12 Websites To Help You Learn Flash/ActionScript

Adobe Flash is an excellent technology that allows developers to add interactivity and smooth animations to web pages. Its popularity is so immense that you’ll find many websites dedicated to helping developers interested in Flash. In this article, you’ll find 12 wonderful websites that’s worth a bookmark if you’re looking into sharpening your Flash development skills. For each entry, you’ll find three tutorials from the website so that you can see what’s in store for you.

1. kirupa.com

kirupa.com is a site that features excellent Flash tutorials (as well as Silverlight, ASP.net, PHP, and Photoshop). There are plenty of well-written, detailed tutorials and articles pertaining to Flash sectioned into seven categories including Basic Drawing, Special Effects, Server-side Flash, and Game Development.

Tutorial examples:

• Simple Page Transitions
• Creating and Animating Clouds
• Falling Text

2. gotoandlearn.com

Some people learn best by visualization and following along with the instructor step-by-step in real-time. If you’re the type that prefers to learn by watching instructional videos, check out gotoandlearn.com – a website by Lee Brimelow that offers free Flash video tutorials.

Tutorial examples:

• ActionScript 3 Sound Basics
• Creating 3D Carousels
• Creating Flash Tooltips

3. gotoAndPlay()

gotoAndPlay() is dedicated to providing resources for Flash game developers. It’s a community that has a forum, interviews from professional developers, and reviews of books and resources. It also has tutorials and articles about Flash game development that can be filtered by topic, expertise, and type.

Tutorial examples:

• Developing a space shooter game
• Skeletal Animations
• How to protect SWFs from decompilers?

4. Adobe – Flash Developer Center

Adobe’s Flash Developer Center is a community for Flash developers. Here, you’ll find tutorials, articles, and related resources about Flash. You should also check out the ActionScript Technology Center for articles on specifically about ActionScript.

Tutorial examples:

• Using ActionScript to pause and loop the timeline in Flash
• Drawing with the Pen tool
• Creating a 3D button animation for Flash

5. Flash Kit

Flash Kit is one of the biggest and oldest community dedicated to Flash development. With over 600,000 members, you won’t have a hard time finding people with a similar interest in Flash. There’s a forums section, free resources that you can download and use in your Flash projects, and a large tutorials section that includes 18 categories.

Tutorial examples:

• Making movieclips point at the mouse
• Move a sprite with the keyboard
• How to use hitTest in a simple game

6. ActionScript.org

ActionScript.org is a site that provides resources and information pertaining to Flash, Flex, and ActionScript. They have a fairly active Forums section as well as an ActionScript Library that currently has over 700 objects you can download.

Tutorial examples:

• Drawing Shapes with AS3
• Simple reflection effect with AS2
• Physics in ActionScript 3.0

7. Flash and Math ActionScript 3 Tutorials

Flash and Math has a great collection of tutorials on AS3. They cover basic to advanced topics so that Flash developers of any level can find something they can read and learn from. Many of the tutorials include the source files for download.

Tutorial examples:

• Drag-and-Drop in Flash CS3
• Tween Tricks in Flash CS3 and ActionScript 3
• Simple 3D Drawing in Flash CS3 and ActionScript 3

8. Flash Tutorials on Pixel2Life

Pixel2Life, according to the site, is the “largest tutorial index catering to graphic designers, webmasters and programmers”. With over 40,000 indexed tutorials, you’ll find many links to tutorials in their Flash Tutorials section.

Indexed tutorial examples:

• Creating a Basic Flash Website (AS3 Version)
• Actionscript 3 Timer Class
• Stars animation above the city

9. Flash Perfection

Flash Perfection is a website with a large collection of Flash tutorials, tips, and tricks from various websites. Flash Perfection has 23 categories to help you find information more quickly.

Indexed tutorial examples:

• Atmospheric Steam
• Optimizing your Flash SWFs
• Quick and Easy Zoom Effect in Flash

10. metah.ch

metah.ch has some awesome video tutorials on Flash, ActionScript, Flex, and AIR. Files associated with the tutorials can be downloaded and used in your own projects.

Tutorial examples:

• Introduction to Loop and Event in AS3
• Connecting AS3 with a Database
• Interaction between AS3 and JavaScript

11. LukaMaras.com

LukaMaras.com offers detailed Flash tutorials and resources designed to help you learn Flash. There’s also a small forums section with over 3,000 registered users where you can discuss anything related to Flash.

Tutorial examples:

1. ActionScript drop-down menus
2. How to make pixel buttons in Flash the easy way.
3. How to make an amazing dynamic image gallery in Flash 8

12. Flashmagazine

Flashmagazine is an online magazine dedicated to Flash news, reviews, information, and resources. The Tutorials section has some excellent tutorials for Flash developers.

Tutorial examples:

• How to make a custom AS3 preloader
• AS3 Photo gallery
• Rollover effect using masks

I hope you found this article useful! Since there’s so many websites out there dedicated to Flash development, I can’t include them all, so if you didn’t see your favorite – please share it with all of us in the comments.