Editorial Review
In this book, you'll learn
- All the ActionScript 3.0 (including math and trigonometry functions) and Flash rendering techniques you'll need to start animating with code
- Basic motion principles such as velocity, acceleration, friction, easing, and bouncing
- How to handle user interaction via the keyboard and mouse
- Advanced motion techniques such as springs, coordinate rotation, conservation of momentum, and forward and inverse kinematics
- All the basic 3D concepts you need to do 3D in Flash, from simple perspective to full 3D solids complete with backface culling and dynamic lighting
Flash has long been one of the most approachable, user-friendly tools for creating web-based animations, games, and applications. This has contributed to making it one of the most widely used programs for creating interactive web content. With each new version of Flash, ActionScript, its built-in scripting language, has become more powerful and a little more complex, too. ActionScript, now at version 3.0, has significantly matured as a programming language, bringing power and speed only previously dreamed about to Flash-based animation, going far beyond traditionally used keyframes and tweens. The material inside this book covers everything you need to know to harness the power of ActionScript 3.0. First, all the basics of script-based animation and setting up an ActionScript 3.0 project are covered. An introduction to object-oriented programming follows, with the new syntax, events, and rendering techniques of ActionScript 3.0 explained, giving you the confidence to use the language, whether starting from scratch or moving up from ActionScript 2.0. The book goes on to provide information on all the relevant trigonometry you will need, before moving on to physics concepts such as acceleration, velocity, easing, springs, collision detection, conservation of momentum, 3D, and forward and inverse kinematics. In no time at all you'll both understand the concepts of scripted animation and have the ability to create all manner of exciting animations and games.
Summary of Contents
- PART ONE - ACTIONSCRIPTED ANIMATION BASICS
- Chapter 1 Basic Animation Concepts
- Chapter 2 Basics of ActionScript 3.0 for Animation
- Chapter 3 Trigonometry for Animation
- Chapter 4 Rendering Techniques
- PART TWO - BASIC MOTION
- Chapter 5 Velocity and Acceleration
- Chapter 6 Boundaries and Friction
- Chapter 7 User Interaction: Moving Objects Around
- PART THREE - ADVANCED MOTION
- Chapter 8 Easing and Springing
- Chapter 9 Collision Detection
- Chapter 10 Coordinate Rotation and Bouncing Off Angles
- Chapter 11 Billiard Ball Physics
- Chapter 12 Particle Attraction and Gravity
- Chapter 13 Forward Kinematics: Making Things Walk
- Chapter 14 Inverse Kinematics: Dragging and Reaching
- PART FOUR - 3D ANIMATION
- Chapter 15 3D Basics
- Chapter 16 3D Lines and Fills
- Chapter 17 Backface Culling and 3D Lighting
- PART FIVE - ADDITIONAL TECHNIQUES
- Chapter 18 Matrix Math
- Chapter 19 Tips and Tricks
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Customer Reviews
OOP beginner 
2008-08-27
Since I'm still a beginner and this book is more for intermediates I'm a little overwhelmed. Definitely more details than I expected but a sourcebook worth buying. I will catch up.
Excellent book 
2008-07-16
This book teaches motion physics programming on flash! And amazingly it's an incredible resource for OOP beginners as well. The first 2 chapters will talk about the philosophies of motion and flash and set you up to learn AS3 programming and OOP! I already had knowledge a solid knowledge of OOP from C# and C++, and let me just say that this book is very concise! It cuts to the chase and gives tons and tons of examples (downloadable), very accurate and useful information! I recommended this book to my girlfriend whose a graphics designer because it was so coherent and very well written. This is a very good book. I've read over other books like AS3 Design Pattern and one other book that tried to OOP, none of them are as concise as this book is. This book IS THE BOOK you're looking for!!!
Get this book if you want to learn OOP, get this book if you want to learn motion physics programming in Flash, get this book if you want to learn AS3! Clear, coherent, and cheap. This book is your one stop.
