Covering Flash 5 from a cartoon and gaming aspect. Learn how to cohesively pull together and create all the necessary elements for an entertaining cartoon show. Create cartoon characters for television and music videos; then, discover how to use those cartoon elements when scripting and programming interactive games on the Internet. This book includes a CD-ROM with complete a full-length cartoon show and source codes for several games. With Flash 5 Cartoons and Games f/x and Design, you will go beyond the general description of the various Flash tools and discover what can be done with them!
Flash 5 Cartooning is a stunning, full color book that reveals scores of tips and techniques for building great cartoons, regardless of your artistic experience. Everything from cartooning fundamentals to advanced Flash techniques like ActionScripting and selling your work online is covered here, in this unique guide to creating exciting Flash cartoons. Author Mark Clarkson dives deep into the key topics cartooners need to know, with an emphasis on things like interactivity, special visual and audio effects, timing (it's critical to a good joke, you know), cartoon physics, and more! A free companion CD-ROM is packed with sample cartoons from the book, additional cartooning material, and product tryouts.
Master Flash animation and cartooning using this complete hands-on guide. Discover shortcuts for drawing heads and bodies, developing characters, and learn to incorporate movie techniques--all from a real-world animator and video producer. Includes an 8-page color insert which details the stages of the animation process.
You want to make an animated film. You've got the idea. You've got Macromedia Flash. But where do you start? What's the best way to script your cartoon, how do you start animating with Flash, what do you really need to know in order to get your ideas out there to make you famous? Who better to ask than two seasoned professionals, who've not only worked for Disney, but also run the hugely successful cult website, funnyazhell.com. Kevin Peaty and Glenn Kirkpatrick draw on their rich studio experience and their knowledge of Flash to show you the best way to create great Flash cartoons that look as good as traditional animated films. This book follows the professional process, taking a creative idea from storyboard stage, through layout to publishing, via a detailed look at animation techniques, that will give you the kind of insight normally only gained from years spent in the industry. In depth and detailed, the book follows the production of a cartoon from inception to final output—looking at all the decisions and skills that have contributed to its appeal. The book covers Flash versions 4 and 5 as well as MX. Whether you're completely new to Flash, or are making your first steps into the world of Flash cartooning, this book will let you work alongside the professionals to make your own animated masterpiece. With this book on your desktop, all you need is an idea! Watch and listen to 'The Boy Who Cried Wolf' as created throughout the book by Glenn and Kevin. And then think how you'd have done it in your own style... All you need is Flash Cartoon Animation! If you need even further inspiration, check out the funnyazhell.com website, where there a many fantastic movies by Kevin, Glenn and others.
Apply universally accepted cinematic techniques to your Flash projects to improve the storytelling quotient in your entertainment, advertising (branding), and educational media. A defined focus on the concepts and techniques for production from story reels to the final project delivers valuable insights, time-saving practical tips, and hands-on techniques for great visual stories. Extensive illustration, step-by-step instruction, and practical exercises provide a hands-on perspective. Explore the concepts and principles of visual components used in stories so you are fluent in the use of space, line, color, and movement in communicating emotion and meaning. Apply traditional cinematography techniques into the Flash workspace with virtual camera movements, simulated 3d spaces, lighting techniques, and character animation. Add interactivity using ActionScript to enhance audience participation.
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.
Intrigued by digital animation? Know a little bit about Macromedia Flash but are ready to take it to the next level? The Flash Animator will teach you how to create traditional-looking animations faster, cheaper, and with more delivery options. Sandro Corsaro helps you to develop a solid understanding of the principles of traditional animation, and then guides you step by step through bringing those principles to life with Flash. Topics range from creating basic ball bounces to managing complex character design, sound, and optimization issues. Interviews with numerous experts in the animation industry--complete with beautiful artwork and insights from feature-film animators and Web pioneers--are included to inspire you along your Flash animation path. Interviewees include: Iwao Takamoto, creator of Scooby Doo; Brad Abelson, Storyboard Artist, The Simpsons; Joe Shields, Joe Cartoon; Tom Winkler, Doodie.com; And many other influential animators. The CD contains all source files for the book's examples, exclusive animation files, and bonus Macromedia Flash cartoons. There is also an in-depth audio interview with Iwao Takamoto.
Applying FLASH Character Animation Studio Techniques will help teach the next generation of animators the skills they need to communicate their ideas and expand the art of storytelling further into the computer realm.
How Flash rose and fell as the world's most ubiquitous yet divisive software platform, enabling the development and distribution of a world of creative content. Adobe Flash began as a simple animation tool and grew into a multimedia platform that offered a generation of creators and innovators an astonishing range of opportunities to develop and distribute new kinds of digital content. For the better part of a decade, Flash was the de facto standard for dynamic online media, empowering amateur and professional developers to shape the future of the interactive Web. In this book, Anastasia Salter and John Murray trace the evolution of Flash into one of the engines of participatory culture. Salter and Murray investigate Flash as both a fundamental force that shaped perceptions of the web and a key technology that enabled innovative interactive experiences and new forms of gaming. They examine a series of works that exemplify Flash's role in shaping the experience and expectations of web multimedia. Topics include Flash as a platform for developing animation (and the “Flashimation” aesthetic); its capacities for scripting and interactive design; games and genres enabled by the reconstruction of the browser as a games portal; forms and genres of media art that use Flash; and Flash's stance on openness and standards—including its platform-defining battle over the ability to participate in Apple's own proprietary platforms. Flash's exit from the mobile environment in 2011 led some to declare that Flash was dead. But, as Salter and Murray show, not only does Flash live, but its role as a definitive cross-platform tool continues to influence web experience.
