[milf]

I've broken down and decided to try and really learn Flash. I've toyed around with it a bit here and there, but now want to be able to develop a site entirely in Flash similar to some of the others I've seen (i.e - rad-e8.com).

For the Flash gurus out there, where do you recommend I start off? Suggestions for books, tutorials, etc? I want my first project to be the redesign of my own personal site in Flash, but I'm sure there is much to learn before then.

On top of Flash, what other skills are usually required to be in the graphics field? I'm tired of dealing with code and want to be able to do work that allows useage of my creative side...

Any suggestions?

[frownyfrank]

Not a flash guru, but I've done several sites in Flash.. I'd recommend and books by Friends of Ed (http://www.friendsofed.com/). Everything else is crap.

I would start with Foundation Flash 5 if you can find it cheaper. They are selling Foundation Flash MX, but that would almost not help, even if you have MX, because A) You can't assume the vast majority of users have the Flash 6 plug-in, and B) the technical differences between 5 and MX are not going to be useful for the most part for most of the normal sites you build, and you could be limiting your audience.

That site you mentioned could have easily been done in Flash 4 even. I did the most of the flash work on this site (http://www.billnye.com) and it is just in Flash 4.

If you don't want a technical side to something creative, I'd stick to fingerpainting. I think everything else has a technical side to it.

Also, you should check out http://www.k10k.net.

[DeathMan]

so you already know code? what are you comfortable programming in? For flash the hardest thing for me is figuring out how to interface the visuals and the actionscript.

The book that I've seen recommended by most people is by Colin Moock

Flash has some nice very basic tutorials built in which is nice.

This a very interesting blog with links to lots of other sites: http://quasimondo.com/

Other than that, I'd say learn how to use the Pen tool. For drawing programs you get two choices macromedia freehand, and adobe illustrator. A lot of good illustrations come out of both, and I'm not aware of any "killer" features for one over the other. I know there are a lot of Illustrator users waiting for version 11 with baited breath because they are unhappy with performance of 10. I have no experience with Freehand. But I expect it to have better integration with flash, and you could probably get a good deal on it if you're going to get flash in a package.

Of course photoshop is sort of given. Learn how to use and abuse it. Learn about masks, and alpha channels. Basically look around the web and do tutorials, untill you can just look at one, and get what they're doing.

Two monitors (or maybe a big wide one, but i find even on this 21 inch CRT, I wish that I had a bit more space) helps with flash and doing tutorials (or even just doing flash at all.

Better stop before I hit the max post size.


I've also heard that the friends of Ed book is really good.

[bousozoku]

I like PeachPit Press' Visual Quickstart Guides for everything when I'm just starting a technology. They also have the RealWorld when you step up and then Wow! books when you've become accomplished.

[godzookie2k]

I second that mook book, its good stuff. The friends of ed books rule too, but buy them up fast as the publisher is out of business and they are going fast. Buy a flash mx book. With flash mx code syntax changed AGAIN and is even closer to javascript. (actually its EMCA compliant iirc) Anyways, so yesh, buy an MX book because flash 6 penetration is actually moving at a good clip, its at around 70% now, so no point in learning flash 5 when mx has so many cooler toys.

http://www.macromedia.com/software/p...netration.html

http://www.macromedia.com/software/p...s/flashplayer/

[RedStar]

www.flashkit.com ...nuff said