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If you're familiar with the basics of Flash, then The Essential Guide to Flash CS4 will take you further in all aspects of the application, animation, sound, 3D, inverse kinematics, the drawing tools, ActionScript, and much more. This book takes all the good bits of Flash CS4 and demonstrates them in methodical and intuitive exercises full of hints and tips for streamlining the creative process. Jump straight into Flash CS4 and start working on real life examples that you can customize to suit your needs.

• Demystifies Flash CS4-explaining new features deep diving through old favorites
• Streamlines the production of cutting-edge Flash CS4 animations and applications
• Provides a unique commercial perspective in compelling Flash productions

This book is for intermediate Flash CS4 users as well as the more advanced user who wants to learn about using Flash CS4's awesome new capabilities, such as motion tweening and kinematics poses.

Each chapter has a number of exercises that contribute to an overall project. The exercises are fun and compelling and allow you to place your own creative stamp on them, while still following the steps to completion.

The final chapter focuses on bringing the exercise output together in an overall campaign consisting of a website featuring advanced flash components and advertising banners.

An underlying theme of the book is marketing a website online. It discusses industry standards for banner campaigns (banner weight, frames per second, etc), effective website marketing techniques, and delves into search engine optimization and search engine marketing.

The Essential Guide to Flash CS4

1. Welcome to Flash CS4
2. Getting Creative: How to Make Your Ideas Come to Life Through Project Planning
3. Getting Your Hands Dirty: Layers, Masks, and Photoshop
4. Draw Me a Picture: Using the Drawing Tools
5. Filters and Blends
6. Let's Get Animated!
7. Achieving Lifelike Motion with Inverse Kinematics
8. Lights, Camera, ActionScript!
9. Using 3D Space in Flash CS4
10. Seeing and Hearing Are Believing!
11. Utilizing Best Practices to Get the Most Out of Your Flash CS4 Movies
12. The End of the Beginning