This book is a compilation of advanced ActionScript 3.0 animation techniques for any user creating games, user interaction, or motion control with ActionScript. It's a compilation of topics that follow on from the author's earlier book, Foundation ActionScript 3.0 Animation: Making Things Move, and things that became possible in the most recent version of Flash: Flash Player 10. This book covers a diverse selection of topics that don't necessarily lead one into the other. You don't need to start with Chapter 1 and read it cover to cover. Just start with any chapter that looks interesting and jump around as you see fit. In this book, you'll find chapters on advanced collision detection, artificial intelligence and steering behaviors, isometric projection, using the camera and microphone for input, 3D, and much, much more.

The book is also more experimental in nature. The techniques shown here might not be the best way to do things, but they should work well and get you started in your own efforts to achieve a perfect implementation. In fact, many of the chapters can be seen as introductions to very complex topics that could fill a whole book by themselves. Many of these subjects have been extensively covered elsewhere, but not necessarily targeted for Flash or ActionScript 3.0. So it took a fair amount of work to pull the data together and get it all working and explain it all clearly in ActionScript. This book will inspire you to find out about subjects that you might not have considered before, acting as a springboard into your own research into the possibilities of ActionScript 3.0.

In this book, you'll learn how to:

Leverage Flash 10 3D, the new drawing API commands, and Pixel Bender

Create isometric worlds for games

Construct powerful artificial intelligence routines including pathfinding, steering, and flocking behaviors

Use numerical integration for real world physics effects

Build advanced collision detection routines for more accurate simulations