Title Details

William Heldman is the Computer Science and Game Development instructor at Warren Tech (www.warrentech.org), a Career and Technical Education (CTE) high school in Lakewood, Colorado. He is the author or coauthor of several Sybex books, including the CompTIA Project+ Study Guide.

CHAPTER 1 Before Jumping into Flash: Rich Media Design

Principles and Practice 1

Working with Clients to Create Rich Media Projects 1

What Is Rich Media? 2

Viewing Great Rich Media Examples 3

Identifying Your Content’s Purpose and Audience 7

Choosing the Best Media Types 10

Addressing Accessibility Issues in Rich Media 12

Designing for People Who Are Blind 14

Designing for Low-Vision Viewers 18

Designing for Hearing-Impaired and Deaf Viewers 23

Designing for People with Physical Limitations 27

Designing for People with Cognitive Limitations 28

Designing for People with Photosensitive Epilepsy 28

Understanding Project Management 101 28

Identifying a Project 29

Creating the Project Plan 29

Creating the Project Schedule 31

Properly Closing Out the Project 32

Understanding Copyright Issues When Using Others’ Work 32

Understanding Text Copyright 33

Understanding Music Copyright 34

Understanding Video Copyright 34

Understanding Animation Copyright 34

Understanding Trademarks 35

CHAPTER 2 Getting Acquainted with Flash 37

Opening Flash for the First Time 37

Using Flash Panels 40

Frequently Used Panels 41

Other Handy Panels 43

Understanding Flash Workspaces 45

Understanding Flash File Types 47

FLA 48

SWF 48

HTML 49

CHAPTER 3 Drawing Shapes in Flash 51

Drawing Standard Shapes 51

Understanding Merge vs. Object Drawing 58

Creating Objects in Merge Drawing Mode 58

Creating Objects in Object Drawing Mode 60

Drawing Primitive Shapes 62

Drawing Polygonal or Star Shapes with the PolyStar Tool 65

Making Artsy Shapes with the Deco Tool 66

Drawing Other Shapes 68

Working with Color in Flash 75

Using kuler 75

Saving a Color Set 77

Working with Color Gradients 77

CHAPTER 4 Getting Started with the Timeline 81

Becoming Acquainted with the Timeline 81

Adding Different Frame Types to Your Animation 83

Copying and Deleting Frames 88

Frame Names 90

Organizing Your Work with Layers 91

Creating a UFO Scene 92

Hanging the Moon 96

Organizing Your Layers: Using Layer Folders 98

Working with Special Layer Types 102

Aligning Objects with Snapping 105

CHAPTER 5 Adding Flash Text and Fonts to Your Creat ions 109

Understanding When You Can Use TLF Text Fields 110

Flash Player 110

ActionScript 111

Flash Builder 112

Picking the Best Font 112

Choosing Serif or Sans Serif 112

Embedding Your Font 114

Using Placeholder Text 116

Checking Your Spelling 116

Using Classic Text 117

Deciding to Use Classic Text 117

Inserting Classic Text Boxes 117

Using Text Layout Framework 120

Deciding to Use TLF 120

Inserting TLF Text Boxes 121

CHAPTER 6 Working with Flash Symbols 129

Creating Graphic Symbols 129

Converting Assets to a Symbol 130

Grouping Assets 132

Using the Library 134

Using the Symbols from the Library 134

Implementing a Library Naming Convention 135

Grouping Common Objects in the Library 135

Creating Button Symbols 136

Manually Creating a Button 138

Turning the Button into an Instance 140

Editing a Button 140

Using a Prebuilt Button 143

Creating Movie Clip Symbols 144

Creating and Editing Symbol Instances 146

Understanding ActionScript Linkages 148

CHAPTER 7 Developing Simple Flash Animations 155

Developing Storyboards to Describe Your Animation 155

Creating a Storyboard for Cow Abduction 156

Animating the Cow Abduction 159

Creating a Frame-by-Frame Animation 165

Differentiating between a Stage Animation and a Movie Clip 171

CHAPTER 8 Using Tweens 175

Creating Shape Tweens 175

Making Changes to a Shape Tween 178

Adding Shape Hints 181

Creating Motion Tweens 183

Rotating Objects 185

Using Parallax Scrolling 186

Applying Granular Changes with the Motion Editor 189

Making Animations More Realistic with Easing 190

Using Motion Presets 192

Understanding Classic Tweens 194

CHAPTER 9 Techniques for Creating More Technical Animations 199

Creating a Bicycle with Rotating Wheels 199

Drawing the Crank Arms 200

Creating the Pedals 202

Repeating the Process for the Three Arcs 204

Creating the Sprocket 206

Creating the Tires 207

Creating the Bike Frame 209

Assembling the Bike 211

Setting Different Speeds Using Parallax Scrolling 213

Creating the Buildings 213

Adding Some Clouds 215

Assembling the Scene 216

Adding a Highway 217

Creating a Bouncing Ball with Color Gradients, Motion Presets, and Eases 218

Creating the Basketball Court’s Floor 218

Adding Pizzazz with Custom Color Gradients 219

Creating a Backboard by Combining Motion Tweens 222

Tweaking the Animation 225

Adding Perspective to the Basketball Scene with 3D Tools 225

CHAPTER 10 Creating Characters with Inverse Kinematics 231

Boning a Character 231

Snapping a Photo as a Base 231

Tracing Your Picture 233

Inserting Bones into Your Character 237

Constricting Animations 240

Animating IK’d Objects 242

Creating the Bicycle Animation 242

Creating Bouncing Movement Using IK Springs 244

CHAPTER 11 Working with Audio 251

Creating a Rich Media Project with Audio 251

Creating the Drum Set 253

Drawing the Bass Drum 254

Drawing the Bass Drum Hoops 254

Making the Drum Head 255

Moving the Back Hoop into the Back of the Front Hoop 256

Creating the Drum Shell 257

Drawing and Placing the Lugs and Rods 258

Creating the Tom-Toms and Snare 260

Making the Cymbals and Cymbal Stands 261

Drawing the Cymbal Stand 261

Drawing the Scissor-Style Brace for the Cymbal Stand Legs 263

Creating the Cymbal 266

Creating the High-Hat Stand and Cymbals 267

Adding Sounds to the Drums 268

Importing the Sounds and Preparing for ActionScript 268

Creating the Buttons 269

Adding a Hit Zone to the Cymbals 271

Compressing Audio 272

Using the Sounds Supplied with Flash 273

Putting a Sound on the Stage 274

Controlling a Sound with a Code Snippet 274

CHAPTER 12 Working with Video 279

Understanding Supported Flash Video File Types 279

Converting Non-supported File Types 281

Using the Import Video Wizard 282

Setting Up ActionScript Cue Points 289

Adding ActionScript Cue Points to Your Video 289

Adding Parameters to Cue Points 292

Adding the Buttons 293

CHAPTER 13 Working with ActionScript 299

Getting Started with ActionScript 299

ActionScript Basics 300

Working with Dynamic Text 303

Programmatically Adjusting a Text Object’s Coordinates and Formatting 304

Testing Your Work 305

Programming ActionScript to Calculate Your BMI 308

Writing the Code to Declare Variables and Hide Dynamic Text Fields 310

Garnering User Input 312

Calculating and Outputting the Results 314

Publishing Your Work 317

APPENDIX A Adobe Rich Media Communication Using Flash Professional CS6 Objectives 323

APPENDIX B Next Steps 327

Index 331