A Great ActionScript 3 Book! 2008-06-05
If you're new to AS 3 and have some kind of OOP (Object Oriented Programming) experience in your past or none at all then this book is right up your alley...an experienced programmer may find this book a little simplistic. Anyway, I've always had a problem understanding programming concepts because I could never apply them to real world applications. All through college while taking JAVA, VB, PL/SQL...etc I always felt like I never truly grasped some of the basic concepts that made up OOP. The way Keith Peters explains his examples and some of the more basic concepts that make up AS 3 is awesome. I've been able to couple his explanations with the stuff I've learned in the past to really help clarify some of these more basic OOP concepts that I could never quite grasp. Since AS 3 is a lot like JAVA, I have a really good jumping off point for doing some really cool things with this language. This book has really lit a new fire of excitement in me for OOP that was long lost back in school. I really enjoy this book and the way the author uses real world terms and normal "speaking language" to write the book. It's as if he's speaking to you in person and explaining things to you face to face.
I have one CON to all of the PROS. The book needs a resource CD with the code chapter by chapter. I know, I'm lazy. But sometimes it really helps to compare my code that I may have problems finding the errors in with the correct code just to see if it's my code with the problem, the class path I have setup, an author error or maybe even something else. Regardless the book is well worth the money I spent and I'd recommend it to anyone.
I wish I'd written this book! 2008-06-02
Years ago, I got an interview for a new startup company called FriendsOfEd (and for those wondering, Ed is 'Every Designer'). I assumed it was flash designer role, but I ended up writing books as the resident in-house author.
The initial book was Foundation flash 5 (released 2000), the first book for the Foundation series. Approximately 20 other books followed in the period 2000-2005.
The thing is, I haven't written a book since then, but had an idea to write a new book that went through the stuff that Adobe dont cover in the standard Flash docs; scripted animation.
Looks like I don't have to write that book now, because its already been done, and done well!
Perhaps the only thing I would do differently is to add a book project, where the animation techniques were used in a high end Flash user interface design (thus putting the techniques in a typical design context), but thats just a difference in style... all the content I would wish to cover is in this book.
Well worth buying, and not just for beginner Flash users; many of the tchniques in this book go well beyond 'Foundation' level, and are recommended for intermediate/advanced users. good coverage of 3D techniques in Flash means that this book also comes recommended for advanced users looking at Papervision et al, and advanced Flex users looking to add a bit of motion-graphics into the mix.
Back to lurk mode :)
Sham Bhangal.
intermediate 2008-04-23
Good book for intermediate user. One dimensional but does adequate job in that one dimension.
A brilliant resource! 2008-04-08
In this book, you'll learn
- All the ActionScript 3.0 (including math and trigonometry functions) and Flash rendering techniques you'll need to start animating with code
- Basic motion principles such as velocity, acceleration, friction, easing, and bouncing
- How to handle user interaction via the keyboard and mouse
- Advanced motion techniques such as springs, coordinate rotation, conservation of momentum, and forward and inverse kinematics
- All the basic 3D concepts you need to do 3D in Flash, from simple perspective to full 3D solids complete with backface culling and dynamic lighting
Flash has long been one of the most approachable, user-friendly tools for creating web-based animations, games, and applications. This has contributed to making it one of the most widely used programs for creating interactive web content. With each new version of Flash, ActionScript, its built-in scripting language, has become more powerful and a little more complex, too. ActionScript, now at version 3.0, has significantly matured as a programming language, bringing power and speed only previously dreamed about to Flash-based animation, going far beyond traditionally used keyframes and tweens. The material inside this book covers everything you need to know to harness the power of ActionScript 3.0. First, all the basics of script-based animation and setting up an ActionScript 3.0 project are covered. An introduction to object-oriented programming follows, with the new syntax, events, and rendering techniques of ActionScript 3.0 explained, giving you the confidence to use the language, whether starting from scratch or moving up from ActionScript 2.0. The book goes on to provide information on all the relevant trigonometry you will need, before moving on to physics concepts such as acceleration, velocity, easing, springs, collision detection, conservation of momentum, 3D, and forward and inverse kinematics. In no time at all you'll both understand the concepts of scripted animation and have the ability to create all manner of exciting animations and games.
