1. My first Flash cartoon wasn't really too far off than the satirically bad Jerry Jackson cartoons. It was supposedly a parody of Spider-man based on a guy that ate a radioactive over-microwaved Turkey thus becoming Turkeyman. At the time, I had not known how to remove frames and very little actionscript. Much of it was just still images or really ugly tweens. Its still cute to look back on though.

Posted at 8:32PM on Apr 27th 2006 by Chris

2. I first Flashed back in aught-1 with Flash 5. I was a hardcore Javascripter, so when Macromedia shipped a product with an ECMA- based scripting language, I jumped all over it.

I think the first thing I actually built was a scrolling navigation bar of some kind.

Posted at 10:07PM on Apr 27th 2006 by John

3. some kind of crazy interface as a gallery for the small design company for which I was working.

I remember that once I had worked out masking and tweening, and sold the lead designer on the fact that the filesize didn't increase if you reused assets, and I basically invented my own job from thereon in. I think that this must have been 1997/8.

Having an ECMA based scripting language was also a big help, those months sweating over JavaScript finally paid off.

Posted at 4:35AM on Apr 28th 2006 by bleep

4. My first foray into Flash (v3) was to create buttons to use inside Director 6.5.

I didn't really understand Flash until I stopped using Director. The superficial similarities between IDE's tripped me up bigtime.

I occasionally go back into old Director projects - I try to do it near the end of the week so I can detox my brain over the weekend. Now I know what people meant who dissed Lingo.

Posted at 9:09AM on Apr 28th 2006 by davidMcC

5. My first experience goes waaaay back when I was the webmaster of the old DCN webcam site. We wanted to do something very cool and having a Mac about, we saw this demo of Future Splash by Pacific something-or-other. This is around December 1996-97? We ordered the package and wanted to do some quick animation for a new project - it would involve a skier jumping over some stylized mountains and would announce our new sister site - SnowRide. I remember calling and calling. We ordered it and received it pretty quickly but there was some problem (or my order was late, who really remembers?) and, when calling the company in January I discovered that they were bought by Macromedia. And the animation worked a treat - and my first project was a study in optimization...some things never change.

Posted at 11:05AM on Apr 28th 2006 by Jim In Holland

6. I remmember the first class I took. Flash 4 or 5, I can't remember now. He started Actionscript in the mid morning of the second day. By the time we were suppose to go home, I had to sit in my car for about 10 minutes because I couldn't remember how to get there. I didn't even know which way to turn out of the driveway. I thought my head would explode with information. LOL I'm a fine artist turned photographer, turned graphic artist, turned Adobe instructor, turned web designer. Actionscript was a far stretch for me back then.

Posted at 11:50AM on Apr 28th 2006 by Dee Sadler

7. I remember, when I had an idea to make to itself logotype on a forum of my favourite game Lineage, I have decided to make it Flash. And there has passed my first night without a dream in MX440.

Posted at 12:18PM on Apr 28th 2006 by DieZ

8. Some time in the late 90s, Wired's Webmonkey published an introduction to Flash 3 (http://webmonkey.wired.com/webmonkey/98/25/index1a.html).

I read the article, downloaded the free trial and within 24 hours I'd produced a 60-second cartoon.

Posted at 1:22PM on Apr 28th 2006 by David

9. Hi Mike, I visited your site after seeing the spike in my referrers coming from flashinsider.com :)

Anyway, here's my question, since y'all know I'm a newbie by now: I've got a picture (of a clown, if it matters) and I'd like the picture to "implode" ie. parts of the clown come flying from around to form back the clown out of thin air.

I couldn't find any example of that type of animation around to learn from. Would be much obliged if you pointed me to an example or told me where to start...

Tks!

Posted at 9:05AM on May 6th 2006 by Jean-Francois Arseneault

10. A friend gave me his old copy of Flash 5 for me to try making something for my website last year. Over the past 12 months I have managed to make text move from one part of the stage to another - and I was very proud to make that happen! :)

Still looking for a simple tutorial that an amateur can gently ease into the basics...

I have many years of web experience and programming time way back to the 80's in various languages. But Flash is definitely a whole different world to make the mechanics work. What may be second nature to this audience is definitely foreign to the rest of the world. So keep up the good work and creativity!

Posted at 2:14PM on May 10th 2006 by Todd Henkel

11. In 2003 i made a website in Flash 5. Since that time I always using Flash in web-design.

Posted at 1:50PM on May 29th 2006 by Shadow

12. I'm actually looking for some insight to getting a customer flash video player built. I have video that I play on our site and our stock player isn't cutting it. How do I find a good flash video player programmer???

Posted at 4:40PM on May 31st 2006 by santamonicaco

13. Absolute nightmare! MX2004 - layers, tweening, symbols and more panels than the space shuttle. Flash takes a steep curve to learn, but once your in then your hooked. First successful app was an XML based jokes browser - still use it today.

Cool site, keep up the good work

Posted at 4:28AM on Jun 8th 2006 by Steve

14. My first flash was v4 days. I was motivated to give it a try from seeing Hampster in the Microwave and Pico's School. It was an alien, levitating things around, but then an anvil falls on him. My second flash still sucked, but it was good enough to get into the original Newgrounds portal, *smug*.

Posted at 8:46AM on Jun 12th 2006 by Scott

15. Still looking for a simple tutorial that an amateur can gently ease into the basics!

Neal Saferstein

Posted at 3:13AM on Jun 15th 2006 by Neal Saferstein

16. Still looking for a simple tutorial that an amateur can gently ease into the basics!

Neal Saferstein

Posted at 3:15AM on Jun 15th 2006 by Neal Saferstein