Foundation Flash CS5 For Designers- P1

7.5 x 9.25 spine = 1.625" 872 page count
All you need to succeed in Flash Professional CS5
Covers all of the new additions to Flash CS5 including the Text
Layout Framework, and new coding, animation, and video features
Master the fundamentals of Flash Professional CS5 from adding
and using media to creating games for Android devices
In this book, you’ll learn:
How to create effective animations using the Motion Editor and animation tools
How to use the 3D features to animate objects in 3D space
Best-practice tips and techniques from some of the top Flash practitioners on the planet
Foundation Flash CS5 For Designers
If you’re a Flash designer looking for a solid overview of Flash Professional CS5, this book
is for you. Through the use of solid and practical exercises, you will soon master the
fundamentals of this latest edition of the Adobe Flash authoring tool. Using a series of
carefully developed tutorials, you will be led from basic Flash Professional CS5 techniques
to the point where you can create animations, MP3 players, and movies designed for
playback across multiple devices in no time. Each chapter focuses on a major aspect
of Flash, and then lets you take the reins in a “Your Turn” exercise to create something
amazing with what you’ve learned.
This book focuses on the core skill set you need to feel at home with Flash Professional
CS5, and also introduces you to some of the biggest names in today’s Flash community
through interviews and actual “How To” examples, so you can learn from the masters. You
will start by studying the Flash Professional CS5 interface, and while you’re at it, you’ll be
guided toward mastery of the fundamentals, such as movieclips, text, and graphics, which
will lead you into some of the more fascinating aspects of Flash, including code, audio,
video, animation, and 3D transformations.
By the time you finish, you will have created an MP3 player and a Flash video player, been
introduced to the basics of ActionScript 3.0, learned how to combine Flash with XML,
styled Flash text with CSS and the new Text Layout Framework, created animated scenes,
and worked your way through a host of additional projects. All of these exercises are
designed to give you the practical knowledge necessary to master Flash Professional CS5

from the ground up. If you’re already a seasoned Flash designer, this book will get you up
to speed with this latest version in relatively short order.
This book covers all of the new Flash Professional CS5 features, such as the new Text
Layout Framework, the new way of working with video, and two of the coolest new
additions to the application: the Springy bones tool and a vastly improved Deco tool.
All of the files you need to use this book can be found at www.friendsofed.com.
Download the files, and let’s get busy!
this print for reference only—size & color not accurate
US $39.99
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ISBN 978-1-4302-2994-0
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SHELVING CATEGORY
1. FLASH
FLASH CS5
FOR
DESIGNERS
Green
Dias
FOUNDATION
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Foundation Flash CS5
for Designers


Tom Green and Tiago Dias








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Foundation Flash CS5 for Designers
Copyright © 2010 by Tom Green and Tiago Dias
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The source code for this book is freely available to readers at www.friendsofed.com in the Downloads section.
Credits
President and Publisher:
Paul Manning
Lead Editor:
Ben Renow-Clarke
Technical Reviewers:
Cheridan Kerr, Kristian Besley
Editorial Board:
Clay Andres, Steve Anglin, Mark Beckner,
Ewan Buckingham, Gary Cornell, Jonathan Gennick,
Jonathan Hassell, Michelle Lowman, Matthew Moodie,
Duncan Parkes, Jeffrey Pepper, Frank Pohlmann,
Douglas Pundick, Ben Renow-Clarke,
Dominic Shakeshaft, Matt Wade, Tom Welsh

Coordinating Editor:
Mary Tobin
Copy Editor:
Kim Wimpsett

Compositor:
Lynn LHeureux
Indexer:
Kevin Broccoli
Artist:
April Milne
Cover Designer:
Anna Ishchenko
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To Sarah and Rory McGrath in Berne, Switzerland. May your marriage
be one of peace, love, and joy.
—Tom Green
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iv
Contents at a Glance
About the Authors................................................................................................... xiv
About the Technical Reviewers .............................................................................. xv
Acknowledgments .................................................................................................. xvi
Preface................................................................................................................... xviii
Chapter 1: Learning the Flash CS5 Professional Interface ..................................... 1
Chapter 2: Graphics in Flash CS5........................................................................... 67
Chapter 3: Symbols and Libraries ........................................................................ 151
Chapter 4: ActionScript Basics............................................................................. 213
Chapter 5: Audio in Flash CS5.............................................................................. 279