Summary of Contents
- PART ONE - ACTIONSCRIPTED ANIMATION BASICS
- Chapter 1 Basic Animation Concepts
- Chapter 2 Basics of ActionScript 3.0 for Animation
- Chapter 3 Trigonometry for Animation
- Chapter 4 Rendering Techniques
- PART TWO - BASIC MOTION
- Chapter 5 Velocity and Acceleration
- Chapter 6 Boundaries and Friction
- Chapter 7 User Interaction: Moving Objects Around
- PART THREE - ADVANCED MOTION
- Chapter 8 Easing and Springing
- Chapter 9 Collision Detection
- Chapter 10 Coordinate Rotation and Bouncing Off Angles
- Chapter 11 Billiard Ball Physics
- Chapter 12 Particle Attraction and Gravity
- Chapter 13 Forward Kinematics: Making Things Walk
- Chapter 14 Inverse Kinematics: Dragging and Reaching
- PART FOUR - 3D ANIMATION
- Chapter 15 3D Basics
- Chapter 16 3D Lines and Fills
- Chapter 17 Backface Culling and 3D Lighting
- PART FIVE - ADDITIONAL TECHNIQUES
- Chapter 18 Matrix Math
- Chapter 19 Tips and Tricks
Excellent programming source for Actionscript 3 2008-03-28
Keith Peters has written another excellent teach-yourself book pertaining to Actionscript. I also have a copy of his Foundation Actionscript 2.0 book. I am only half way through the book as of now due to my reading several other books concurrently with this one, but it has already taught me a lot. Keith Peters teaching style is easy reading, with humor and taught by examples which are easy to follow and comprehend. I highly recommend this book to anyone first learning Actionscript and to those of us familiar with Actionscript 2.0 transitioning to Actionscript 3.0. There are significant changes in Actionscript from versions 2.0 to 3.0 and Keith Peters clearly lays them out.
The only negative I give the book, and it is a small and correctible problem, is there exists conflicts in the book's examples prevently the examples from running correctly. Specifically, I refer to the names given to the mouse handlers in the examples' functions; e.g. the function name "onMouseDown" conflicts with the Actionscript naming conventions preventing examples using that function name to run or to run without error. This I easily corrected by renaming the function "onMouseDown1." I did the same with "onMouseUp" changing it to "onMouseUp1" and this corrected all such errors.
Not really about the code! 2008-02-13
This book was an excellent resource for AS2 and the rewrite to AS3 helps out a lot but it is really about math, primarily trig.
Perhaps the greatest challenge to many coding animation is the math needed. This book covers it pretty well in ActionScript and provides a number of good examples however if you are looking for a book to learn AS3 it might not be the best choice.
Cons:
Coding errors in any book about programming are pretty much unforgivable. If the author is doing his job he would compile and run his code... and a few examples from this book would not run correctly... and some would not even compile.
Awesome Actionscript Animation 2008-02-12
This book rocks!
I am a flash developer one year out of school and i work for an e-learning firm.
We produce our lessons using flash.
I never stop using the information in this book for producing interactions for an e-learning environment. without this book I would not be as successful at my job as quickly.
honestly i have been awarded plenty of monetary bonuses from using this book.
It's a must have!!!
Great for animation! 2007-12-25
This book is an excellent resource for flash animation for AS3. Saying that if you have the previous version of the book for AS2 there is no need to purchase this book. All it does it show you the same formulas; but in objects. If you don't know about objects and different aspects of OOP for AS3 then i recommend this book Essential ActionScript 3.0 (Essential). This book takes you from beginning to end of AS3. If you want to learn animation though then this book is it when it comes to AS3.
