How to Learn Flash

How to Learn Flash, now available on Amazon, is a series of Flash tutorials for beginners that walks you through the basic production pipeline of creating Flash projects without making you pull your hair out. We are realeasing these on Amazon Kindle. In this first exercise, Simple Interactive Pencil, you will create a basic project: a pencil that when clicked, draws a straight line.

This first project in the series, though very simple in appearance, shows the basic elements that are needed to build interactive projects in Flash: drawing, creating and naming layers, creating symbols, button states, importing images & sound, motion & shape tweens, animation, and Actionscript (Flash’s computer language).

I have had over 10 years of experience in teaching and using Flash, and I wanted to create a series of tutorials for all of those who were curious about learning flash, but weren’t quite sure what was involved. This series of lessons has been adapted from classes I have taught to beginners who were just learning flash.

We at tonyteach believe that learning flash, or anything for that matter, shouldn’t be difficult or expensive, and our goal is to pack as many tips, tricks, and techniques into a single, simple, cost-effective project.

With that in mind, the How to Learn Flash series is designed for a skill level of novice to beginner. This first project, Simple Interactive Pencil, should take between 30 minutes to an hour to complete.

Available Now on Amazon Kindle & Kindle Apps: http://amzn.com/B0064BCA8O

Here is a lesson on seamless rotations in Flash, from the animation section of the book. This is an example of using Motion Tweens, and rotation options in the Property Inspector.

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5:49 | 10.9 MB

Still working on the book, though it will be out in the Fall vs. Summer. So I’ve had questions on what will be in the book, so here is what it is, and what it aint.

This book is a collection of simple tutorials and exercises showing the basics of animation, as well as a basic introduction to animating in Flash. This book is not a step-by-step guide to making a cartoon, or animating a web page, it’s simply a book of projects to give a better understanding of animation, and in the long run, hopefully help to improve the look and feel of your animations.

Oh and by the way, stick tutorial coming soon.

Here is a lesson, cartoon eyes, from the animation section of the book. This is an example of how to use graphic symbols in Single Frame mode in Flash.
This tutorial is a little over 16 minutes long, but I cover a lot.

16:41 | 45.2 MB

Here is a lesson, wiggle text, from the animation section of the book. This is an example of how to use Onion Skin in Flash.

6:34 | 10.39 MB

So let me tell you about my new book (my first actually).
The Little Book of Flash Animation: Tutorials and Practices
I have found that a lot of the books out there on the subject are thick…
Don’t get me wrong, I love all of my thick animation books… Illusion of Life (drool)…
But where are the skinny Preston Blair/Walter Foster books on Flash ?
You know, a straight, to-the-point, thin book like the “How to Draw Manga” series.

The concept:
Take all the lessons I’ve created over the years, and present them in this format, Traditionally we did it this way… Now, here is a way you could do it in Flash.

I am writing the book as if I were writing it for my late animation mentor and friend, Lou Hertz. Though he was slightly pixel-phobic, he would always ask “When are you gonna teach me Flash”, I would answer “When do you wanna learn?”
We were supposed to team teach a student Fall of 2005, but he passed away that July.

So if someone has never touched Flash, but maybe knows animation (or maybe not), they could start the book Friday, and have a decent animation on Monday .

The book will be coming out this summer. In the meantime I will be placing excerpts from the book online in the form of video tutorials, stay tuned.