This book covers Flash CS4, including all the features brand new for Flash users. Flash CS4 introduces motion tweening, a new method for animating objects, such as symbols and text fields. Using a new panel, the Motion Editor, Flash developers will find it easier than ever to create sophisticated, lifelike animations. In addition, inverse kinematics allows animators to create armatures, skeleton-like structures that connect symbols and govern their movement. The animation chapters of the Flash CS4 Visual Quickstart Guide will be fully updated to integrate the new animation techniques with the old and to give beginners some insight into how and when to use which types. Flash CS4 Professional: Visual QuickStart Guide uses step-by-step instructions and plenty of screenshots to guide readers along so that they'll be up and running quickly.

About the Author

Katherine Ulrich is a writer and editor with a special interest in graphics and multimedia software. She has worked with Flash since version 3. She is also an avid amateur photographer. Formerly, she was an editor at Macworld Magazine, working in the how-to department.

Table of Contents

intro 1: flash authoring tool 2: creating simple graphics 3: working with text 4: modifying simple graphics 5: complex graphics on a single layer 6: graphics on multiple layers 7: working with symbols 8: frame-by-frame animations 9: animation with classic tweening 10: animation with shape tweening 11: animation with motion tweening 12: more-complex tweening tasks 13: inverse kinematics 14: building buttons for interactivity 15: basic interactivity 16: using non-flash graphics 17 adding sound and video 18 delivering movies to your audience