Wouldn?t it be great if you could have one of the world?s most accomplished and sought after Flash teachers sitting next to you at your computer as you navigate the infinite possibilities of Macromedia Flash 8?

How to Wow with Flash is the next best thing. Flash powerhouse?Colin Smith?renowned author, Web designer, and trainer, has developed an effective way to help you reach your full creative potential. Just like great cookbooks?the ones with short, clear-cut instructions and mouth-watering photos of the delectable concoctions?this book identifies challenges, provides simple recipes for overcoming them, and plugs in inspirational full-color photos of the glorious results.

Colin guides you step-by-step through real-world projects, with an emphasis on uncompromising quality, last-minute flexibility, and go-home-at-night speed! You?ll learn tips and techniques on everything from common workflow problems and exciting Web animation techniques to custom projects and movies using Flash 8. This is a fast paced book that exposes the secrets to making things move in new ways, add interactivity, sound and video to make audiences go wow!

This book begins with the essentials of workflow and Flash foundations (including Frames, Keyframes, creating shapes, blend modes) and then moves on to motion and effects, sound and video, and widgets and interactivity. Next comes the fun with creative projects such creating sweeping motion using custom easing, generating interactive navigation, creating slide shows, using masks, producing stunning effects with Flash 8?s new filters, adding looping music, and more. The How to Wow! companion CD makes it a snap and is packed with everything you need to work through the projects in the book and start creating your own Web sites and animations that wow!

Wouldn’t it be great if you could have one of the world’s most accomplished and sought after Flash teachers sitting next to you at your computer as you navigate the infinite possibilities of Macromedia Flash 8?

How to Wow with Flash is the next best thing. Flash powerhouse—Colin Smith—renowned author, Web designer, and trainer, has developed an effective way to help you reach your full creative potential. Just like great cookbooks—the ones with short, clear-cut instructions and mouth-watering photos of the delectable concoctions—this book identifies challenges, provides simple recipes for overcoming them, and plugs in inspirational full-color photos of the glorious results.

Colin guides you step-by-step through real-world projects, with an emphasis on uncompromising quality, last-minute flexibility, and go-home-at-night speed! You’ll learn tips and techniques on everything from common workflow problems and exciting Web animation techniques to custom projects and movies using Flash 8. This is a fast paced book that exposes the secrets to making things move in new ways, add interactivity, sound and video to make audiences go wow!

This book begins with the essentials of workflow and Flash foundations (including Frames, Keyframes, creating shapes, blend modes) and then moves on to motion and effects, sound and video, and widgets and interactivity. Next comes the fun with creative projects such creating sweeping motion using custom easing, generating interactive navigation, creating slide shows, using masks, producing stunning effects with Flash 8’s new filters, adding looping music, and more. The How to Wow! companion CD makes it a snap and is packed with everything you need to work through the projects in the book and start creating your own Web sites and animations that wow!

Excellent coverage
As with most of Collin Smith’s books I find them to be very focused on the subject. The subject matter is presented in a clear and concise manner to where a "newbie" such as I can understand. When I started reading"How to WOW with Flash" I had just completed reading PhotoShop and Dreamweaver Integration" by Collin Smith.

I would recommend any of Mr. Smith’s books. Very "cool" reading!

David M. Parson

Excellent quick start guide!
Hands-down one of the best Flash quick start guides available today. It doesn’t matter if you are using Flash 8 or CS3, the examples in this book can be used in all versions!

I’ve been a software developer for years, and I’d been searching for a good quickstart book on flash and found it with "How to Wow". Because I’ve been programming, I didn’t need a book to explain all the ins and outs of programming, I just needed something to give me a solid starting point, and this did it. That’s not to say you can’t use this book if your a beginner though, each example is covered and you can view the actual files on the accompanying CD.

Final Verdict: Perfect for the person looking for a quickstart with Flash.

