Have you ever poured all your creativity into a Flash movie, but found your friends grumbling at the download size? Have you tried to use just one tiny picture in your movie, and seen the file size go through the roof? Is it possible to do anything remotely effective in a small file? More than you could possibly imagine! This collection shows you just exactly what can be done with tiny Flash files, using some of the hottest Flash designers around. These authors pull designs out of the top drawer and show you exactly how you can go about creating great SWFs with the smallest amount of download pain. We will look at: creating incredible generative designs -- so small you can use them for wallpaper producing 3D animations that roll in at under 5k in size creating sound toys in the smallest possible file space de-mystifying the use of JPEGs and photographs while keeping your Flash movies small strategic use of back-end technology to keep your delivery times down to nanoseconds! changing the boundaries to look at new ways of delivering entire sites! From the Publisher Who is this book for You've worked with Flash, but are wondering why people are getting tetchy at the download time. You're willing to start learning some ActionScript tricks to fight the file flab, and you're not afraid to become addicted to optimization! About the Author Genevieve Garand Conceived 3weeksinApril.com, an experimental web site that explores new ways of navigation and features an engaging narrative. David Hirmes is a Flash developer living in Brooklyn, New York. Kip Parker Works through his own company Hi-Rise Limited and in collaboration with Anthony Burrill as Friendchip, which was established in 1998. Keith Peters Found Flash to be the ideal medium for creating graphics with code. Robert Reich lives in Hamburg, Germany. Flash became his favourite besides normal HTML and serverside driven website creation. He is working as freelancer for several firms. Roy Tanck Currently employed in Hilversum, as part of a team that creates innovative e-learning solutions. Within this environment, Flash is a great tool.

Thoroughly updated to cover the new version of Macromedia Flash - Flash MX - this second edition builds on the strengths of the original book while incorporating changes from this major revision of the software.

Provides in-depth information to the more than one million Flash developers who want to take their animations to the next level using sophisticated interaction and data-driven content Flash ActionScript is an object-oriented scripting language used with Flash that allows the designer to control a movie in non-linear fashion, create sophisticated interactivity, control elements on the stage, collect and track input from the movie viewer, and exchange and manipulate data from external sources The most comprehensive Flash ActionScript guide available, cowritten by Robert Reinhardt, coauthor of Macromedia Flash MX 2004 Bible (0-7645-4303-2) Published to coincide with the release of Flash "X," the newest version of this widely used Web development tool

The days of Flash as a creative luxury are long gone. After months of downsizing, Flash creativity has been on a huge rationalization program. It is no longer enough to present animation in millions of colors and a hundred transparencies. It is no longer sufficient to provide interactivity and dynamism for their own sake. The purpose of this collection is to show how designers have taken Flash and made it work for its supper. What we discover is a series of creations that place Flash at the hub of cutting edge web content. The end result is a snapshot of Flash as the ideal medium. In these amazing examples, we see the software pushed to its limits to create unbeatable applications—a collapsible family tree, an interactive video learning system, and a drawing tool, capable of running online! Beyond this, we dip into the back-end capabilities to look at how to improve Flash still further. Some staple XML and PHP routines are brought in to add a bit of spice, while Flash's mysterious sharedObject command is hunted down and tamed to create a hybrid Tamagotchi houseplant—perfectly suited to lure surfers back to your website!

As a designer using Flash you will see how you can apply your creative skills to the many stages of game production and produce your own interactive games with this versatile package. Creating games for mobile devices is now also covered! As an animator you will be able to add interactive functionality to your own animation and produce a game. As a web developer you will see how to make the best use of the sophisticated development environment Flash offers for the production of both artwork and code to create low bandwidth, animated web content that sells! The free CD-Rom includes all the code and files you need to try out each tutorial from the book so you can see exactly how each game was created. Learn from the many different types of games provided as examples, from simple quizzes to platform-based games. High score tables and multi-player games using sockets, vital to higher level online games, are also covered in detail to ensure you have the complete skill set needed to succeed in this competitive arena.

* First Flash book to use the unique "virtual classroom" approach to teaching ActionScript programming to absolute beginners, so it meets a need head-on that no other book addresses directly—providing the missing link between technology and creativity. * Flash and ActionScript are extremely simple to learn, so this book provides the ideal entry point for any aspiring programmer and web designer, compared with technologies like VB and C++, which can be very intimidating to the novice. Additionally, this book is complementary to any other entry-level Flash titles – it recognizes that as well as mastering the design side of the toolset, effective designer/developers also need to grasp basic programming skills. Having Flash on your machine doesn't miraculously turn you into a web designer – you need to work at learning design and programming skills too. * The authors are highly experienced authors and Flash tutors, well versed in communicating technical information to a low level consumer audience. They are also active web community members and will provide personal technical support for the book direct to the reader via the Friends of ED support forums.

Readers will learn how to design, structure and optimize for the most efficient Flash animations possible. Each subject is presented in clear and direct language, with useful and well-explained examples and extensive graphical elements. Sample questions accompany each subject.