Product Description

Flash is a vector-based Web design programme from Macromedia that delivers beautiful animations, music tracks, sound effects and state-of-the-art interface design without requiring a lot of bandwidth. More than 90% of current Web browsers are delivered with Flash plug-ins pre-installed. The Flash Player is also available as a free download. Flash is the standard for Web animations and multimedia effects and the market for Flash-proficient designers will only continue to grow. Despite Macromedia's claims, Flash is not an especially easy programme to master. FlashX is expected to feature significant upgrades and differences from the current version 4. "Flash 5 Virtual Classroom" is aimed at beginning to intermediate users. The CD-ROM included with the book features a dozen short, hands-on demonstrations of specific Flash techniques. Running under Real-Player, which is also included on the CD, the lessons combine streaming video and audio of the author with animated screen shots, active Flash demonstrations, slides and graphics in a complete multimedia experience.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2983266 in Books
• Published on: 2001-02-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 296 pages

Review
The topic of Flash 5 is enough to sell this book, the premier title in Osborne's new "Virtual Classroom" series. Content-wise, it is much like other introductory books on the ueber-popular Web animation software, offering solid instruction on manipulating objects and importing images, for example. What makes this stand out from its competitors (see Computer Media, LJ 3/1/01) is the accompanying CD-ROM that offers ten lessons in streaming video. Users will need a fairly good machine to run the tutorial and stay in sync with the audio. Libraries needing supplementary Flash 5 guides should purchase Sahlin's guide.

About the Author
Doug Sahlin is a digital artist, Web site designer and computer book author who lives in Lakeland, Florida. In addition to writing numerous magazine articles on Web design and graphics, he is the author of Carrara 1 Bible and Carrara 1 for Dummies, both from IDG books. He also develops Flash 4 courses for Digital Think

Customer Reviews

A great book for learning Flash fast.
This is a great book if you want to get up and running with Flash quickly. It's laid out in lessons that take you through the basics of drawing and animation and on into the world of more complex animation and interactivity, showing you how to work with movie clips, sound and action script. The author shows you how to streamline your workflow and how to optimise your Flash movies.

It's easy to follow and includes tips and tricks on getting the best out of Flash as well as warnings that help you to avoid some of the pitfalls. These can be very useful!

On the CD are a set of multimedia classes by the author. You can follow along as he demonstrates the techniques in the book in Flash. It's a great way to learn.

Worth while learning supplement
I am currently teaching a client the basics of Flash 5 and was planning on creating some supplemental documentation that described the basics of Flash and provide a series of Step-by-Step guides. Imagine my pleasure when i found this book. it has exactly the information I was in the process of creating.

Some of the guides may seem a little obvious and it really does start from the most basic level, down to creating a new document and how to save a document.

Summary: Well worth purchasing as a learning supplement.

Good for coming back to for step-by-step guides on how to perform basic tasks...