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Macromedia
Flash MX Bible

The Flash MX Bible is a Book and CD combination which includes a significant amount of information for learning how to use Flash MX. Not only does it cover a wide range of information, but it also includes tutorials, articles, and useful material which can help developers and designers not only in flash, but also in their common project workflow.

In the following sections of this review, we will look at who the Flash MX Bible is for, what the book includes, and the good and the bad aspects of this book.

Who is the Flash MX Bible for?

Web and/or CD Media Developers
Flash MX Bible is a great source for learning about creating animations, and designing graphics and interfaces, among other things. There is a lot of emphasis put on the areas of integrating media with flash and exporting these in the correct manner. This book will help you to achieve the balance between quality and speed. Some other useful topics covered in this book include using ColdFusion for communicating with databases, and building movies for Pocket PCs. Also featured in this book are articles about working with clients, and some guidelines to follow when working on a project.

Flash Beginners
Flash MX Bible covers a wide variety of topics and tries to hit almost all of the areas you are interested in. There is also a large portion of the book dedicated to helping you master the Flash environment.

Artists
Flash MX Bible helps animators get a head start by showing you the basics about animation, the science of motion, different ways to animate characters, how to lip-sync a character with an audio track, and has a lot of detailed information about the Flash tool set. There is also a tutorial included on creating a Flash portfolio website, and another on creating 3d artwork with 3D Studio Max and Swift 3d.

What the Book Includes

Here is the list of the sections included in the book along with a short description of each.

:: Chapters

Part 1 - An Introduction to Flash Web Production

Chapter 1 - 3 The first part of the book includes a QuickStart section which gives you a head-first jump into what flash has to offer. Also introduced is the Flash format, the basic fundamentals for starting and organizing flash projects, and articles on Interface Design and Designing for Usability.

Part 2 - Mastering the Flash Environment

Chapter 4 - 9 Part two shows you everything you will need to know about the interface of Flash MX and working with the Tools. This section introduces you to symbols, instances, and working with the Library. It also shows you how to do such things as getting the best looking type with the smallest file size. A useful article is included in this section about "Miniml" fonts.

Part 3 - Creating Animation and Effects

Chapter 10 - 14 The Animation and Effects section of this book is saturated with information regarding everything from the Science of Motion, to articles on Character Design Strategies and Lip-Syncing Cartoons, to exporting broadcast quality artwork.

Part 4 - Integrating Media Files with Flash

Chapter 15 - 17 In part four, you learn how to import/embed sound, artwork, and video into your projects. A helpful table for sound quality/bit rates for different connection speeds is included in chapter 15.

Part 5 - Adding Basic Interactivity to Flash Movies

Chapter 18 - 20 After learning the basics of Actions and Event Handlers, and learn even more about the timeline in this section, you begin your first Flash MX Project with a step-by-step

Part 6 - Distributing Flash Movies

Chapter 21 - 23 This section of the book is focused primarily on the best ways to publish your flash projects and present them on the web. It discusses the code required to put on your website and also how to use the Flash standalone player if you would like to use that. This section also shows you how to use the Bandwidth Profiler.

Part 7 - Approaching ActionScript

Chapter 24 - 33 Flash MX bible dedicates these TEN chapters for introducing you to ActionScript. This includes making functions and arrays, and controlling all aspects of your flash movies such as text, components, creating preloaders, dynamic text fields, loading xml, and much more. Chapter 32 is all about creating a portfolio site in Flash MX for an example project.

Part 8 - Optimizing and Troubleshooting Flash Movies

Chapter 34 - 36 Part eight is actually not in the book, but on an included CD in PDF format. It talks about topics such as keeping your code clean and tracking down problems in your code.

Part 9 - Expanding Flash

Chapter 37 - 45 Part nine is all about combining Flash MX with the productivity of other software such as Macromedia Fireworks, FreeHand, Adobe Photoshop, Discreet 3ds Max, Dreamweaver MX, Director, and more. Chapter 44 is all about incorporating ColdFusion MX with Flash in order to process user input. Chapter 45 also talks about developing Flash content for Pocket PCs.

Part 10 - Appendixes

The Appendixes include a list of keyboard shortcuts and also includes an article on "Digital Sound Basics."

The Good and the Bad

The Flash MX Bible does include a vast amount of topics and tries hitting everything there is to talk about. By doing this, it does not go very in depth about ActionScript which is a fundamental part of Flash MX. With that said, this is still a quality, useful book. Once you use this book to learn about using the software, and understanding how to create a basic project, you will probably want to, at some point in time, purchase the ActionScript Bible in addition to this book.

This book is very easy to understand, even while covering advanced topics. One of the most appealing points of this book is the integrated articles which cover different topics of design.

Conclusion

All in all, this book is a great buy. It can be purchased for about $50. It is 1270 pages, and includes a CD which has additional articles and tutorials. If you plan on creating advanced content, you will probably also want to purchase the Flash MX ActionScript Bible. At some places, such as Amazon.com, you can purchase the two books together for a reduced price of $70.

Kevin @ techreviewer.com

ARTICLE PUBLISHED: 10-19-03