Seb Lee-Delisle

Whenever anyone asks me to recommend a good book to learn ActionScript 3, I always tell them to run on over and buy a fresh copy of Keith Peters’ Making Things Move. In fact I was quite gutted when the first AS2 version came out; I’d spent the previous 2 years working out how to do most of that stuff for myself from scratch. If only it had come out earlier I would have saved all that effort!

So I was delighted when those charming chaps at FriendsOfEd asked me to be the Technical Reviewer for the latest version of the book!

Not only do I get to see the book before anyone else, I also get paid for it! Oh and I do have to actually suggest some stuff every now and again.

I must say it’s looking pretty damn good so far… of course I can’t reveal the exact content of the book, but you can read all about it here, and even pre-order it here!

And here’s Keith’s take on it. Oh and some bullet points, just to get you excited :

• ActionScript for Flash Player 10 3D and Inverse Kinematics
• New drawing API commands and PixelBender
• Isometric world creation
• Artificial intelligence including pathfinding and steering/flocking behaviors
• Numerical integration for real world physics
• Advanced collision detection

And if that doesn’t get you excited, I don’t know what will! (And yes, maybe I should get out more…) It’s due out 1st December.

Part two of my particle tutorial in Computer Arts is featured in issue 152, August 2008.

Using the skeletons on the Plug-in Media website as an example, I take you through how to blow things up in Flash!

Source files are included on the CD – let me know how you get along and show me what you’re blowing up!

[UPDATE] You can now find this tutorial free online here.