Chapter 6: Text....................................................................................................... 315
Chapter 7: Animation, Part 1 ................................................................................. 361
Chapter 8: Animation, Part 2 ................................................................................. 427
Chapter 9: Flash Has a Third Dimension.............................................................. 495
Chapter 10: Video................................................................................................... 527
Chapter 11: Building Interfaces with the UI Components ................................... 601
Chapter 12: XML (Dynamic Data).......................................................................... 643
Chapter 13: CSS..................................................................................................... 669
Chapter 14: Building Stuff..................................................................................... 695
Chapter 15: Optimizing and Publishing Flash Movies......................................... 757
Index ....................................................................................................................... 809
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Contents
About the Authors................................................................................................... xiv
About the Technical Reviewers .............................................................................. xv
Acknowledgments .................................................................................................. xvi
Preface................................................................................................................... xviii
Chapter 1: Learning the Flash CS5 Professional Interface ..................................... 1
Getting started ............................................................................................................................. 2
Creating a new Flash document................................................................................................. 5
Managing your workspace .......................................................................................................... 6
Setting document preferences and properties .......................................................................... 8
Document preferences ......................................................................................................... 9
Document settings..............................................................................................................10
Zooming the stage..............................................................................................................11
Exploring the panels in the Flash interface..............................................................................14
The timeline.........................................................................................................................14
The Properties panel ..........................................................................................................23

The Tools panel ..................................................................................................................29
The Library panel................................................................................................................31
Using layers ...............................................................................................................................32
Layer properties.................................................................................................................. 33
Creating layers ....................................................................................................................34
Adding content to layers..................................................................................................... 36
Showing/hiding and locking layers .................................................................................... 38
Grouping layers................................................................................................................... 40
Where to get help................................................................................................................40
Your turn: building a Flash movie.............................................................................................42
Nesting movie clips.............................................................................................................45
Drawing the fly ....................................................................................................................47
Creating the illusion of depth with Flash ........................................................................... 48
Creating an animated fly ....................................................................................................55
Adding audio .......................................................................................................................59
Testing and saving Flash files............................................................................................ 61
You have learned.......................................................................................................................65
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Chapter 2: Graphics in Flash CS5........................................................................... 67
The Tools panel.........................................................................................................................70
The Selection and Subselection tools ...............................................................................72
The Free Transform tool.....................................................................................................75
The Gradient Transform tool.............................................................................................. 77
Object Drawing mode .........................................................................................................80
Drawing in Flash CS5................................................................................................................83
The Pencil tool ....................................................................................................................83
The Brush tool.....................................................................................................................85
The Deco tool......................................................................................................................88

The Spray Brush tool..........................................................................................................98
The Eraser tool..................................................................................................................101
The Pen tool......................................................................................................................102
Your turn: let’s have a campfire..............................................................................................104
Drawing the tree trunk ......................................................................................................104
Drawing the pine tree .......................................................................................................106
Adding pine needles .........................................................................................................107
Build the campfire movie..................................................................................................108
Working with color in Flash.....................................................................................................110
The Color palette and the Color Picker...........................................................................112
Creating persistent custom colors ...................................................................................115
The kuler Color Picker......................................................................................................117
Your turn: playing with color.............................................................................................119
Using bitmap images in Flash.................................................................................................123
Working with bitmaps in Flash .........................................................................................125
Your turn: tracing bitmaps in Flash..................................................................................127
JPEG files and Flash........................................................................................................131
Using GIF files in Flash CS5............................................................................................134
Importing Fireworks CS5 documents into Flash CS5 ....................................................137
Importing Illustrator CS5 documents into Flash CS5 .....................................................140
Importing Photoshop CS5 documents into Flash CS5...................................................146
You have learned.....................................................................................................................149
Chapter 3: Symbols and Libraries ........................................................................ 151
Symbol essentials....................................................................................................................152
Symbol types............................................................................................................................155
Graphic symbols ...............................................................................................................155
Button symbols..................................................................................................................156
Movie clip symbols............................................................................................................158
Editing symbols.................................................................................................................159
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9-slice scaling ..........................................................................................................................160
How 9-slice scaling works ................................................................................................161
Your turn: frames for an olive seller.................................................................................163
The 9-slice “gotchas” ........................................................................................................166
Sharing symbols ......................................................................................................................169
Sharing libraries ................................................................................................................171
Filters and blend modes..........................................................................................................174
Applying filters...................................................................................................................174
Applying a Drop Shadow filter..........................................................................................175
Adding perspective ...........................................................................................................177
Playing with blends ...........................................................................................................180
Managing content on the stage ..............................................................................................184
Aligning objects on the stage ...........................................................................................186
Stacking order and using the Align panel .......................................................................189
Masks and masking.................................................................................................................194
A simple mask...................................................................................................................194
Using text as a mask ........................................................................................................201
Your turn: a sunny day on Catalina Island.............................................................................205
Adding the clouds .............................................................................................................206
Getting the clouds in motion.............................................................................................208
What you’ve learned................................................................................................................211
Chapter 4: ActionScript Basics............................................................................. 213
The power of ActionScript.......................................................................................................214
Actions panel components...............................................................................................216
The Actions panel vs. the Behaviors panel.....................................................................219
Everything is an object ............................................................................................................220
Classes..............................................................................................................................221
Properties ..........................................................................................................................222

