Dynamic Learning: Flash Cs3 Professional [With DVD]

As a graphic designer, I found this book to be a huge help in learning Flash. The lessons are well paced. The book takes you fairly deep into the program, quickly. It helped me get the big picture of how the program works.

This book is a solid introduction to Flash CS3 fundamentals. It will be most useful to designers with no previous Flash experience and to programmers wishing to familiarize themselves with the Flash environment. The lessons are clear, easy to follow and cover all the basics. The sample projects are supported with well organized step-by-step screen shots of the menu bars, timelines, animation frames, property inspector and code. They are also supported with video demonstrations of key concepts from each chapter. After completing the lessons you will be able to create very basic level portfolios, slide shows, ads and entertainment featuring interactivity, animation, sound and video. You will also learn how to get your work on the web and on DVDs. Because the book is aimed at beginners, the ActionScript 3.0 lessons are simple and pragmatic. Rather than delving into programming, the authors created sample code for some basic activities -- navigation, starting and stopping animations, etc. The samples can be easily copied and modified for use in other projects. This book just scratches the surface of what you can do with Flash. After whetting your appetite with Dynamic Learning Flash CS3 Professional you will be ready to move on to intermediate Flash training and beginning ActionScript training. To use this book you will need Flash Player 9 and Adobe Flash CS3 Professional installed on your computer.

The exercises are adequate to teach the basics of Flash CS3. For me, though, the example projects seemed fairly pedestrian, and I found myself wanting to be able to do more by the end of the book. I'd recommend one or more of the Foundation "Friends of Ed" books over this one, mainly because they cover more and seem to appeal more to the creative spirit of the reader. After all, creativity is what it's all about, right? ;)

I have worked with the author Fred Gerantebee for quite some time now, in fact he co-wrote the Adobe Creative Suite 3 Design Premium for Dummies with me. I came from the print world, and knew very little of Flash. But having read this book, I am confident enough to create animations and even delve a bit into ActionScript (I can make things happen!). The lessons that Fred put together are fun to do, and the step-by-step lessons actually work. This book is great if you are a designer, as the lesson files are included, as well as videos to help clarify steps. If you want an in-depth ActionScript book, this book is not for you, as it touches on everything from drawing to ActionScript. if you want pure ActionScript try Essential ActionScript 3.0, also from O'Rielly.

Love this book, instructions were clear, and the lessons were fun. The bonus is that videos and lesson files are included. Well worth the price.