Syllabus
Multimedia 279 Flash ActionScripting
Wednesday – 6:00 PM – 9:50 PM
-Lecture will start @6:30 PM
Instructor – Cody Tolmasoff
http://csm.flashclass.org
e-mail – csm@[no-Spam]flashclass.org
(please do not send me your assignments)
Book: Learning ActionScript 3.0 by Rich Shupe & Zevan Rosser
- Jan 20 – Chapter 1 – ActionScript Overview
- Jan 27 – Chapter 2 – Core Language Fundamentals
- Feb 03 – Chapter 3 – Properties, Methods, and Events
- Feb 10 – Chapter 4 – The Display List
- Feb 17 – Lecture/Demo – Buttons & Advanced Buttons
- Feb 24 – Chapter 5 – Timeline Control
- Mar 03 – Chapter 10 – Text
- Mar 10 – >>> NO CLASS < <<
- Mar 17 – Chapter 7 – Motion
- Mar 24 – Lecture/Demo – Motion
- Mar 31 – Chapter 8 – Drawing with Vectors
- Apr 07 – >>> NO CLASS < <<
- Apr 14 – Chapter 9 – Drawing with Pixels
- Apr 21 – Chapter 11 – Sound
- Apr 28 – Chapter 12 – Video
- May 05 – Chapter 13 – Loading Assets
- May 12 – Lecture/Demo – Chapter 14 – XML & E4X, working with external data
- May 19 – Demo – Workflow: Flex, Flash Catalyst, Flash Builder, & Illustrator/Photoshop
- May 26 – Final Project Presentations
ActionScript is the language that drives Flash. ActionScript gives our Flash projects dynamic flexibility to offer a unique user experience for each user. ActionScript and Flash are also the driving force behind many of the RIA’s (Rich Internet Applications) that you use every day on the web. Flash projects can run from a simple animation to an application like Google Maps Street View. Flash is also a significant driving factor in video on the web (i.e. YouTube, Vimeo, Viddler, Seesmic, and Qik’s video players are all Flash based).
In this class you will learn the beginnings of programming in ActionScript. You will also learn production techniques to bring your Flash skills to a viable level in order to work in a professional team environment with Flash. ActionScript has gone through four major iterations (.5, 1, 2, and 3). The current version of ActionScript is referred to as ActionScript 3. We will try and focus most of our attention here, however we might also chat a little about ActionScript 1 & 2 if the occasion is right. Really the goal of this class is to get you familiar with some basic programming techniques so that you can start to experiment on your own, and investigate what you can apply ActionScript to do. ActionScript is a fairly extensive programming language today, and its not possible to cover everything it can do in a single semester. But once you have a few programming techniques under your belt (don’t worry about that now, I assure you that if you want to learn these things and spend a little time working with them, you will understand) and get a good general overview of what Flash and ActionScript can do, you will be able to go out and apply the tecniques you learn here to learn and apply new techniques.
In this 16 week class, each class will start with a lecture which will be followed by a lab. Some lectures run longer than others. I will be recording screencast’s of the lectures and posting them to the class website in case you miss a class or need to go back and review something. This however does not replace coming to class and attending the lab session. Its really important not to fall behind in class, to attend the lab sessions and practice what you learn in class.
I’m requiring a book for class: Learning ActionScript 3.0 by Rich Shupe & Zevan Rosser. I would strongly urge you to pick up a copy of this book to get a better background of what we will cover in lectures. Of course there are many books written on Flash, and many blogs covering Flash Development which we will touch upon later this semester.
Grading:
I grade 70% of your grade on the Labs we do during the semester, and 30% on your final project for this course. All Lab work must be shown to me IN CLASS by the time you show me your final project. I try and be flexible about this, so please don’t wait till the last minute to turn in all of your projects. Not only does that make excessive work for me, but I guarantee you that you will forget these skills quickly if you don’t practice them soon after you learn them. DO NOT E-MAIL YOUR ASSIGNMENTS TO ME, I will not open them.
Attendance:
Technically attendance is an important thing to the school, and therefore I have to record it. Its important to me as well, since if you are not here I will have to explain whatever you miss to you again at some point (and probably with a lot less detail). It is to your benefit to be here. Although I do have the power to drop you from class if you are excessively absent, that requires paperwork and a visit to administration, neither of which I plan on doing. So if you find that you need to drop the class for any reason, please don’t expect me to take care of it for you. And please don’t be late, I would appreciate it.
