O’Reilly news

Flash 8: Projects for Learning Animation and Interactivity: Flash 8 Design and Scripting Demystified

April 10, 2006

Sebastopol, CA--Macromedia Flash is fast becoming the Web's most widely used platform for creating rich media with animation and motion graphics, but Flash is as complex as it is powerful. To get the most from Flash 8, you not only need to be proficient in programming/interface design, you need the creativity for story telling and the artistic insights to design fluid animation. Flash 8: Projects for Learning Animation and Interactivity (O'Reilly, US $34.99) demystifies Flash, letting you tap its power quickly with real, hands-on projects that help you create actual content as you go.

Coauthored by Richard Shupe and Robert Hoekman, Jr., educational developers with years of experience creating compelling content, interfaces and applications, Flash 8: Projects for Learning Animation and Interactivity provides graphically appealing, hands-on examples that teach by illustration, not with text-heavy description. Each project in the book grounds you in design concepts and goals before moving on to implementation and scripting. With this book, you will learn to:

  • Understand Flash concepts quickly
  • Accomplish tangible goals in creative ways
  • Create everything from simple animations to interactive elements and custom web site interfaces
  • Enhance projects with graphics, sound, and video
  • Master animation techniques such as tweening, morphing, and dynamic masking
  • Learn ActionScript to take control of your content
  • Develop Flash content for e-Learning, CD-ROM, and mobile devices
  • "This is not a text-heavy, overly wordy book," said Shupe. "Flash is a graphics program, so it made sense to us that this book should be graphically rich with hands-on examples and illustrations. It is much more educational and exciting to actually complete a project rather than read about it."

    Flash 8: Projects for Learning Animation and Interactivity teaches Flash design instead of simply Flash itself. Rather than learn a Flash tool for the sake of it, you learn which areas of Flash are important, and which are less used, just by seeing how typical content is actually created.

    Additional Resources:

    Flash 8: Projects for Learning Animation and Interactivity
    Richard Shupe and Robert Hoekman, Jr.
    ISBN: 0-596-10223-2, 358 pages, $34.99 US
    order@oreilly.com
    1-800-998-9938; 1-707-827-7000

    About O’Reilly

    O’Reilly Media spreads the knowledge of innovators through its books, online services, magazines, and conferences. Since 1978, O’Reilly Media has been a chronicler and catalyst of cutting-edge development, homing in on the technology trends that really matter and spurring their adoption by amplifying “faint signals” from the alpha geeks who are creating the future. An active participant in the technology community, the company has a long history of advocacy, meme-making, and evangelism.

    Email a link to this press release