Rating: 
Summary: Well, I thought...
Review: I thought it would be a great conversation piece under my glass coffee table. It turned out to be this rather unusual bridge between two worlds. Never having seen one of these before, colors intensely blinding. I ended up reading ones life through this very book. Not much back in my day, but believe me, it is a keeper.
Rating: 
Summary: Not Good Tutorial
Review: I thought this book was going to be execellent cuase it is written by many famous porgrammer. But the book teaches you old tricks that that alot of Flasher know, and it done in Flash 4 we have Flash 5!
Rating: 
Summary: Brilliant
Review: I waited for 3 weeks before recieving my copy of Masters of flash and I must say this is excellent. In fact its brilliant. The content is CLEARLY written the step by step tutorials are never confusing and the authors show you techniques you would have never thought of on your own. They also provide a little bit on how they think and what they do before undertaking a project. Worth the money. All i can say is that if you are a flash junkie buy it NOW!
Rating: 
Summary: not a well-design book; not helpful
Review: I waited several weeks for my copy of New Masters of Flash and I am extremely disappointed. It is cheaply produced, clumsily written, and perhaps worst of all, the designers of the book have chosen not to show full screens of the timeline and menus but rather -- horribly -- display only tidbits of menus inside of weird polygon shapes. You can't read the menu names, see an entire process, or gain any meaningful insight into how an effect was built. The text was written by designers, not writers, so it is extremely subjective and lengthy and quite unclear. A total disappointment.
Rating:
Summary: Nothing to write Mom about...
Review: I was not impressed. Better tutorials and designs are available online to the curious surfer. The CD-ROM felt a bit ackward to use and offers little help. Keep this book on your coffe table... to show your friends you're doing 'the Flash thing'. Not worth the hefty price, really.
Rating:
Summary: This is an excellent publication
Review: I was very impressed with "New Masters Of Flash". I agree that this book is not a tutorial for beginners. This book is for those of us who have the talent and the drive to take flash to a whole other level. This book is both informative and inspirational. It allowed me to get a taste of what some SERIOUSLY talented flash artists' design concepts, visual inspirations, and flash website development ideas. If you have been working with flash quite a bit and you are looking for a way to discover new horizons in flash design and development and you are looking to explore the minds of the REAL flash pros, this book is DEFINITELY for you and I reccomend it with 5 stars. I hope to see future publications soon from any of the authors who contributed to this book. Thanks.
Rating:
Summary: I agree, its a disappointment
Review: I've read a lot of Flash books lately, and saw some buzz on this one and was really disappointed. I was pretty excited about getting this book and then was let down after reading it. It's like the authors or publishers - I am not sure which - saw the book on Flash Web Design by Curtis Hillman and said, "Hey, let's copy this one." I'd recommend steering clear of this one. There are better books on the market.
Rating:
Summary: Well, some if it's good...
Review: If this book had cost $20 less it would have been quite worth it. It certainly isn't for beginners, you'll have to fill in the spaces with knowledge gained somewhere else. But it is inspirational and there are a few good tutorials. I enjoyed Yasuto Suga's section the most, not so much for his tutorial on designing a lightray effect but because his work is so visually stunning. I think all of the step-by-step tutorials should have included more information. I think we would have done better off with more emphasis on the how-to's and not so much on how the artist were inspired. We're all inspired or we wouldn't want to be learning Flash! Overall it's a fun book and I enjoyed reading it, just not paying so much for it!
Rating:
Summary: Simply an incredible collection of strong design philosophy
Review: If you are looking for a strict how-to Flash 5 Techniques/Actionscript book, then turn back. This book offers more to the seasoned designer than to geek-heads or weekend designers looking to scramble up some new effects and action scripting techniques for their latest project. What's more, this book is the first to concentrate on design principals and philosophies and allows each author to express where they drew their influences from, how their sites have evolved, and what lead them to make the design decisions that ultimately put them on the map. Furthermore, this is all in conjunction with the step-by-step how-to. So often, people (lazy designers) are looking for an easy source to duplicate what they see rather than using these resources to deepen their creative forces and ultimately create something of their own.I started reading the "New Masters of Flash" over the weekend. Yes, I'll agree it looks thick and the pages are filled with large screen shots, but by no means does this hinder the books ability to convey its rich source of information in any way. It's simply an incredible collection of strong design philosophy and mainstream techniques. I will agree that the step-by-step writing could have been better implemented. However, what I like so much about the book is that each author describes his/her own design philosophies and creative reasoning in detail, as well as showing work by other more credible artist and designers from the past who have inspired their ideas. The authors describe these influences and how they draw their ideas, elements and philosophies into their final Flash projects. Anyone can publish a techniques manual for Flash that you can duplicate the step-by-step instructions to create a variety of visual effects. But, New Masters of Flash offers a great deal more. It offers you a chance to be inspired by what has inspired the authors of this book. This book will help you make more productive design and creative decisions. This book truly opens your mind up for new and exciting creative ideas with Flash. Giving you a plethora of information and techniques to go off on your own with, rather than just, simply copying techniques verbatim. This book is a true joy for those looking to deepen their creative pool and advance themselves to a new level of artistry. As far as the any missing tutorials on the CD-ROM go. You can visit various web sites listed in the book to download them. Some sites even offer bulk downloading for those of you with a broadband connection.
Rating:
Summary: All I can say is "WOW!"
Review: If you're a Flash junky... this book is for you. It's chock-full of inspiration and stunning examples of what Flash can do. It covers versions 4 & 5. A great book!!!
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