Setting properties via ActionScript .........................................................................................225
Methods.............................................................................................................................226
Events................................................................................................................................229
Coding fundamentals ..............................................................................................................233
Syntax................................................................................................................................233
Capitalization matters .......................................................................................................233
Semicolons mark the end of a line ..................................................................................234
Commenting code.............................................................................................................235
Dot notation.......................................................................................................................237
Scope.................................................................................................................................239
Variables............................................................................................................................240
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Data types .........................................................................................................................241
Operators...........................................................................................................................244
Conditional statements.....................................................................................................247
Class files and the document class .................................................................................251
Syntax checking................................................................................................................253
How to read the ActionScript 3.0 Language and Components Reference..........................257
Getting help.......................................................................................................................258
Search tactics....................................................................................................................259
Using ActionScript ...................................................................................................................260
Your turn: pause and loop with ActionScript..........................................................................261
Pausing a timeline.............................................................................................................261
Looping the Timeline ........................................................................................................265
Using movie clips to control the timeline.........................................................................266
Using Code Snippets........................................................................................................266
What you’ve learned................................................................................................................276
Chapter 5: Audio in Flash CS5.............................................................................. 279

Flash and the audio formats ...................................................................................................280
Bit depth and sample rates ..............................................................................................281
Flash and MP3..................................................................................................................283
Adding audio to Flash..............................................................................................................284
Importing an audio file ......................................................................................................284
Setting sound properties ..................................................................................................285
Using audio in Flash ................................................................................................................288
Choosing a sound type: event or streaming ...................................................................288
Removing an audio file from the timeline........................................................................291
Getting loopy .....................................................................................................................291
Adjusting volume and pan................................................................................................293
Your turn: adding sound to a button.......................................................................................296
Controlling audio with ActionScript 3.0 ..................................................................................298
Playing a sound from the Library.....................................................................................298
Using a button to play a sound ........................................................................................300
Playing a sound from outside of Flash............................................................................301
Turning a remote sound on and off .................................................................................302
Adjusting volume with code..............................................................................................304
Your turn: storm over Lake Superior ...............................................................................305
Code snippet: visualize audio ..........................................................................................309
What you’ve learned................................................................................................................313
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Chapter 6: Text....................................................................................................... 315
Fonts and typefaces ................................................................................................................316
Adobe CoolType......................................................................................................................319
Typefaces and fonts .........................................................................................................321
Working with device fonts .......................................................................................................322
Embedding fonts......................................................................................................................324

The two text engines: TLF and Classic..................................................................................328
Types of text.............................................................................................................................330
Read-only text properties .................................................................................................331
Container and flow............................................................................................................337
Selectable and editable text.............................................................................................340
TLF and ActionScript........................................................................................................341
Using TLF text as a button...............................................................................................345
Hyperlinks and TLF .................................................................................................................349
Using ActionScript to add hyperlinks to TLF text............................................................350
Checking spelling.....................................................................................................................352
Your turn: scrollable text .........................................................................................................355
Using the UIScrollBar component ...................................................................................355
Rolling your own scroller ..................................................................................................356
What you have learned ...........................................................................................................360
Chapter 7: Animation, Part 1 ................................................................................. 361
Shape tweening .......................................................................................................................363
Scaling and stretching ......................................................................................................363
Modifying shape tweens...................................................................................................368
Altering shapes .................................................................................................................369
Shape hints .......................................................................................................................373
Altering gradients..............................................................................................................377
Classic tweening......................................................................................................................379
Rotation .............................................................................................................................379
Classic tween properties ..................................................................................................381
Scaling, stretching, and deforming ..................................................................................382
Easing................................................................................................................................384
Custom easing ..................................................................................................................387
Using animation .......................................................................................................................395
A closer look at the Timeline panel..................................................................................395
Onion skinning ..................................................................................................................397

