Flash CS4 Digital Classroom Book with DVD

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Flash CS4 Digital Classroom Book with DVD

Adobe Flash CS4 Digital Classroom book with DVD is like having a personal instructor guiding you through each lesson, while you work at your own pace. This Flash CS4 book with DVD includes 15 self-paced lessons helping you learn essential Flash skills and explore new features and capabilities of Adobe Flash.

  • Full color lessons with easy to follow step-by-step instructions
  • Video tutorials highlight key topics in each lesson
  • Covers all essential Flash skills
  • Gets you up-and-running quickly with included Flash CS4 lesson files on DVD
  • Written by expert Flash instructors – it's like having your own personal tutor
  • Used by hundreds of schools and more than 100,000 readers
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Flash CS4 Digital Classroom Book with DVD Contents

Starting Up

  • About Flash Digital Classroom
  • Prerequisites
  • System requirements
  • Starting Adobe Flash CS4
  • Resetting the Flash workspace
  • Loading lesson files
  • Working with the video tutorials
  • Setting up for viewing the video tutorials
  • Viewing the video tutorials with the Adobe Flash Player
  • Additional resources

Lesson 1: What’s New in Adobe Flash CS4?

  • Starting up
  • Testing the waters
  • New animation engine
  • Motion Presets
  • The Motion Editor
  • New easing behaviors
  • New drawing tools: The Deco and Spray Brush tools
  • The 3D Rotation and 3D Translation tools
  • Inverse Kinematics: The new 
    Bone and Bind tools
  • New CS4 interface
  • New F4V video format
  • Adobe Media Encoder

Lesson 2: Flash CS4 Jumpstart

  • Starting up
  • What is Flash?
  • About Flash Player
  • Flash file types
  • Creating a new document
  • Setting up your new document
  • Saving your Flash document
  • Opening documents
  • The Flash workspace
  • The Stage and work area
  • The Flash Tools panel
  • The Property Inspector
  • Panels and panel groups
  • The Timeline
  • Practicing with the Flash tools
  • The drawing and selection tools in action
  • Using gradient and color tools
  • Animation in action
  • Getting help
  • Support forums
  • Moving forward
  • Self study
  • Review

Lesson 3: Getting Started with the Drawing Tools

  • Starting up
  • Drawing in Flash
  • Using the Merge Drawing model
  • Creating artwork in Merged 
    Drawing mode
  • Working with Drawing Objects
  • Putting it all together
  • Using the Line tool
  • Using the Pen tool
  • Using the Add and Delete Anchor
    Point tools
  • Using the Combine Objects menu
  • Using the Primitive tools (Smart Shapes)
  • Using the Oval Primitive tool
  • The Rectangle Primitive tool
  • Adding text to your artwork
  • Adding filters
  • Working with colors
  • Getting set up
  • Creating gradients
  • Using opacity with gradient colors
  • Creating custom colors
  • Saving a custom color set
  • Organizing and layering graphics
  • Working with layers
  • Arranging, locking, and hiding layers
  • Creating layer folders
  • Transforming graphics
  • The Transform menu and Free Transform tool
  • The Transform panel
  • Transforming gradients
  • Self study
  • Review

Lesson 4: Using Symbols and the Library

  • Starting up
  • What are symbols?
  • A look at the Library panel
  • Creating symbols
  • Converting a graphic to a symbol 
    Creating blank symbols
  • Building artwork with symbol instances
  • Positioning and snapping 
    in symbol instances
  • Editing and duplicating symbols
  • Editing symbols in place
  • Modifying individual symbol instances
  • Modifying instance color
  • Fine-tuning your background
  • Duplicating symbols
  • Adding graphics and 
    text to your banner
  • Swapping symbols
  • Managing the Library
  • Organizing symbols with folders
  • The Move To command
  • Deleting items from the library
  • Controlling library views
  • Wrapping up
  • Self study
  • Review

Lesson 5: Advanced Tools

  • Starting up
  • Working with gradients
  • Adjusting gradients with the Gradient Transform tool
  • New Flash CS4 tools for advanced drawing
  • Spraying symbols Masking
  • Introducing the Deco tool
  • Advanced Deco tool techniques
  • Introduction to IK tools
  • Self study
  • Review

Lesson 6: Creating Basic Animation

  • Starting up
  • Introducing keyframes and the Timeline
  • Layers
  • Frames and keyframes
  • Building animation: Enter the tween
  • New: Tween layers and 
    automatic keyframing
  • Tweening multiple objects
  • Previewing animation with Test Movie
  • Moving and transforming tween paths
  • Incorporating color effects and scaling
  • New: Introducing the Motion Editor
  • Modifying the animation 
    using the Motion Editor
  • Tweening rotation
  • Controlling animation paths
  • Where did Motion Guide layers go?
  • What happens to my existing Flash files that use Motion Guide layers?
  • How do I create a motion guide if I still want to?
  • Morphing graphics and 
    colors with shape tweens
  • Shape tween basics
  • Legacy techniques: Creating classic tweens
  • Adding color effects and scaling to a classic tween
  • (Re)creating motion guides for classic tweens
  • Troubleshooting Motion Guides
  • Adjusting animation with onion skinning
  • Looking ahead
  • Self study
  • Review

