The eLearning Center for Gatlin Education Services

Learn Flash and a creative and self-sufficient approach to developing high-level Flash applications for the Web, CD-ROM, and beyond. You’ll create an online kaleidoscope, a programmatic animation, a working MP3 player interface, an interactive video piece, a site with dynamic text, and more, finishing off your course with a monster project. The focus is on working creatively, thinking about the big picture and the user experience, and integrating high-end technology into your projects with confidence.

LESSON 1 Thinking in Multimedia Multimedia design isn't just about the software and tools that create the content—it's about the big picture and the user experience. In this lesson, you'll learn what it takes to develop a creative product that immerses users in the new "reality" that you have created for them. You'll explore how multimedia pieces address the different human senses and examine strategies to independently to source content for your projects. In the training exercise, you'll create a colorful and interactive kaleidoscope that loads external graphic files.

LESSON 2 New Directions in Animation Flash animation extends a few light years beyond the humble tween. This lesson will take you beyond tweening and into programmatic animationãanimation using ActionScript code. With ActionScript, you'll learn to take more control over your animation and create more realistic effects. You'll also explore case studies of two prominent programmatic animators who are truly inspiring. Get coding in the training exercise to create an abstract and self-generating animation.

LESSON 3 Working with Text and Type On the surface, typography design in Flash appears pretty limited—and it can be such a pain to change text after a project is complete. Lesson Three explores different methods of manipulating type in Flash, with a focus on separating text (content) from type (format). You'll examine some typography fundamentals that will enhance your sites and learn how text can be loaded dynamically from external text files for easy editing later on. In the training exercise, you'll build a Flash Web site that grabs text from external files and formats it using cascading style sheets.

LESSON 4 Sound: The Added Dimension Without audio, a multimedia experience can lack punch. Lesson Four covers a variety of methods for adding sound to your designs and ways to keep it user friendly and aesthetically pleasing. You'll look the function and aesthetics of event sounds, which give users feedback on what they're doing, and background sound/music, which can set a mood for a piece. In the training exercise, you'll learn how to load external audio files and use this to create an MP3 player application.

LESSON 5 Video and Distribution TV, CD-ROM, the Web... there are so many ways to distribute video and present it using Flash. This lesson helps you make sense of all the distribution methods and introduces you to Flash video editing and Flash's new video file format (FLV). You'll also learn how to prepare Flash movies for a CD-ROM that will run on any computer. Then in the training exercise, you'll try your hand at working with video in the Flash environment and using coding to create an interactive user experience.

LESSON 6 Putting It All Together When a new multimedia project rolls around, there's no need to start from scratch. This lesson will explore methods of streamlining your workflow by saving and reusing your code. After a look at organizing your work and at new developments in ActionScript coding, you'll check out some inspirational pieces that will keep those creative juices flowing. Your final training exercise is a Monster Multimedia project that combines all you've learned throughout the course into a rockin' portfolio piece.