Modifying multiple frames.................................................................................................400
Combining timelines .........................................................................................................402
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Motion guides....................................................................................................................408
Tweening a mask..............................................................................................................411
Tweening Filter Effects.....................................................................................................413
Programmatic animation .........................................................................................................415
Copying motion as ActionScript.......................................................................................416
Using the keyboard to control motion..............................................................................419
Creating random motion using ActionScript ...................................................................421
What you have learned ...........................................................................................................426
Chapter 8: Animation, Part 2 ................................................................................. 427
Animating with the Motion Editor panel..................................................................................428
Getting acquainted: scaling and moving .........................................................................430
Easing with graphs ...........................................................................................................437
Managing property keyframes ................................................................................................445
Motion paths.............................................................................................................................450
Manipulating motion paths ...............................................................................................450
Motion tween properties...................................................................................................454
Motion presets .........................................................................................................................455
Inverse kinematics (IK)............................................................................................................458
Using the Bone tool ..........................................................................................................459
Putting some “spring” in your bones ......................................................................................468
Animating IK Poses ..........................................................................................................478
Using the Bind tool............................................................................................................480
Your turn: animate a fully rigged IK model......................................................................487
Inspiration is everywhere ........................................................................................................492
What you have learned ...........................................................................................................493

Chapter 9: Flash Has a Third Dimension.............................................................. 495
What 3D really means in Flash (and what it doesn’t)............................................................496
Understanding the vanishing point.........................................................................................498
Using the 3D tools ...................................................................................................................501
The 3D Rotation tool.........................................................................................................501
The 3D Translation tool....................................................................................................506
Strategies for positioning content in 3D space ......................................................................512
The parallax effect: traveling through space...................................................................512
Use the 3D center point to your advantage ....................................................................517
Be aware of depth limitations...........................................................................................520
Your turn: simulate a photo cube............................................................................................522
What you have learned ...........................................................................................................526
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Chapter 10: Video................................................................................................... 527
Video on the Web ....................................................................................................................529
Video formats...........................................................................................................................530
Encoding an FLV .....................................................................................................................532
Using the Adobe Media Encoder.....................................................................................532
Batch encoding .................................................................................................................541
Creating an F4V file..........................................................................................................542
More Media Encoder Goodness......................................................................................544
Playing an FLV in Flash CS5..................................................................................................546
Using the wizard ...............................................................................................................546
Using the FLVPlayback component ................................................................................552
Playing video using ActionScript......................................................................................555
Using the FLVPlayback control components..................................................................560

Navigating through video using cue points .....................................................................562
Adding captions with the FLVPlaybackCaptioning component .....................................567
Preparing and using alpha channel video.......................................................................572
Going full-screen with video.............................................................................................574
When video is not video ..........................................................................................................579
Embedding video.....................................................................................................................579
Embedding video as a movie clip....................................................................................581
Interacting with video content ..........................................................................................582
Adding cue points ....................................................................................................................583
An alternate XML format for cue points...........................................................................584
Your turn: create XML captions for video........................................................................588
Your turn: play with alpha video .............................................................................................593
Your turn: think big, really big! ................................................................................................597
What you have learned ...........................................................................................................598
Chapter 11: Building Interfaces with the UI Components ................................... 601
Button component....................................................................................................................603
Using the Button component............................................................................................603
Changing the Button component’s appearance .............................................................610
CheckBox component .............................................................................................................615
ColorPicker component...........................................................................................................617
ComboBox component............................................................................................................619
DataGrid component ...............................................................................................................622
Label component .....................................................................................................................624
List component.........................................................................................................................624
NumericStepper component...................................................................................................626
ProgressBar component .........................................................................................................628
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RadioButton component..........................................................................................................630