Great Flash book
Being a professional Web and multimedia guy I buy a lot of books on Web design and A/V. Among others, I have in my collection pretty much all books on Flash,. I’ve had this book since last year and just finished reading the rest of the chapters I had not gotten to complete. No matter what your level in Flash is, this is a great book because there’s something for everybody in it. My goal from every book I buy is to implement at least one thing that I learn from that book because a lot of times just that one thing is worth more than the price of the book. This book has definitely paid for itself and more.

Just a word of caution if you’re buying this book now when even Flash CS3 has been out for a year and there’s word about an upgrade. I’d wait for this book’s new edition, which I’d buy myself, because the examples and code will be more relevant to the latest version of Flash.

great book for a beginner like me
I am a designer but beginning flash, I took a class and then I bought this book. I have been going through the lessons with the CD. I like the book, it’s to the point and easy to follow step by step.

How To Wow
I am not an eloquent writer, but my comment is simple.
I found the quick and easy methods used in this book really consolidated and condensed what I have learned from other flash books. It is a book to keep by your side when you want to remember how to do something quickly. I recommend it to people who have learned a bit about flash and want to apply their knowledge.

Good for intermediate people in Flash
After going through this book I felt I needed to have a better understanding than I already had of flash. Also the tricks they show are great and can be masted using the CD accompanying the book, however there are no real instructions on how to integrate that into your own work. I felt there was a missing link of getting some of these effects to work on my own projects and found myself very frustrated in the end. Some are easier than others and I was able to implement them but there should have been more explanation on how to integrate these new effects instead of them being so isolated to step by step instructions.

How to What?
Now see, this is an example of using the WOW label to sell almost anything! If it says WOW, I’m looking for some new, slick, seldom seen techniques or examples. I mean, that’s what WOW used to mean in the graphic book section. Alas, the term has been diluted to just a slick marketing sound bite. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING in this book can’t be found in the Flash help menu, or doing a quick Google search. When I read through this thing, all I could say was, "WOW, ain’t nuthin’ in here"!

Wow with Flash
I purchased this text for a technology course that involved the use of flash. Each chapter contains various activities and techniques that are flashy on websites.

I managed to work through all the chapters with few difficulties, all except chapter 5, adding motion on animation. You will need some extra time and patience when you get there.

The book goes through each activity in written form, step by step. It would have been nicer to have directions listed in bullet form, which would have made it easier to return to the next direction instead of searching through text.

The CD however makes up for this. It contains a pre and post file for each chapter activity. You are able to work on each project using the start file, and then watch what the finished project looks like on the end file. This more than makes up for the directions being written into the text.

I like the book. You learn as you work through the projects. It is good as a course book, or for individual use. You should enjoy it.

An Excellent Book
I have just completed 2 classes in Flash and although this book was not required, I’m VERY grateful I had it in my library. The info in this book is covered in other books, but Colin’s book is FAR more clear and easy to understand. When I was stuck on my projects for class, I could refer to How To Wow to figure out what the other books were trying to say.

It shows so many techniques you will really use in flash, making them in the simplest way. He also shows how to add creativity and elegance to keep your flash projects from being boring. And he even manages to explain simple ActionScript in a way I actually understood.

I refer back to this book constantly. Do yourself a favor and get this book! You’ll finally understand Flash better than ever.

Not File Friendly
I bought this book with the impression that it had the files needed to be able to work through the projects. I was unable to find the motionstart.tif file which was indicated to be used to start the first project. After an hour searching for it I started flipping through the book looking to see if there was anything I could use. Not one project listed specifically which program to use to open up the files on the CD. I tried to use the 3rd party programs which were included with the CD. None of them matched up with how the examples looked in the book. I would love to have been able to learn what the book listed but have not been able to use any of it. This book is definately NOT beginner friendly.

OK If you want a little extra.
I am not sure WOW is the word I would use to describe this book. While I learned some new things about Flash, I did not learn anything that made me feel WOWED. Not bad if you have a little extra time on your hands and want to learn a little something new. If what you want is to really learn some of the higher functions of this program, this is not the book for you.

