The Essential Guide to Flash Games is a unique tool for Flash game developers. Rather than focusing on a bunch of low-level how-to material, this book dives straight into building games. The book is divided into specific game genre projects, covering everything from old classics such as a Missile Command-style game, to hot new genres such as retro evolved. The chapters build in complexity through the book, and new tools are introduced along the way that can be reused for other games. The game projects covered start simple and increase in complexity as more and more tools are added to your tool chest. Ten full game projects are discussed in detail. Each solves a very different game development problem and builds on the knowledge gained from the previous project. Many advanced game development techniques are covered, including particle systems, advanced controls, artificial intelligence, blitting, scrolling, and more.

For any professional designer or developer working in the world of web technologies or multimedia, Flash is the must-have application, and knowing how to use it effectively is vital. Add in ActionScript 3.0, and Flash becomes an even more powerful tool for the development of high-performance web applications. The Essential Guide to Flash CS4 with ActionScript introduces and explores the possibilities available to you by using Flash CS4. You will learn the basics of Flash's working environment and, using a step-by-step approach, work through the features of Flash and ActionScript needed to quickly achieve results. From navigating the interface to using graphic tools to write scripts and troubleshoot, you'll master deploying highly interactive applications with rich audio, video, and animation. Written for the beginning-to-intermediate Flash user, this book uses complete examples that highlight best practices that you can apply to your daily work as a developer or designer in today's rich media world.

The Essential Guide to Flash Games is a unique tool for Flash game developers. Rather than focusing on a bunch of low-level how-to material, this book dives straight into building games. The book is divided into specific game genre projects, covering everything from old classics such as a Missile Command-style game, to hot new genres such as retro evolved. The chapters build in complexity through the book, and new tools are introduced along the way that can be reused for other games. The game projects covered start simple and increase in complexity as more and more tools are added to your tool chest. Ten full game projects are discussed in detail. Each solves a very different game development problem and builds on the knowledge gained from the previous project. Many advanced game development techniques are covered, including particle systems, advanced controls, artificial intelligence, blitting, scrolling, and more.

The Essential Guide to Game Audio: The Theory and Practice of Sound for Games is a first of its kind textbook and must-have reference guide for everything you ever wanted to know about sound for games. This book provides a basic overview of game audio, how it has developed over time, and how you can make a career in this industry. Each chapter gives you the background and context you will need to understand the unique workflow associated with interactive media. The practical, easy to understand interactive examples provide hands-on experience applying the concepts in real world situations.

Processing is a open source project that bridges the gap between programming and art. Its simplicity and power appeal to non-coders and old-hands alike. As a Flash developer, you already have a firm grasp of basic programming principles and an understanding of creating and controlling visuals through code. This book uses your existing knowledge as a springboard to learning Processing and harnessing the extra creative power and control that it offers, both on and off the web. The Essential Guide to Processing for Flash Developers takes a hands-on approach to learning Processing that builds upon your familiarity with Flash, and your experience with the ActionScript language and object-oriented programming concepts. The book offers a full series of Processing projects, structured to allow less experienced coders to get up to speed quickly, while leaving room for more experienced programmers to take the initial project concepts and build more complex applications. Includes a language primer explaining all of the Processing-specific programming theory you need to know Contains a full series of Processing projects and numerous easy-to-follow code examples Covers Processing's Java mode, providing an easy-to-navigate bridge to programming in Java, Processing's underlying host language

Explore the world of open source Flash and discover which tools are available. Learn how to identify which tool you need and how to best fit it into your workflow. Step-by-step walk-throughs guide you through development with the most popular open source Flash tools. Written by the project leads and open source Flash aficionados. The Essential Guide to Open Source Flash Development is a practical development guide to creating Flash applications with open source Flash tools and workflows. You will walk away with an understanding of what tools will best suit your current situation, making your development easier and more productive, and with the knowledge of how to install and set up some of the best tools available, including the following: Papervision3D: to create 3D in Flash Red5: to stream video over the internet SWX: to build data-driven mashups and mobile apps Fuse: to make ActionScript animation a cinch Go: to build your own animation tools in ActionScript 3.0 haXe: to create Flash files and more AMFPHP: to communicate between Flash and php Open source Flash has been a revolution for Flash and has made a major impact on how people build Flash content. The open source tools available expand on Flash's existing tool set, enabling you to perform such tasks as easily create full 3D in Flash or hook up to an open source video-streaming server. Many of these useful tools are powerful yet lack documentation. this book explains in step-by-step detail how to use the most popular open source Flash tools. If you want to expand your Flash tool set and explore the open source Flash community, then this book is for you. If you already use some open source Flash tools, then you will find this book a useful documentation resource as well as an eye-opener to the other tools that are available.

We all know what a great tool Flash is for creating dynamic, engaging web content, and Adobe's CS4 release just makes it even better. Among the newer features is the ability to take all the power of Flash for the Web and put in on the desktop using AIR. AIR capability is built right into the Flash CS4 integrated development environment, which means you can start writing desktop applications right away. This book not only covers the essentials of using Flash with AIR (and AIR with Flash), but also shows you how to extend application functionality in new ways. Once you've got Flash on the desktop, you're no longer constrained by the limitations of running inside a web browser. You'll have access to the local desktop file system, and AIR adds SQLite functionality for native database support. And just as Flash animations have a consistent look and feel across browsers, AIR allows you to create applications that work consistently across operating systems—Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux. For any Flash developer who wants to go from the Web to the desktop (and who doesn't?), this book is required reading. It not only tells you how to do it, but is full of practical, easy-to-follow examples that will have you building desktop AIR applications with Flash in no time. Expanding your existing Flash skills with the Essential Guide to Flash CS4 AIR Development will make you an even more potent and indispensable force on any development team!