skills to build ActionScript based Flash projects, including making initial design decisions, structuring code, and testing. An ongoing case study means that by the end of the book, you'll have constructed a cutting-edge Flash site to showcase your newly learned skills.

Foundation Flash 8 is the book you need if you're looking for a solid foundation in Flash 8 Basic and Flash 8 Professional. Thousands upon thousands of designers have already learned from its previous editions and it's easy to understand why. The fourth edition of friends of ED's legendary beginner Flash book, Foundation Flash 8 uses a series of structured exercises and detailed discussions to help you start your exploration of Flash. The detailed tutorial style will ensure that you retain the knowledge you gain and are able to draw upon it throughout your Flash career. Foundation Flash 8 features a running case study that evolves into a fully-functional Flash website as you work through the tutorials, so you'll immediately see everything that you learn being used in a practical project. This book focuses on the core skills that you need to get started working with Flash 8: understanding the interface, becoming familiar with the creative tools and their capabilities, grasping the relationships between the different components that make up a Flash movie, and getting insight into how to put all the pieces together to create your own Flash-based website.

Readers who have never used Flash before and are looking for a rock solid grounding in Flash MX 2004 will benefit from this title, which uses a series of structured, tutorial exercises to give the broad, solid foundation of knowledge one needs to start an exploration of Flash from scratch.

Macromedia Flash MX 2004 Games Most Wanted is the latest title in the popular ‘Most Wanted’ series from friends of ED. This book presents the definitive selection of game design techniques using the latest version of Macromedia Flash – now the industry standard for creating multimedia applications, used by over one million professionals. Each chapter covers a distinct area of online gaming, describing the design and development of a finished Flash game. The book delivers as many complete example games as possible and is packed full of the most wanted tips, tricks, and techniques to demonstrate exactly how to produce exciting and interactive games. This is an inspiring sample of all the very best techniques that professional Flash game designers are using today.

Learn Programming with Flash MX employs a truly unique class-based approach to learning with the goal of establishing core, generic-programming skills. Each chapter represents a discrete lesson covering a distinct topic of programming with ActionScript. In each 'class' we smoothly blend theory and practice with plentiful practical examples, and a class project that runs through the book to reinforce the learning in an integrated, real-world context, using Flash MX as the illustrative vehicle.This book also addresses the shortfall in solid programming knowledge in significant segments of the web design community – specifically, traditional web designers and Flash users with no exposure to the programming world. It also assumes that the reader is a Flash novice, so if you're coming to Flash completely from scratch, this book will give you a broad and solid introduction enabling you to create aesthetically pleasing, well laid-out content glued together with robust coding techniques. Learn Programming with Flash MX covers the fundamental programming principles and skills that every programmer needs to master in order to create well-structured and efficient code to a professional standard. Readers will come away from this book with the following:- A rich, solid understanding of the concepts and basic processes of programming that will enable them to explore Flash and other technologies with a degree of confidence that they didn't have before. - Insights into universally applicable programming processes and techniques. - An understanding of how to implement these principles in Flash MX.

Diana Johnson (Sorenson Media) One of the best books on video for new users: editing, compression, and Flash MX technologies. Full of great tips. Let's make movies! Interactive movies, totally integrated into your Flash interface! With Macromedia Flash MX you have the power to import digital video and sound, and manipulate them just like any other media object. That's a whole world of design possibilities. This book takes you through all you need to know about producing such wonderful sites. The first section gives you a thorough grounding in how best to import your video and sound into Flash MX and the many different ways that you can manipulate it once it's in there. Then, in the second section, we go through a complete real-world case study from pre-production on the video to final output to the web and CD-ROM. Finally, we show you how can apply advanced ActionScript to video, and create a fully object-oriented sound and video playing Flash component that you'll be able to use time and time again. The inclusion of video support is the most noticeable and exciting feature in Flash MX - viewers who have the tiny Flash Player installed can now see video material that would otherwise require lengthy downloads and the clunky interfaces of other web video plug-ins. This book is the guide you need for this exciting new universe, offering inspiration and technical guidance in equal measure. As with all books from friends of ED our support is fast, friendly and free. Even if our dedicated support team are unable to solve your problem immediately, your queries will be passed onto the editors and authors who put the book together. All foED authors help with the support on their books, and will either directly mail readers with solutions or (more usually) send their response to an editor to pass on. This book assumes no knowledge beyond an ability to work with the Flash MX interface, and is not intended for those with substantial digital video experience. As such, this book does not assume that the reader has access to expensive video-editing software. All you need for this book is access to Flash MX, and some imagination. Book Info One of the best books on video for new users; editing, compression, and Flash MX technologies. Gives you a thorough grounding in how best to import your video and sound into Flash MX and the many different ways you can produce such wonderful sites. Softcover. About the Author Hoss Gifford is one of the founding directors of Flammable Jam, and curator of his personal site. He regularly sponges his way around the world, getting free flights in exchange for talking at new media seminars, including FlashForward and Milia. Hoss reckons we should all take stuff a bit less seriously, and be happy with making 'quite nice things that entertain people for a wee while', as can be seen from his other two sites. Kristian Besley was born in Wales, grew up in the same street as Catherine Zeta Jones, and read Media Arts following interests in film and design. In his little spare time, you'll most likely find him creating random stuff which will eventually appear online at graphci, or laughing at personalised number plates. One day he vows to reform seminal band Ken.