Very GOOD and USEFUL
I love this book...
- very well written
- Useful
- Very detailled
- Can suits for the novice or the experimented user too
- Opens fields to explore by yourself

Highly recommended

Very GOOD and USEFUL
I love this book...

- very well written

- Useful

- Very detailled

- Can suits for the novice or the experimented user too

- Opens fields to explore by yourself



Highly recommended

Hollywood movie special effects
With the latest upgrade of Flash 8 Professional and its new features, you can do some really cool things. Surf the web for those Hollywood movie websites that have the newest special effects. Would you like to add some of these to your own site? This book by Colin Smith will help you do just that. Smith shares with you his Flash secrets in sixty of the best examples of Flash effects. But don’t panic if you aren’t familiar with Flash ActionScript. Believe it or not, Smith keeps the ActionScript to a minimum. Except for a few examples at the end of the book, the cool effects he shares are based on Flash basics such as tweening.

To get you up to speed in the first chapter, Smith gives you a crash course in Flash covering the Timeline, symbols, instances, frames and keyframes. Then he moves into tweening and those new Flash filters. Another new feature added in version 8 is the Object Drawing Model and Smith teaches you to use the vector drawing tools to create your own art from scratch. Next, you learn a little about blend modes, glow and blur filters. Then, you put it all together to create a sample project which is a high tech web interface.

Now you are ready to start learning how to create those Hollywood special effects including animated handwriting across the screen, reflected light and a slide in with blur transition. How, you ask? He demonstrates step-by-step how to use filters, motion and shape tweens and masks. Want to add some atmosphere to your website? Smith shows how to create smoke and steam with blend modes.

The chapters that I liked the best covered character animation and 3D. Smith shows you his personal techniques for creating and animating characters from scratch. For example, he demonstrates how to animate a walk cycle and lip syncing. One of the newest things on Flash sites is the addition of 3D objects. Smith shows you how to add a 3D object to your Flash movie and also how to create the illusion of 3D.

A cool Flash website is not enough on today’s web. Smith discusses user interactivity and demonstrates some examples including a movie clip that the user can drag around the screen. He also covers rollover buttons, animated preloaders and custom cursors. In order to finish these projects, you need to know a little ActionScript. So, Smith first gives you a mini-course in beginning ActionScript. Then he demonstrates how to make a sliding menu, a drop-down menu and invisible buttons with hotspots.

Did you know that you can create your own "green screen" picture-in-picture video effect? Smith first shows you how to set up and record the video and then how to merge it into your Flash project. At the end of the book, Smith gives you some advanced ActionScript projects including an XML driven gallery, dynamic text from an external file, an email form and an MP3 jukebox. Smith does not cover all the ActionScript for these projects but he does show you how to customize them into your Flash projects.

Colin Smith is the founder of PhotoshopCAFE, DreamweaverCAFE and PixelOverload. He has written over twelve books and six training videos. The book’s CD includes program files, prebuilt Flash widgets and trial software.

Great Buy
This book is a great tool for beginning flash or intermediate flash users. It teaches you so much at a level that’s easy to understand. I would recommend this for any designer to use.

a grab bag of tricks for flash 8
Ok, the first thing you have to realize about Colin Smith is his incredible level of generosity. In case you don’t know who he is, he is the guy who digitally created an image of his guitar. That’s right, he built it up as a still life in Photoshop, layer by layer, over 1000 layers.

So, the incredibly diligent author of this book is one of the good guys, and with all that Photoshop expertness behind it, it probably won’t surprise you to learn that the book itself looks great. That having been said, however, it deals with Flash 8, rather than 9, so all of the Actionscript examples are of less use if you want to learn AS 3 going forward. And with the IDE (the flash timeline authoring tool) about to change dramatically, maybe this book is one for your archives.

