Written by a professional designer, this volume covers one of the leading graphics applications: Macromedia Flash 5. The concise yet complete guide uses real world solutions to take the reader from early design stages to launch on the Web.

21 Flash 4 projects. Professional. Inspirational. Fully customizable. And brought to you by a team of 7 developers and designers who are among today's best Flash designers. Flash 4 Magic offers games (do the names Dodge and Concentration mean anything to you?) and utilities (such as a clock that uses external JavaScript and a poll application that uses external PHP scripting). And more. Just follow the steps. Take a look at the graphics. Check out the CD that includes all the project code. Each New Riders Magic book has been created with you, the computer graphics professional, in mind. Complete effects, adaptable solutions, time-saving techniques, and practical applications. Because computer technology books-like the souls who use them-aren't all alike. So whether you design chops, looking for a new way of doing an effect, or simply seeking creative advice, crack open a Magic book and get started...

Enhanced and revised edition of the bestseller! 100% of what you need to know to learn and master the latest version of Macromedia Flash. Includes a CD-ROM packed with files from the book and valuable tryouts.

The pressure on web designers using Flash has been seriously stepped up. Flash 5 is a major revision over Flash 4, and the difference between the two is most apparent in the broader, deeper scope of ActionScript. To use the features of Flash 5 effectively, therefore, a thorough understanding of ActionScript is required. The desire to learn ActionScript at the basic level is addressed in the friends of ED Foundation series. Flash 5 ActionScript Studio takes this basic level of knowledge up towards commercial best practices, thanks to the contributions of a range of leading talents who present abundant real-world examples of their techniques. This book is recommended for web designers who realize that coding is the way ahead at the top end of the industry, Flash movie creators who need urgently to get deeper into interactivity, and those who are competent in ActionScript but still need guidance from the experts. The book is split broadly into three sections. The first of these serves as a quick lesson/refresher in ActionScript syntax and technique, focusing on the notation in Flash 5 ActionScript, and its relationship with object-oriented programming. Flash 5 ActionScript presents all of its functionality in the form of objects, and each of these is dissected with examples of its purpose and use. Section Two consists of a set of self-contained examples that each demonstrate a particular use of ActionScript, including topics such as interface design, real-time 3D processing, interaction with JavaScript, and using data in XML files. Finally, the third section comprises worked case studies that involve ideas from all the preceding chapters, along with insights into the design processes used by the authors as they put together their ActionScript-rich movies. What you’ll learnWho this book is for Flash 5 ActionScript Studio assumes a readership that already has a reasonable understanding of ActionScript and some HTML. Readers will likely be existing web design professionals with 4 to 6 months of experience with Flash 5, or considerable experience with Flash 4.

These days people are looking to the Internet for its gaming possibilities. Whether it's real-time role-playing you're after with 30,000 of your closest friends, or just a solitary round of crazy golf, the most versatile piece of web animation software just made itself more approachable for designing games! This book takes us deep, deep down into the realms of game design, and hunts out the features that are really going to evolve your Flash skills into full-on game wizardry. We are going to discuss what makes a good game, and what makes a great game. We grapple with the concepts of 3D and how to get Flash to produce cutting-edge game environments, while keeping our sensible shoes on by reducing those file sizes and download times. We conduct a battle of wits with artificial intelligence, and have a good crash around with some collision detection in platform games. All in all, we are pushing Flash to its breaking point to see what lies beyond. The Studio series assumes you already know your way around Flash's basics, and it aims to boost your knowledge and help you master some advanced techniques. Flash 5 Games Studio draws its inspiration from the full spectrum of Flash's capabilities. Amongst other things, it explores: Refining methods of graphic creation to speed up game performance Using ActionScript techniques for player control and environmental reactions Mastering the sound capabilities with interactive soundtracks Using data packets and sockets to develop multiplayer games What you’ll learnWho this book is for If you want to turn your open-ended Flash animations into challenging, high-quality games, then this is the book for you. You will benefit from it if you are: A Flash user who wants to get comfortable with the most important and useful ActionScript commands A Flash user who wants to push the software to the edge of its capabilities, and stretch your knowledge base to its limit A Flash-savvy game designer who wants to venture into the realms of web-based gaming