Taking the highly accessible instructional format of the popular Visual QuickStart Guides to a more advanced level, this book guides students through all the intricacies and new features of this top-selling Web multimedia application, such as the new user interface, new drawing tools, a powerful new motion tweening model for animation, inverse kinematics, support for true 3D, and the revamped Adobe Media Encoder for encoding videos for Flash. Updated to include the important new features in Flash CS4, this book covers the latest ActionScript standards that make Flash CS4 so powerful, and details the expanded support for rich media. This handy guide combines a visual approach with straightforward, step-by-step instructions and screenshots, concise explanations of animation techniques, and task-based learning.