So, what’s in the book? There are things in the book that wouldn’t even occur to me, plus some things I can see being really useful.

It wouldn’t even occur to me to animate a gradient, but Colin shows how to produce a really flashy cool effect by doing just that.

He shows how to do greenscreen video on a budget, and he shows how to do video silhouettes, just by importing the video onto a one-color field, and then turning the brightness down to minus 100. Formidable!

Probably the best thing in the whole book, something I have always wanted to do, is he shows how to animate characters’ mouths to match their speech. He shows exactly how to do this, and gives mouth shapes for each of the nine common mouth sounds/shapes. Just a couple of pages, a really cool technique. Can you give five stars for just a couple of pages? Why not!

There are some great tricks on how to ease your animation motions to a standstill and give it a realistic look, how to emphasize an oncoming picture by outlining it, all step by step, and how to add sound to a button. Because of the way the illustrations were placed, I found the book a little hard to follow from a reading standpoint, but the information is all there.

Wow!!
How to Wow with Flash
Colin Smith ISBN: 1-590596196

I really enjoyed this book. This is a must have for your Flash reference library.

He summarizes his section on easing by saying that "to increase the speed or (ease-in)" you use negative numbers. To "slow speed or (ease-out)" you use positive numbers for the ease in / out slider located in the properties inspector. This is an example of the clear and concise easy to remember way he talks about Flash.

Not only does he write clearly, he tells you practical industry secrets that will enable you to impress clients. I wish there were more books like this. This book steps you into working with code in a painless way if you’re coming from a design background. The book and .FLA files provided with the CD are beautiful art pieces.

There is a section on animation, highlighting squash and stretch, lip-synching, and anticipation with Chris Georgenes of Adobe. This section emphasizes that you can move the rotation point of the movie clip to the bottom of the animation when the object reaches the bottom of the squash and stretch cycle. This gives the animation that extra punch. He really concentrates on the little details that take something good and make it polished!!

The author shows you how to make a preloader but, not the ugly bar kind. You can take any logo with this method and mask it and hook it up to the preloader code and have it fill.

He sprinkles little known keyboard shortcuts throughout the book. For example, if you want to skew just one side of something he tells you to hold down the alt key (PC) to lock the opposite side of the skew.

Other ideas about dealing with Flash 8 features such as object drawing are included. If you draw something with object drawing set to on which reverts Flash back to the way it used to work in Flash 7 ( where it cuts out shapes laid on top of each other). The author suggests that you just hit Ctrl + B (PC) and the shape will be as if you didn’t have the drawing object on.

Colin shows you how to soften fill edges, and make a spotlight mask utilizing checking the bitmap caching checkbox and a little code for the mask using the setMask function.

There is a discussion of ActionScript variables. Not just the theory; he shows you how to use them with game counters, to record a web viewer’s actions such as clicking on a link, and changing behavior based on whether a condition is true or false. Using the _alpha property to show viewers visited links is covered as well.


The video section is very solid. It covers green screen, alpha channels, making a video look like a cartoon, old time movie effects with scratchy lines and flickering, and IPOD like silhouettes. He gives an overview of the fundamentals of video such as: when using green screen, check encode alpha channel checkbox, try to achieve the best quality without increasing the file size, choose 30 fps for video used for broadcast.

Some of the other things included in this book are: a Flash form coded by Matt Keefe and some innovative approaches to navigation, code showing you how to make your mouse follow the cursor, an xml photo gallery and more. He tells you how to hook up the .php for the form. This alone would make the book worth buying.

How to Wow with Flash
Book in excellent condition New as stated great price fast shipping

How to Wow with Flash (How to Wow)
This book will teach you a lot of the up to date effects that design companies are using today.
The book is very well written and clear to understand, including the basics of what you need. It is easy to follow along the steps and the code included in the CD its easy to track and understand, even if you’re not into coding.
You will learn how to master the basic commands, advanced animations, special effects, dynamic and static photo galleries. Create image thumbnails and then later on in another chapter create a tabbed slider so you can add the thumbnails to it.
The book comes with a CD which has everything you need to work through the projects in the book.