ScrollPane component ............................................................................................................632
Slider component.....................................................................................................................633
TextArea component...............................................................................................................635
TextInput component...............................................................................................................636
TileList component ..................................................................................................................637
UILoader component...............................................................................................................638
UIScrollBar component ...........................................................................................................641
What you have learned ...........................................................................................................641
Chapter 12: XML (Dynamic Data).......................................................................... 643
Writing XML..............................................................................................................................645
Loading an XML file.................................................................................................................648
Using E4X syntax ....................................................................................................................649
Dots and @s......................................................................................................................650
Node types ........................................................................................................................654
E4X filtering.......................................................................................................................656
Double dots and more ......................................................................................................657
Namespaces .....................................................................................................................659
Your turn: time to explore XFL.........................................................................................661
What you have learned ...........................................................................................................667
Chapter 13: CSS..................................................................................................... 669
Styling with CSS ......................................................................................................................671
Loading external CSS .............................................................................................................676
Custom tags ......................................................................................................................684
Style inheritance ...............................................................................................................686
Styling hyperlinks..............................................................................................................688
Embedded fonts................................................................................................................690
Selectors vs. the Properties panel...................................................................................693
What you have learned ...........................................................................................................694
Chapter 14: Building Stuff..................................................................................... 695
Loading content .......................................................................................................................697

Are we there yet?..............................................................................................................697
Somebody stole my preloader .........................................................................................701
Building a slide show with components and XML .................................................................703
A tour of the Beijing art district.........................................................................................704
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Building an MP3 player with XML...........................................................................................711
Setting up the external playlist.........................................................................................712
Polishing up the symbols..................................................................................................713
Wiring up the MP3 player controls...................................................................................720
Evaluating and improving the MP3 player ......................................................................735
Going mobile ............................................................................................................................737
A quick tour of Device Central .........................................................................................737
Package the game as an Android AIR app.....................................................................750
Build more stuff .................................................................................................................756
What you have learned ...........................................................................................................756
Chapter 15: Optimizing and Publishing Flash Movies......................................... 757
Flash’s love-hate Internet relationship ...................................................................................758
This “Internet” thing...........................................................................................................759
Enter the World Wide Web...............................................................................................760
Bandwidth..........................................................................................................................760
So, who are these folks we call users? ...........................................................................762
Streaming .................................................................................................................................763
The Bandwidth Profiler............................................................................................................765
Simulating a download .....................................................................................................765
Pinpointing problem content.............................................................................................769
Can I get that in writing?...................................................................................................770
Optimizing and fine-tuning your Flash movies ......................................................................771
Planning your project........................................................................................................771

Distributing the weight ......................................................................................................776
Optimizing elements in the movie....................................................................................778
Publishing and web formats....................................................................................................783
Flash ..................................................................................................................................784
HTML .................................................................................................................................785
Animated GIFs ..................................................................................................................786
QuickTime .........................................................................................................................790
It’s showtime! ...........................................................................................................................791
Publish settings.................................................................................................................792
Publishing the butterfly garden ........................................................................................803
Publishing Flash movies containing linked files..............................................................805
What you have learned ...........................................................................................................807
Index ....................................................................................................................... 809
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About the Authors
Tom Green is currently Professor, Interactive Media through the
School of Media Studies at the Humber Institute of Technology and
Advanced Learning in Toronto, Canada. He has written numerous
books on Adobe technologies and several hundred tutorials for
numerous magazines and websites including activetutsplus.com,
layersmagazine.com, Community MX, and Computer Arts. Tom is
also an Adobe Community Professional and an Adobe Education
Leader. He has spoken and lectured at more than 20 conferences
and post-secondary institutions internationally including Adobe Max,
FITC, SparkEurope, and the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing,
China. In his spare time, you can catch him hiking a trail with the Cub
Scout group he has led for the past 15 years or paddling a lake in
Northern Ontario. You can contact Tom at

Tiago Dias discovered Flash around the time of Flash 3, after
seeing a Flash site for the first time. He started off by doing
freelance work on the side from his day job as a network/systems
engineer. Today he works as a Senior Flash Platform Developer at
Publicis Modem, the digital unit of Publicis. Previously he worked as
a video producer and Flash developer at a Corporate Television
company in Zurich.
Besides working and writing, Tiago is an Adobe Community
Professional and one of the co-managers of the Swiss Flash User
Group (SFUG) and has spoken at such conferences as FITC and
FATL on various topics.
In his free time, he writes tutorials on Flash, Flex, AS3, and new
technologies/libraries for various communities. To relax, he tries to
go snowboarding every time the sun is shining in the Swiss Alps or
hops on a plane and flies to a sunny and warm destination to go scuba diving. He currently lives and works
in Zurich, Switzerland.


