Over a short period of time, the web has been going through many shifts and changes. New languages, new standards, and new software to help us in our endeavors to make our personal voice heard are evolving. And with that desire to express ourselves in the most vivid of ways, most web developers turn to Flash to reach outside the restrictive structures of tables and CSS div blocks in order to give the viewer an unconventional, but hopefully satisfying, experience. This goal can only be achieved if the tool being used is approachable in its look, succinct in its common operations, and reliable in its output. Flash has remained largely that; which is why I believe that it has gone largely unrivaled in the web interactivity arena. Thankfully, since its inception and integration into the Adobe family, Flash has been greatly improved with the added bonus of playing well with the other major web development tools.
For the microfilmmaker, putting out your finished work in the best way possible for the world to see is of utmost importance. With Flash, you can create an entire webpage with the sole purpose of complimenting your film and magnifying its message. From the film quality to the appropriately themed user interface, Flash’s powerful toolset and options have everything you need to make your feature stand out and hold the attention of its viewers. Whether you need to make a basic animated button or create elaborate scripted events for an interactive experience, this animation program is set-up for the timid beginner as well as the most hardcore of web developers. With a little time and effort, you’ll have your film, trailer, or behind-the-scenes footage up and going for the web world to see.
Adobe FlashCS3 Professional offers all the features of the previous versions with a powerful assortment of additions to make it worth the upgrade. Off the bat, the layout has stayed consistent with its predecessors so that former Flash users will feel right at home, while, at the same time, sporting the new CS3 theme so as to fit in as the newest sibling to the Adobe family. And with this ingrafting comes the new command from the Adobe patriarch that all its’ children have to share amongst themselves; a law that many of us welcome with open arms. No more switching to a different program just to reopen a file make the changes, save out, reimport, replace, and retransform. That’s exhausting just to read about. Throw in an upgraded Actionscript, now 3.0 for all you object-oriented programmers, and better customizable components for building and exporting your new Flash movie, and right about now you should have half of the adobe URL address typed in and your credit card handy. But before you start the download, let’s go over the various features in more detail so you know where to go and focus on your particular goals.
Ease of Use FlashCS3’s workspace and layout remains pretty straightforward, especially for those with any experience using vector-based graphic applications. For those that are unfamiliar with the standard arrangement, or have never opened Flash in your life, be assured, it’s fairly simple. On first opening the application, starting from the left side, you have toolbar for easy access to your most common tools that you’ll use to create and modify your objects. In the middle of the screen, at the top, you have your timeline where you can organize your numerous objects on different layers to be animated over a range of time. All these changes can be seen below in the white block of space referred to as the Stage. Just hanging below the stage is your Properties panel which displays preferences and modification options to any individually selected item. Finally, on the right side, you have a diverse number of panels to assist you on specific operations, such as modifying the colors, aligning and transforming various items on the stage, or the library, to store your “symbol-converted” objects. Concise and to the point, everything you need to get you animating is right there in the basic layout of FlashCS3.
Without evolving into a tutorial for the fundamentals of Flash animation, I believe a small description of what Flash can do and its more simple operations will help understand the possibilities. To start, keep in mind that almost any object on the Stage and Timeline-specific elements can be accessed through contextual menus that display a wide array of functions. This is very time-saving when building your projects. For Illustrator folks that want to draw in Flash, you’ll be pleased to know that this is a vector-based program, quite similar to Illustrator. And like Illustrator,Flash shares a common vector-rendering engine for greater compatibility. This is awesome because now you can take artwork fashioned in Illustrator and place it in Flash with a solid consistency of attributes. No more quadrupled curve points that you have to fight with when you’re animating. Speaking of animating, for those of you that have never animated in Flash, it’s really simple. Draw your shape in the first keyframe, create a new keyframe further down the Timeline (which happens to copy the previous keyframe’s information), tell it to shape tween in the Properties Inspector, and viola, animation!
