The term “Flash animation” has changed radically over the last seven years. Back in 2000, many professional animators turned up their noses at Flash, considering it to be worthy only of poorly-drawn internet animation about hamsters and poop. But blaming Flash for bad ani- tion is like blaming 35mm film for a bad movie, and slowly but surely, professional animators began to warm to Flash as a serious tool capable of some amazing things. Today, Flash is becoming the tool of choice for animators, studios, and networks alike, and you’d be hard-pressed to flip through the TV channels or surf the Internet and not see an example of this within a very short time. The authors of this book have been working with Flash for quite some time, so when the opportunity to write a book about Flash animation presented itself, we jumped at the chance. This is not a book that is trying to sell you a software program. This is a book by a group of people who are passionate about 2-D animation. We try to speak frankly about what Flash is good at and what is best left for other programs (such as Photoshop and After Effects). But mostly, this book is about the how of Flash animation. Having worked on literally hundreds of Flash animation productions, we distill our collective experience into a manual that we hope will be constructive, informative, and fun.