Lesson 7: Advanced Animation

  • Starting up
  • Copying, pasting, and saving animation
  • Using Copy and Paste Motion
  • New: Creating Motion Presets
  • Applying Advanced Easing Behavior
  • Animating Masks
  • Creating Animation with IK Poses
  • Sequencing Animation
  • Shifting, Moving, and Extending Tween Spans
  • New: Rendering and Animating in 3D
  • The 3D Rotation tool
  • The 3D Translation tool
  • Fine-Tuning Tweens with the Motion Editor
  • Adding shape tweens and shape hints
  • Creating Shape Hints
  • Self study
  • Review

Lesson 8: Customizing Your Workflow

  • Starting up
  • Customizing workspace layouts
  • Opening the completed file
  • Working with panels
  • Collapsing and storing panels
  • Managing workspaces
  • Setting preferences
  • Keyboard shortcuts
  • Visual aids for alignment
  • Rulers and guides
  • Guide layers
  • Advanced alignment
  • Refining your aligned objects
  • Self study
  • Review

Lesson 9: Working with Imported Files

  • Starting up
  • Import formats
  • Importing still images
  • Viewing the completed lesson file
  • Import a bitmap image
  • Adding text
  • Swapping out an imported file
  • Modifying imported artwork
  • Updating imported files
  • Importing Photoshop files
  • Importing a layered Photoshop file
  • Importing Illustrator artwork
  • Animating the bat
  • Self study
  • Review

Lesson 10: Introducing ActionScript

  • Starting up
  • Exploring the lesson file
  • What is ActionScript?
  • ActionScript 2.0 or 3.0: Which should you use?
  • An important note about Publish settings
  • The Actions panel at work
  • Standard (default) script editing mode
  • Using Script Assist
  • Adding & removing actions
  • Adding actions to frames
  • Using stop( )
  • Using the goto action to navigate the Timeline
  • Controlling Movie Clip Timelines
  • Functions
  • Wrapping up
  • Self study
  • Review

Lesson 11: Creating Button Symbols

  • Starting up
  • Working with button symbols
  • Building buttons
  • Adding text to a button
  • Duplicating and modifying buttons
  • Creating text-based buttons
  • Creating frame labels for ActionScript
  • Adding ActionScript: Events and event handlers
  • Understanding events
  • Responding to events with event handlers
  • Tying it all together with event listeners
  • Linking buttons to specific frames
  • Adding an event listener to a button
  • Linking buttons to a web site
  • Introducing navigateToURL( ) and URLRequest( )
  • Self study
  • Review

Lesson 12: Adding Sound to Your Movies

  • Starting up
  • Preparing sound files for Flash
  • Sample rate and bit depth
  • Editing your audio
  • Mono or stereo
  • Audio file formats
  • Importing sounds
  • Placing sounds on the Timeline
  • Adding sound to your slide show project
  • Adding the remaining narration
  • Adding sound effects to buttons
  • Placing Event sounds on button frames
  • Controlling sounds
  • Editing sounds
  • Trimming sound
  • Controlling sounds
  • Repeating and looping sounds
  • Looping sounds
  • Introducing the SoundMixer and stopAll( )
  • More sync menu controls: stop and start
  • Start sounds
  • Stop sounds
  • Sound publishing options
  • Self study
  • Review

Lesson 13: Introducing Movie Clips

  • Starting up
  • About movie clips
  • Creating movie clips Laying the foundation: Your first movie clip
  • Previewing movie clip animation from the main Timeline
  • Creating the landing gear Combining movie clips and main Timeline animation
  • Nesting movie clips
  • Adding ActionScript to movie clip Timelines
  • Controlling movie clip playback
  • Adding some variation to the propellers
  • Tweening movie clips
  • Adding a second tween
  • Combining movie clips for complex animation
  • Adding filter effects to movie clips
  • Using the Filters panel
  • Creating a filter effect
  • Self study
  • Review

Lesson 14: Working with Video

  • Starting up
  • Video in Flash: formats and fundamentals
  • Understanding video
  • Embedded versus linked video
  • The Flash Video format
  • Understanding codecs
  • Understanding the Adobe Media Encoder
  • Converting video with the Adobe Media Encoder
  • Working with embedded video
  • Adding embedded video to the Timeline
  • Building controls for embedded video
  • The Bandwidth Profiler
  • Working with linked video
  • Adding cue points in the Adobe Media Encoder
  • Adding linked video to the Timeline
  • Working with the FLVPlayback component
  • Self study
  • Review

Lesson 15: Delivering Your Final Movie

  • Starting up
  • The publishing process
  • Publishing to the web
  • Customizing the Publish settings
  • CD-ROM delivery
  • Creating a standalone projector
  • Make a full-screen projector
  • Using Export Movie
  • An overview of FTP
  • Using Adobe Device Central in Flash
  • Self study
  • Review