Flash has upped the standard for web motion graphics and has been welcomed with open arms on account of its powerful new ActionScripting capabilities. Following the phenomenal success of New Masters of Flash, the Flash Annual will bring together a new collection of the hottest Flash design talents on the planet, all of whom have grabbed attention in the preceding year.

New Masters of Flash: The 2002 Annual gives competent web artists inspiration for cutting-edge Flash design techniques, as well as hard tutorial information on how to build top class effects. The format builds on the best of the original best-selling title while improving in areas where the first volume was weaker, (e.g. generic customizable code examples), while the talents, the inspirations and effects are all of the moment and represent the mature and expert deployment of the staggering new capabilities of Flash 5 ActionScript.

The Flash Annual format: The Intro is a series of 3 "field-report" essays written by key New Masters from the previous year covering new talents, new techniques and new trends. The main body of the book is then an evolution from the original format. This time, as well as the inspiration and tutorial sections, we add a third section to each chapter, headnotes. Part summary, part chapter commentary, part code overview, the Headnotes section teases out the reusable and generic elements of the previous tutorial and suggests ways forward for the reader. What you'll learn Who this book is for

Web artists with experience in the Flash environment, and who know some ActionScript. Aspiring designers looking for inspirations and direction from industry leaders.

Diana Johnson (Sorenson Media) One of the best books on video for new users: editing, compression, and Flash MX technologies. Full of great tips. Let's make movies Interactive movies, totally integrated into your Flash interface With Macromedia Flash MX you have the power to import digital video and sound, and manipulate them just like any other media object. That's a whole world of design possibilities. This book takes you through all you need to know about producing such wonderful sites. The first section gives you a thorough grounding in how best to import your video and sound into Flash MX and the many different ways that you can manipulate it once it's in there. Then, in the second section, we go through a complete real-world case study from pre-production on the video to final output to the web and CD-ROM. Finally, we show you how can apply advanced ActionScript to video, and create a fully object-oriented sound and video playing Flash component that you'll be able to use time and time again. Flash MX - viewers who have the tiny Flash Player installed can now see video material that would otherwise require lengthy downloads and the clunky interfaces of other web video plug-ins. This book is the guide you need for this exciting new universe, offering inspiration and technical guidance in equal measure. As with all books from friends of ED our support is fast, friendly and free. Even if our dedicated support team are unable to solve your problem immediately, your queries will be passed onto the editors and authors who put the book together. All foED authors help with the support on their books, and will either directly mail readers with solutions or (more usually) send their response to an editor to pass on. This book assumes no knowledge beyond an ability to work with the Flash MX interface, and is not intended for those with substantial digital video experience. As such, this book does not assume that the reader has access to expensive video-editing software. All you need for this book is access to Flash MX, and some imagination. and Flash MX technologies. Gives you a thorough grounding in how best to import your video and sound into Flash MX and the many different ways you can produce such wonderful sites. Softcover. About the Author Hoss Gifford is one of the founding directors of Flammable Jam, and curator of his personal site. He regularly sponges his way around the world, getting free flights in exchange for talking at new media seminars, including FlashForward and Milia. Hoss reckons we should all take stuff a bit less seriously, and be happy with making 'quite nice things that entertain people for a wee while', as can be seen from his other two sites. Kristian Besley was born in Wales, grew up in the same street as Catherine Zeta Jones, and read Media Arts following interests in film and design. In his little spare time, you'll most likely find him creating random stuff which will eventually appear online at graphci, or laughing at personalised number plates. One day he vows to reform seminal band Ken.

by Bruce Herbert and Diana Johnson ofSorenson Media Creative boundaries are being blown apart as Macromedia Flash MX ushers in a new era of moving images on the Internet. At its launch, analysts predicted that the Flash Player would transform itself from being a lightweight animation tool" to "the de facto technology for simple web interactivity5* (Randy Souza, Forrester). Since then though, Flash developers combining vector animation and video have proven that it's capable of much, much more than "simple web interactivity". We're still just beginning to scratch the surface of the possibilities it opens up to us, but already it looks like Flash MX is becoming the key technology for pushing video creativity on the Web to a new whole level. Understandably, many people look at Flash as just another way to deliver video on the Web, one more program for showing movies on your desktop. Well, it can certainly do that - but there's a whole lot more it can do besides! You can use ActionScript to add custom controls, determine a video playback sequence, or mask your video with a custom shape. You can use layering to create special effects, design custom templates for e-learning applications, and use lightweight video streams along with Flash animation in rich media e-mail campaigns.