Adobe Flash Tips and Resources

Some of the best Adobe Flash resources for the aspiring Flasher...er...animator.

How can you bring your creations to life if you're not Victor Frankenstein? Why Adobe Flash of course. This feature packed program has more power to animate than the infamous doctor ever dreamed of. Want to craft web animations? Interactive menus? Games? Streaming web video? Saturday morning cartoons? Trade your Tesla-coils and jigawatt generators for Adobe's amazing Flash.

Adobe Flash Tips from DesignGeek e-zine

Best Adobe Tutorials and Resources for Flash

Flash CS5.5 Tryout

Your curious about it. You'd like to try it. Others have described the mind blowing experience...Here's the taste to get you hooked. It's good for 30 days, but the clock doesn't start ticking until you install the file you downloaded. (Or, for $10.99 US you can purchase a trial version of the entire Suite on a set of DVDs. Much easier than downloading the huge installers.) Once you purchase the program or the Suite, you can convert the installed trial to a "real" one, just enter the serial number and activate it.

 

Download FlashPlayer

To play the latest Flash games or watch cutting edge Flash animations that use the latest and greatest features of the program, you'll need the latest and greatest version of Flashplayer.

 

Adobe TV: Flash

Get up to speed quickly with Adobe TV's Flash training videos. These are quick hits, running 2 to 12 minutes in length and covering some of the essentials and new features. You can take a few in during a coffee break. Less fattening than donuts and mentally nutritious.

 

 

Adobe Flash CS5 Professional User Guide (PDF 15M)

Here's the manual you thought you don't get anymore. You do, it's a PDF on the install disc and on Adobe's website. If you're like me you can't find the install disc when you need it so here is the link to the online file.

 

Flash Developer Center

This area of Adobe's website is the motherlode for Flash users. Here you'll find resources for getting started, sample files to pull apart and reverse engineer, video presentations, tutorials, articles, Actionscript info, and more.

 

ActionScript Technology Center

ActionScript is used to program interactivity, and efficient programming of Adobe Flash applications for everything from simple animations to complex, interactive application interfaces. These pages offer help to both novices and experts. (You don't have to know ActionScript to use Flash, but boy it sure helps. At the very least date an ActionScripter...at least for a little while.)

 

Tips for Learning ActionScript 3

If you already know a thing or two about ActionScript from earlier versions, you can jump in and see what has changed with Actionscript 3. Emmy Huang, the senior product manager for Adobe Flash Player, walks you through some of the biggest changes.  

 

Using Flash Video Encoder (PDF, 380K)

Adobe Flash Video Encoder is a stand-alone video encoding app that lets you encode video in Flash Video format (FLV) so you can add video to a web page or Flash document in a format that anyone using Adobe FlashPlayer can view (That's most people on the planet these days). This manual helps you to do just that.

 

Best Ways to Get Help from Other Flash Users

Adobe Flash Forum

The Adobe Forums are usually my first stop when trouble strikes and I need help. Chances are somebody has had the same problem and a solution is already posted. If not, there are lots of knowledgeable people here who are happy to offer advice. There is a lot of problem-solving going on in here. Reading is painless (click "login as guest" button), posting/replying requires free registration.

 

Flash Central at Adobe Studio Exchange

Got a project with a time consuming process or wish Flash could do even more than it currently can? Check out the Plug-ins, add-ons, extensions, code, and more that have been crafted and posted by fellow Flash enthusiasts to the Exchange. It could be your needs have already been anticipated and the solution made available. Why reinvent the wheel? (You'll have to register with the Studio site and/or log in before you'll be brought to this link. Yes, registering is a pain, but it could save you lots of "worser" pain and frustration.)

 

CreativeCow Flash Forum

CreativeCow.net is an online community for media production folks. I guess that's anybody who works creatively on a computer these days because their forum offerings are huge and their daily traffic is pretty high. Their Flash forum is well populated. While you're there, check out their other offerings, including articles, tutorials, and a magazine deliverable in print or PDF.

 

ActionScript.org

Another online community, this time focusing more directly on ActionScript users, but with resources for users of Flex and Air, and general users of Flash as well.

 

Yahoo Flash Group

If you prefer your community experience to come via email, Yahoo has a Flash discussion group that's been around for a while (There name is actually the Flash Macromedia group, to give you an idea of just how long).

Best Flash Online/Video Training

Lynda.com's Adobe Flash Lessons:
Flash CS5 |Flash CS4 | Flash CS3

You've got to love Lynda.com. Their new collection of CS5 tutorials includes ActionScript 3.0 in Flash Professional CS5 Essentials Training and AIR 2 with Flash and Flex Essential Training. Their impressive library of videos for Flash CS3 and CS4 covers a wide range of topics: Flash for the Web, Flash for the wii, Flash for animation, Flash for mobile phones...You can buy individual DVD collections of their training and watch it on your TV at home or subscribe for online viewing and get access to every title they produce.

Virtual Training Company's Flash Lessons:
Flash CS5 |Flash CS4 | Flash CS3

VTC is one of my favorite on-line Quicktime Tutorial sources. Through their site you can learn Flash online in the privacy of your web browser as short, optimized-for-the-web online Quicktime movies (over 150 lessons), or order all of them on a CD for $99 to get the highest quality Quicktime files. Either way, all sample files used in the lessons are included. They have a terrific video training library with all of the other titles including InDesign CS5, Photoshop CS5 and Illustrator CS5 and they keep the older training materials on-line as well so if you're still working on earlier versions, there is something here for you too. You can 'try before you buy' as the first 3 chapters of every title are free.

 

Total Training Flash Lessons:
Flash CS5 |Flash CS4 | Flash CS3

Flash training is available via online subscription and on DVD discs as well. Either way you'll get a couple day's worth of training that is top-flight and fun to watch. Presenter John Ulliman takes you through both the new CS5 introductory videos and the previous CS4 videos. Each of Total Training's products comes with a CD containing project files so you can follow along with the instructor.

Other Flash-centric Web Sites with Good Stuff

BestFlashAnimationSite.com

Here's a site for sore eyes! There is a lot of Flash being used out there, but
not all of it is ...shall we say...good? Get inspired by this collected list of
some truly interesting Flash websites. Be sure to check out this one at barcinski-jeanjean.com and be doubly sure to rustle up some 3D glasses
for it too.

 

Smashing Magazine Flash Tutorial Links

These folks went trawling for Flash tutorials on Google and were overwhelmed by quantity and under whelmed by quality. But happily for us, they came away from the experience with this shortlist of winners. Actually it's a not-so-short shortlist, there's plenty here to keep you busy.

Flashmagazine.com

You can read reviews, check out tutorials, find live Flash events and participate in the online community at this online magazine.

Web Design Library

Billing itself as the one stop for Graphic Designers, WDL has a number of web design training resources, both analogue (color theory) and digital (Tutorials and the like). The link will take you directly to their Flash tutorials.

WARNING! Time Wasting Area WARNING!

UGOPlayer.com (nee Flashplayer.com) hosts hundreds of animations and games created by avid Flash fans. Some are fun, some are addicting, (some are neither) all will suck you in and rob you of the precious moments of your life. You've been warned.

 

Free Nature/Science Symbol Libraries

We've got this listed on the Illustrator Page too, because it's a resource that just shouldn't be missed! Over 32 symbol libraries totaling over 1,500 beautifully-rendered artwork symbols for science, nature and ecology (including ecosystem landscape diagrams); a searchable index, a Quicktime tutorial, a free symbol creation service; all royalty- and cost-free, a gift to the community from the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. Mind-boggling! Have these people won an award from Adobe yet?