Awesome...
...I admit I contributed a chapter to this book, so I will only speak to the rest of the book’s content which I hadn’t seen until it shipped. Colin, great job man! You covered a lot of valuable topics that the majority of Flash users can benefit from. The layout is clean and a pleasure to read through. I noticed several people at the Peachpit bookstore at Flash Forward (Austin, TX) flipping through the pages for well over 10 minutes! In some cases, reading entire chapters and then purchasing the book. That says a lot, especially when they are within arms reach of 25 other books on Flash.
Bravo!

-chris

Perfect
This book is great. I recommend it for those who know their way around Flash already and need a review for starters and then can launch into the more complex chapters in the back. It’s simple and to the point and I have never been so pleased with a tutorial book. Things are explained clearly, the projects are easy and I am reminded of the fun I used to have with Flash once again. Thank you for finally writing a tutorial book that wont collect dust on my shelf!

Just what I needed
I’ve been using Flash in my daily development process for over 3 years. I wish a book like this was available then, I would be a much more efficient Flash programmer than I am today.
I applaud Colin for his writing skills and including the basics of what you need to develop good working habits in Flash. It is easy to follow along the steps and the code he includes in the CD is easy to track and understand, even if you’re not a code geek.
After reading this book, I’ve applied his techniques to projects that were already in progress and they are farther along in development than if I did things "my way". The sites run more efficiently and are more exciting than what I was doing before. I now have more time to think of creative and interactive ways to enhance the site, than I am to the functionality of the program.
Thanks, Colin!

Wow I am Impressed
I am a Professional designer and I am used to the steep learning curve that comes with Adobe Programs (they are robust), How to Wow in Flash flattened that curve and made it not only easy to follow along but because of the way the lessons are presented I was able to trouble shoot and fix any problem I encountered do to typical novice mistakes or bad spelling in scrypts. That is the real joy and Wow behind this book. I now have an understanding of the program so that I can play and be creative all in a few weeks not years. As always Colin Smith has come through again with the high quality teaching experence I have come to expect from his web page,Photo Shop Cafe, and other books and CD’s. If by the odd chance I run into a problem he quickly directs me towards the solution.

Great Flash book for Beginners and Intermediate readers
This book will teach you a lot of the fancy effects that design agencies are using in hi-profile work, but not forgetting to build a firm foundation on how they work and when to use them. I quickly found myself learning UI time savers and ways to achieve very interesting "unique" effects that added that extra pop to my work.

Colin took learning Flash to a whole other level by walking you through the steps, providing opinions and letting the reader know where to extend a technique and build on it. You will learn how to build DVD presentations, advanced animations, special effects, dynamic and static photo galleries among a variety of other topics. As a bonus the books rounds out the learning with an XML photo gallery and a Flash emailer that you are quickly able to install in your movie which allows your viewers/readers to provide quick and painless feedback.

I am not really sure why the reviewer before me did not like the book, but at the same time it is not really written for advanced Flash developers and I am glad, there are already enough books that try to teach you everything. Instead this book stays on topic, hits all the expectations I had when considering and reading the back of the book... and most of all lit the creative fire for the reader that will now want to go out and spend hours in Flash to extend all of the knowledge they have just obtained.

How To Wow with Flash
Colin Smith should stick to trying to "Wow" people with his Photoshop trickery. This book includes nothing new or "Wow" in Flash.
The book is a bunch of gimmicky techniques that anyone who uses Flash already knows( but hopefully no longer uses). What is even more disheartening is he manages to make his Flash examples look as dated as his Photoshop sites, with high-tech silver gradient interfaces, etc.
My advice save your money, and hope that Colin Smith get’s an new idea, before he writes another book.