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xv
About the Technical Reviewers
Cheridan Kerr has been involved in web development and design since 1997 when she began working on
a research team for the Y2K Millennium Bug. It was here she learned about the Internet and promptly fell
in love with the medium. In her career, she has been responsible for websites in the early 2000s such as
Weight Watchers Australia and Quicken.com.au, and she has worked as a creative services manager of
Yahoo!7 in Australia on clients such as Toyota, 20th Century Fox, and Ford. Currently, she is working as
the head of digital for an Australian advertising agency.

Kristian Besley is a Flash and web developer currently working in education and specializing in
games/interactivity and dynamically driven content using Flash, PHP, and .NET (not all at the same time,
obviously!). He also lectures in interactive media.
Kristian has produced freelance work for numerous clients including the BBC, Heinemann, and BBC
Cymru. He has written a number of books for friends of ED, such as working on the Foundation Flash
series, Flash MX Video (ISBN-13: 978-1-59059-172-7), Flash ActionScript for Flash 8 (ISBN-13: 978-1-
59059-618-0), and Learn Design with Flash MX (ISBN-13: 978-1-59059-157-4). He was also a proud
contributor to the amazing Flash Math Creativity books and has written for Computer Arts magazine.
Kristian currently resides with his family in Swansea, Wales and is a fluent Welsh speaker.
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xvi
Acknowledgments
In the acknowledgments for the CS3 version of this book, I said, “Working with a coauthor can be a tricky
business. In fact, it is a little like a marriage. Everything is wonderful when things are going well, but you
never really discover the strength of the relationship until you get deep into it.” You may notice there is a
new name, Tiago Dias, on the cover, which indicates that David Stiller, my previous coauthor, had to back
out of this project because his Flash development business took off, and he simply didn’t have the time
necessary to devote to this book.
Four years ago Tiago and I explored the intersection of After Effects and Flash when we worked together
on another friendsofED title From After Effects to Flash: Poetry in Motion Graphics. When Dave graciously
stepped aside, who better to step in than Tiago?
Having kept in close touch for the four years between our first book and this one, we had developed a
close personal and professional relationship, which made the transition between coauthors seamless. As
well, Tiago brought a fresh pair of eyes to the process, and there were several times when I would get e-
mails that started off with “Dude, let’s try this approach…” when I went sideways instead of forward. Like
David, Tiago gave me a good shake when I wasn’t understanding a code block or technique; these
inevitably started with, “It’s really very simple, Tom,” and he would lay out exactly what I was missing.
When we finished the book, I reflected on the process and discovered that Tiago and I had picked up

exactly where we left off four years ago, and that, my friends, is the mark of an amazing partnership.
Next up is our editor Ben Renow-Clark. There seems to be this generalized misconception that the
relationship between an editor and a writer is adversarial. Actually, the best work is done when the
relationship is the exact opposite, and I am so grateful to have just that relationship with Ben.
Another group of people that have had a profound influence on this book are my students at the college
where I teach and those of you I have met at conferences, online or through my tutorial efforts. I am deeply
grateful for your patience when I tried out some of the exercises in this book and you reacted negatively or
positively. It showed me where I was doing something right or where I needed to start over again. Also,
hearing from my education peers around the world who use this book in their classrooms didn’t hurt when
it came to actually writing the exercises and even determining their order.
Finally, writing a book means I disappear into my office and generally become moody and difficult to live
with as I mull over some aspect of an exercise or the order of a chapter. It takes a very unique individual to
put up with that, let alone understand why, and my wife, best friend, and life partner for more than 30
years, Keltie, has somehow put up with it.
Tom Green

