New Features
There are some amazing new features that are now available in Flash CS4 that perfectly justify the incremental progression in the CS line. First up, is the new “Motion Tween.” Now, let me begin by making it clear that the old motion tween has not disappeared, has been relegated to the new moniker of “Classic Tween.” The workflow for the old motion tween is still the same, just a name change. Now, the new motion tween is a completely different—yet easily accessible—means to animating your symbols on the stage. Once you’ve created your symbol and positioned it, you pick a rough estimation of how much time you’ll need to make your animation, and assign a motion tween to the timeline. Now instead of creating a keyframe for each position you want your symbol to be in, you just slide the playhead to a desired point, move your symbol on the stage, and it makes a keyframe for you. A new transformable path is created, reminiscent of the motion guide, and you can adjust the points and curves of your symbol over the length of time. All together, the workflow is simple and the overall animation is very smooth. This new way of approaching tweens is both welcome and fun to employ.
Another fun feature completely new to Flash CS4 are 3D Transformations. If you ever tried to achieve an effect of a 2D object flipping in 3D space, you’ve probably had to use techniques that rendered less than desirable results or employ some heavy ActionScripting that are not easy for the beginner to attempt. Now with the 3D Rotation Tool and 3D Transformation Tool, you can move and flip your symbol on the x,y, and z-axis with ease. The effect is very clean and easy to modify within the Motion Editor—a tool that I will be talking about further down the line.
The most surprising addition to Flash CS4 is the availability of inverse kinetics. For those of you who are not familiar with the term, inverse kinetics is a method of animation within a 3D or 2D animation program that allows you to move a part of a character, usually using the furthest outstretched part of the appendage. For example, you could animate an arm by grabbing the hand or wrist and moving it to a new position, which the rest of the arm would naturally align itself too. This same operation can now be done within Flash to any of the shapes you create, simply by using the Bones tool to append a bone structure within the object. (Think of the bone structure as skeleton for animated characters that can be limited in its movements, so that animation is quicker and more easily realistic than ever before.) This new feature will give a lot of control to anyone trying to do more character-driven animations using Flash. (And, you can even use the tool to create fun interactive games by allowing the bone structure to be manipulated by users who come to your site!)
On the video side of things, Flash CS4 still contains the necessary export options as well as a few cool features you can apply to your video. Things like embedded cue points and importing MP3’s are still here as before, and through ActionScript, you can extend these capabilities to mix your graphics and videos in interesting ways. Alpha channels are now supported so that videos of different transparencies can be seen together at runtime. Finally, as far as video codecs go, Flash Player, On2 VP6, On2 VP6-S, and H.264 are all supported video encoders when it comes time for export. Throw in the fact that you can set this all within a skinnable video player of your design, and now everyone can display their creations with their own personal touch.
Here is an example of changing a rectangle into more limber object with the use of the Bone Tool and inverse kinematics.
Depth of Options
For a while now, Flash has been steadily adding options to alter your symbols or keyframes in your animation. When choosing a symbol instance, you still have the ability to change the tint, opacity, etc. within the Property inspector. To add to that, you can even modify the blending mode of the symbol as you would a layer in Photoshop. Although not as many as Photoshop’s blending modes, favorites like multiply, screen, overlay and a few others are more than enough for people to try some interesting new visual combinations.
Besides blending modes, you can also change your transformation settings, be it 2D or 3D, right from the same Property inspector. If you want to add3D Transformations or Rotations to an animation, they are are only possible when using the new motion tweens. Upon designating this type of tween, the option becomes available. All of these changes can be made from choosing the tool in the tool bar, but, if you really want to be exact, you have the option of entering all of the values in numerically.
Speaking of better control over your animation, the easing in and out controls for you animation have been expanded here as well. Previously, you had only the option of changing the ease control by entering in a number from -100 to 100 and checking the results, or creating a custom ease using a graph. And if you feel comfortable starting out that way, you still can.
One huge addition that has been brought to Adobe Flash CS4 is the Motion Editor, a special timeline for the new motion tween that has its origins from Adobe After Effects. Even though you can still animate and modify your symbol on the stage using tools and/or the Property inspector, the Motion Editor adds so much more control over your timing, and offers you the ability to add preset eases or create your own custom ones. After you’ve begun to work on your motion tween, you can open the motion editor from the window menu or tab to it if available to modify your symbols 2D and 3D transforms, Scale, Color Effects, Filters, and Eases, which can all be tweaked with the use of their individual graphs and property keyframes. The same changes are reflected on the graph if you choose to make changes to the symbol instance on the Stage or through the Property inspector as well. By utilizing a proven system that has already been in use in After Effects, Adobe has extended the flexibility and power of Flash.
