Foundation Actionscript 3.0 Animation: Making Things Move!

Front Cover
Apress, May 25, 2007 - Computers - 568 pages

Flash has long been one of the most approachable, user-friendly tools for creating web-based animations, games, and applications. This has contributed to making it one of the most widely used programs for creating interactive web content. With each new version of Flash, ActionScript, its built-in scripting language, has become more powerful and a little more complex, too. ActionScript, now at version 3.0, has significantly matured as a programming language, bringing power and speed only previously dreamed about to Flash-based animation, going far beyond traditionally used keyframes and tweens.

The material inside this book covers everything you need to know to harness the power of ActionScript 3.0. First, all the basics of script-based animation and setting up an ActionScript 3.0 project are covered. An introduction to object-oriented programming follows, with the new syntax, events, and rendering techniques of ActionScript 3.0 explained, giving you the confidence to use the language, whether starting from scratch or moving up from ActionScript 2.0.

The book goes on to provide information on all the relevant trigonometry you will need, before moving on to physics concepts such as acceleration, velocity, easing, springs, collision detection, conservation of momentum, 3D, and forward and inverse kinematics. In no time at all, you'll both understand the concepts of scripted animation and have the ability to create all manner of exciting animations and games.

 

Contents

Basics of ActionScript 3 0 for Animation
13
Trigonometry for Animation
51
Rendering Techniques
83
Velocity and Acceleration
121
Boundaries and Friction
147
Moving Objects Around
173
PART THREE ADVANCED MOTION
187
Easing and Springing
189
Dragging and Reaching
349
Reaching with multiple segments
357
PART FOUR 3D ANIMATION
373
3D Basics
375
3D Lines and Fills
421
Backface Culling and 3D Lighting
451
PART FIVE ADDITIONAL TECHNIQUES 471
470
Matrix Math
473

Collision Detection
223
Coordinate Rotation and Bouncing Off Angles
249
Billiard Ball Physics
275
Particle Attraction and Gravity
305
Making Things Walk
323
Tips and Tricks
487
Timer and timebased animation
501
Useful formulas
512
Index
521
Copyright

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About the author (2007)

Keith Peters lives in the vicinity of Boston with his wife, Kazumi, and their daughter, Kristine. He has been working with Flash since 1999, and has co-authored many books for friends of ED, including Flash MX Studio, Flash MX Most Wanted, and the ground-breaking Flash Math Creativity. In 2001, he started the experimental Flash site, BIT-101 (BIT-101.com), which strives for a new, cutting edge, open-source experiment each day. The site won an award at the Flashforward 2003 Flash Film Festival in the Experimental category. In addition to the experiments on the site, there are several highly regarded Flash tutorials which have been translated into many languages and are now posted on web sites throughout the world. Keith is currently working full time doing freelance and contract Flash development and various writing projects.

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