In 2009, Tom and I got together at Adobe’s MAX 2009 for a rather “quick” chat at one of the lunch tables.
The whole conversation was relatively short—15 to 20 minutes—and over that space of time we reviewed
all the chapters of this book, their content, and who was doing what. The result of that conversation is the
book you are holding. Now you might think that is crazy—our having one brief chat. It might seem like that
to you, but for us it was normal. The real discussions happened when we switched on our webcams and
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xvii
saw each other—one in his home office and me in my living room, garden, office, or wherever I was at that
time. It was fun, and we laughed a lot during our Skype conversations.
As Tom already mentioned, we worked on a book together four years ago, and since then we have
developed a great partnership. We understand each other quite well, and, when one side knows what the
other is thinking or wants to accomplish, that leads to an awesome workflow. But as it is, life is not a piece
of cake; sometimes things don’t go the way they should, and that’s where your good friends, and in this

case especially Tom, come in. He backed me up during the course of this book, something that I was a bit
scared of, and, because of my job, I couldn’t always be there for him. If I were asked again to write a book,
I think I would only do it with this old man! No one else managed to wake my creativity while writing books.
Tom, you are a great person and a great mentor.
Next up I would like to thank Mischa Plocek and Pascal [P] Baumann for donating some of their work to be
used in this book. Thank you guys for all your work and time invested doing what you guys can do best!
Marcel, thanks for giving me the spare time I needed and providing me with some ideas; I don’t know how
to thank you for this, but I think I can come up with something.
Last, but not least, writing books can be a challenge. You constantly think day and night of what you have
to deliver the next day. Thanks to the time zones, I always had a few more hours to work on until Tom
woke up. I normally close myself in a state of writing in the morning, writing during lunch, and writing any
time when I’m home. There is not really a break, and I become very impatient and difficult to be around. It
needs lots of nerves and time to handle me during that time, and I can’t thank my girlfriend, Anjanee,
enough for supporting me and trying to handle my difficult moods during the process of the book and all
the other situations in life. Thank you!
Tiago Dias
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Preface
I can remember the day as clear is if it were just yesterday. I was walking by my boss’s office late one
winter afternoon at the college where I teach, and he called me into his office. Sitting on his desk was a
thin white box with some sort of weird swirl on it. He slid the box across to me and asked, “You know
anything about Flash?”
To be honest, as a Director user, what I knew was filtered through the eyes of a Director guy, which meant
I didn’t know much and what I did know convinced me it was a wind-up toy compared to Director. I replied,
“A bit.” The boss leaned back in his chair and said, “Well, learn a lot more because you are teaching it in
four weeks.” This was the start of one of the longest, strangest, and most exhilarating trips I have ever
been on. The version was Flash 3, and I have been using and teaching Flash ever since.
What I didn’t expect is to be writing books, articles, and tutorials around Flash for the past 10 years. I also

didn’t expect that my fascination with Flash would take me around the world speaking at conferences or
lecturing at universities from Amsterdam to Wu Han on the subject of Flash and web-based media. It has
been quite the experience, and Flash CS5 makes things even more fascinating.
Flash CS5 is one of the more important versions in the history of the product. Flash CS5 has evolved into
a serious design tool able to handle everything from simple motion graphics to broadcast-quality
animations. It also marks the point where Flash is fully integrated into the Adobe product line up. The
Motion Editor, a rejigged Media Encoder, the TextLayoutFramework, and a fist full of sophisticated
animation tools are evidence of that.
This book is also a bit different from any Flash book you may have read or considered purchasing. From
the very start of the process, we put ourselves in your shoes and asked a simple question: “What do you
need to know and why?” This question led us into territory that we didn’t quite expect. As we were
grappling with that question early in the process, we kept bothering our network of Flash friends to be sure
we were on the right track. At some point, both of us simultaneously came to the conclusion, “Why not just
let them explain it in their own words?” This is why, as you journey through this book, you will encounter
various experts in the field telling you why they do things and offering you insights into what they have
learned. The odd thing is, at some point in their careers, they were no different from you.
One other aspect of this book that we feel is important is we had a lot of fun developing the examples and
exercises in the book. The fun aspect is important because, if learning is fun, what you learn will be
retained. Anybody can show you how to apply the new Springs feature to a rectangle on the Flash stage. It
is more effective when you do exactly the same thing to bend trees. Anybody can dryly explain 9-slice
scaling, but it becomes less techie when you apply it to a Chinese olive seller. Nested movie clips are a
“yawner” at best, but, when they are related to a Hostess Twinkie, the concept becomes understandable.
Shared libraries are an important subject. Instead of filling a library with circles and text, the concept
becomes relevant when the library is populated with “Bunny Bits.” Interested in going out on the bleeding
edge of Flash and preparing a project for an Android-based device? Whack-A-Bunny makes it interesting
and fun.
As you may have guessed, we continue to exhibit a sense of joy and wonder with Flash, and we hope a
little bit of our enthusiasm rubs off on you as well.
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