Book description
Unlock the power of Flash and bring gorgeous animations to life onscreen. It's easy with Flash CS4: The Missing Manual. You'll start creating animations in the first chapter, and will learn to produce effective, well-planned visuals that get your message across. This entertaining new edition includes a complete primer on animation, a guided tour of the program's tools, lots of new illustrations, and more details on working with video. Beginners will learn to use the software in no time, and experienced Flash designers will improve their skills.
Expanded and revised to cover the new version of Flash, every chapter in this book provides step-by-step tutorials to help you:
- Learn to draw objects, animate them, and integrate your own audio and video files
- Add interactivity, use special effects, learn morphing, and much more
- Check your work with the book's online example files and completed animations
- Discover new Flash toolkits and features such as Frameless Animation
- Use every timesaving aspect of Flash CS4, such as Library objects and Symbols
- Learn how to automate your drawings and animations with ActionScript 3.0
With this book, absolutely no programming is necessary to get started with Flash CS4. Flash CS4: The Missing Manual explains in jargon-free English exactly what you need to know to use Flash effectively, while avoiding common pitfalls, right from the start.
Publisher resources
Table of contents
- Flash CS4: The Missing Manual
- A Note Regarding Supplemental Files
- The Missing Credits
- Introduction
-
I. Creating a Flash Animation
-
1. Getting Around Flash
- Starting Flash
- A Tour of the Flash Desktop
- Toolbars
-
Panels
- Tools Panel
- Accessibility Panel
- Actions Panel/ActionScript Debug Panels
- Align Panel
- Behaviors Panel
- Color Panel/ Swatches Panel
- Common Libraries
- Components Panel/Component Inspector Panel
- History Panel
- Info Panel
- Library Panel
- Movie Explorer Panel
- Output Panel
- Properties Panel
- Scene Panel
- Transform Panel
- The Timeline
- Using the Workspace Switcher
- The Flash CS4 Test Drive
- Opening a Flash File
- 2. Creating Simple Drawings
-
3. Animating Your Drawings
- Frame-by-Frame Animation
- Adding Layers to Your Animation
-
Animating Automatically (Tweening)
- Choosing a Type of Tween
- Shape Tweening (Morphing)
- Shape Hints
- Using Multiple Layers for Shape Tweens
- Classic Tweening
- Spotlight Effect Using Mask Layers
- Adding a Motion Path to a Mask
- Motion Tweening
- Creating a Motion Tween Path
- Scaling an Object with a Motion Tween
- Changing Transparency with the Motion Editor
- Rotating an Object with the Motion Editor
-
1. Getting Around Flash
-
II. Advanced Drawing and Animation
- 4. Organizing Frames and Layers
-
5. Advanced Drawing and Coloring
- Selecting Graphic Elements
- Manipulating Graphic Elements
- Adding Text to Your Drawing
- Spray Painting Symbols
- Drawing with the Deco Drawing Tool
- Advanced Color and Fills
- Creating Custom Colors
- Specifying Colors for ActionScript
- Saving Color Swatches
- Importing a Custom Color Palette
- Copying Color with the Eyedropper
- 6. Reusable Flash: Symbols and Templates
- 7. Advanced Tweens with the Motion Editor
- 8. Realistic Animation with IK Bones
- 9. Incorporating Non-Flash Media Files
- 10. Incorporating Sound and Video
-
III. Adding Interactivity
- 11. Introduction to ActionScript 3
- 12. Controlling Actions with Events
- 13. Organizing Objects with the Display List
- 14. Controlling Animation
- 15. Components for Interactivity
-
16. Choosing, Using, and Animating Text
- About Typefaces and Fonts
- Choosing and Using Text Containers
- Applying Advanced Formatting to Text
- Adding Hyperlinks to Text
- Animating Text without ActionScript
- Controlling Text with ActionScript
- Creating Text Fields with ActionScript
- Formatting Characters and Paragraphs
- Formatting with HTML and CSS
- Choosing the Right Text Formatting System
- 17. Drawing with ActionScript
-
IV. Delivering Your Animation to Its Audience
- 18. Testing and Debugging
-
19. Publishing and Exporting
-
Optimizing Flash Documents
-
Ten Optimization Strategies
- Choose tweens over frame-by-frame animations
- Choose the Pencil tool over the Brush tool
- Choose solid over dashed or dotted lines
- Simplify curves
- Use symbols
- Avoid bitmaps (or optimize them)
- Keep sound clips to a minimum; when you do use them, optimize them.
- Group elements
- Avoid the extraneous
- Tell Flash to keep your file size down
-
Ten Optimization Strategies
- Publishing Your Animations
- Exporting Flash to Other Formats
-
Optimizing Flash Documents
-
V. Appendixes
- A. Installation and Help
-
B. Flash CS4, Menu by Menu
-
File
- New
- Open
- Browse in Bridge
- Open Recent
- Close
- Close All
- Save
- Save and Compact
- Save As
- Save as Template
- Check In
- Save All
- Revert
- Import
- Export
- Publish Settings
- Publish Preview
- Publish
- AIR Settings
- File Info
- Share My Screen
- Page Setup
- Print Margins (Mac only)
- Send (Windows only)
- Exit (Mac: Flash → Quit Flash)
-
Edit
- Undo
- Redo
- Cut
- Copy
- Paste in Center
- Paste in Place
- Clear
- Duplicate
- Select All
- Deselect All
- Find and Replace
- Find Next
- Timeline
- Edit Symbols/Document
- Edit Selected
- Edit in Place
- Edit All
- Preferences (Mac: Flash → Preferences)
- Customize Tools Panel (Mac: Flash → Customize Tools Panel)
- Font Mapping (Mac: Flash → Font Mapping)
- Keyboard Shortcuts (Mac: Flash → Keyboard Shortcuts)
- View
- Insert
- Modify
- Text
- Commands
- Control
- Debug
- Window
- Help
-
File
- Index
- About the Author
- Colophon
- Copyright
Product information
- Title: Flash CS4: The Missing Manual
- Author(s):
- Release date: November 2008
- Publisher(s): O'Reilly Media, Inc.
- ISBN: 9780596522940
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