Foundation Flash CS3 for Designers

Let me be clear on this. I'm a professional, experienced designer who is very comfortable with other Adobe products such as Photoshop, Illustrator, and Indesign. I've even done video work before in Final Cut. So I figured Flash couldn't be that complicated, right? Wrong. My first time opening the application was like trying to understand a foreign language. Flash scared me, and I put it away for several months. Then I found this book, and it has become my rosetta stone. It took a while to wrap my head around the concepts of Flash, and there were many hours of frustration as my tutorials never seemed to come out right. So I agree with the negative reviewers that Flash is difficult, but that is because of the program itself, not this book, which was an excellent guide for my learning. Tom Green and David Stiller have a friendly writing style that is easy to read and comprehend, and their joking nature makes the book far more enjoyable than it might otherwise be. I am now as comfortable in Flash as I am in the other Adobe programs, and this book still rides shotgun with me through all my projects. Let me also add that the book's assistance doesn't stop within its pages. David Stiller maintains a blog (http://www.quip.net/blog/) on which he answers Flash questions and provides additional resources. After struggling with a particular Flash problem for days and not figuring out the answer, I emailed David and asked if he had any ideas. He didn't have to answer my email -- that's not his job, after all -- but he did, and even took the time to walk me through some possible solutions. From there I was able to figure out the rest on my own. I was very impressed with his generosity, because in the design world, time really is money. I know there are other books out there that delve into more of the specifics of Flash and Actionscript, but if you are a true beginner like I was, this book is for you. You don't have to be scared of Flash anymore.

I have never used Flash before. I purchased this book in order to learn how to put together some cool animations for video title scenes that I am working on. I am very happy with this purchase. I am not an expert after having gone through it, but learned exactly what I needed to in order to get my job done. That is one of the strengths of this book, after the first three chapters, you really can jump around and focus on what you need to. Overall this book is well written. The authors managed to anticipate all of the questions that popped in my head as I was reading and following the examples. I did get a little frustrated in the "Building a Flash Movie" section of chapter 1. This section offers step by step instructions on the elements of creating a flash movie. Unfortunately, not all of the instructions are clear cut for the novice. For example, there is a set of instructions on creating a moon shadow that I followed precisely many many times. The confusion comes about when you are instructed to "click" on an object. There are different ways to click on an object in FLASH which the authors do not cover in chapter 1. In addition, I had "object drawing mode" turned on, which is not explained until chapter 2. This was very frustrating to me because I was following the instruction precisely and it was not working out. I persevered through it and can now tell you exactly what was wrong. Chapter 2 is a real eye-opener if you manage to get through "creating a Flash Movie" in CH1. In chapter 2, I learned about the fundamentals of the features that had frustrated me in chapter 1. Chapter 3 rounds out the last of the essentials that you should really have under your belt. There was a section on 9-slice scaling that I feel was not well done and the example used was in poor taste. The authors used images of a cross-dressing man in green leotards that dresses up as Peter Pan. I found the images to be quite disturbing and had the misfortune of having to work with this image in order to learn 9-slice scaling which I never learned because maybe I was too distracted by the fact that I was working on an image of a grown man dressed in pantyhose, a green dress and shiny shoes. Whatever happened to images of flowers and mountains? Really guys? Peter Pan? Was the Cinderella guy too busy to pose for you that day? Peter Pan aside, this book get a full 5 stars for content. I really learned a lot and the authors made this book fun and easy to read. I do recommend that the novice reader not dwell on the building a flash movie in section 1 if things are not working out. It will all become clear in subsequent chapters. Also, maybe it is written in really big letters somewhere and I missed it, but I could not find one reference in the book to tell you where to go to download the companion zip folders that contain the sample files that the reader will need. I had to google it and when I did find a source, the Chapter 8 files kept coming in as corrupt files. I had to

An excellent primer, engagingly written, filled with real-web examples and clever exercises. With humor, wit, and a genuine love for the program, Tom and David manage to bring out the code-phobic designer's inner techie without tampering with the creative impulse. Developers and designers alike will benefit from keeping a copy of "Foundation Flash CS3 for Designers" within arm's reach.

In a word... Excellent! Challenging material made clear and accessible. It's not surprising to find that one of the authors is a long time teacher. I've been reviewing this book for use as a textbook in community college level interactive multimedia classes. Since our department has grown out of a traditional graphic design program, we still face some resistance when it comes to teaching any kind programming. Now that so many artistic pursuits involves pushing around 1's and 0's, the institutional tendency to separate art and science, right brain/left brain, is no longer workable. The artist/designer of the future will have to be skilled in logic and at least the rudiments of programming. (for an excellent rant on this, see Aral Balkan's forward to ActionScript 3 for Animation by Keith Peters) So, imagine the smile on my face when I saw the index to this book. ActionScript in chapter 4... well before animation in chapter 7... in a book with "for Designers" in the title! The inclusion of ActionScript so early in the learning process will allow us a much more integrated approach - something that is critical now that Flash is all grown up.

What I like about this book is how David and Tom approach the technology; the analogy between programming principles and real life, which will steepen the learning curve of a non-programmer who learns flash considerably. As far as the book is concerned it's marvellous material for any flash beginner, up to intermediate- though the intermediate flash programmers will merely use the book to broaden their flash expertise using specific subjects on audio, video or CS3/AS3 components. It's not in-depth on advanced programming in Actionscript 3.0, nor does it cover the changes between 2.0 and 3.0, which an experienced 2.0 programmer might want to review. So, though useful for experienced Flash users, the book mainly aims for the new users. But if you are indeed new, this book is all you need to get very broad and decent basics. Great stuff!