One of
the most exciting and creative things you can do
with a computer is produce animations, and effects.
We see them in all sorts of situations such as with
CD auto-run menus, web animations
(when
surfing the internet such as banners, web page
intro’s and other
animations),
also some of the games that you may buy and use
often originate from flash production, these are
just a few examples. However the most impressive
animations you will ever see, originate from one
particular application, a program that works with
Mac or Windows, it originated with Macromedia and
now has become the world’s most popular tool, it is
none other than Adobe Flash CS3 Professional. In
this article we will establish why this multi
plat-formed application has many powerful features
and benefits. When I first opened this application
up for the first time it was easy to see that as
with all Adobe products they have a similar
interface (Photoshop and Illustrator for example).
I certainly liked the way the toolbars, dialogue
boxes, and palettes within the workspace have been
designed, giving you the option to expand your work
area if you so desire, and of course customise or
change the look of, if you need too. However as
with the name and with 98% of Adobe products these
are designed for the trained professional as well
as with those with a keen desire to learn, I
certainly would recommend that you take advantage
of the lynda.com and Adobe tutorials to get you on
your feet with a basic understanding of this
application.
Let’s now concentrate on the new feature’s that impressed me in this outstanding application.
New Features
Importing from Photoshop and Illustrator
Both formats in Photoshop and Illustrator share the same new import dialogue, which enables you to choose which layers to import and how they should be imported. Text can remain editable or be converted to vectors or a flat bitmap. You can import each layer or group to a new movie clip and also choose the name of each one. Layers of differing types can also be merged into a single bitmap in Flash.
You can also have control over the compression settings for bitmap layers, which can follow the Flash document's pre-set. The project you are working on in Illustrator can also be quickly copied and pasted into Flash, preserving both simple and complex visual attributes including masks, text layers and blending modes, as well as layering.
Animation Conversion To ActionScript 3.0
One of the easiest ways to create animations in this version is to use the timeline tween animations provision, this is great for visually seeing your results, but the simple conversion process to ActionScript 3.0 is an exceptional feature for the beginner or the professional it is as easy as copy and paste, you can simply select edit - timeline and then click on the option “Copy Motion As ActionScript 3.0” then by pasting this code into the actions panel, the added benefit is that you can quickly pickup how to use the code, and save time in your project. For instance the position, rotation, scale, colour, plus many other useful functions for your imported files. By placing the code there, you insure that it is at your disposal to use again and again within your project should the need arise.
New CS3 Interface
As I have mentioned already that the new GUI is better than ever and unites with all the other applications in the Creative Suite 3 package, it really is a convenient and time saving feature. For instance in the file / browse menu, you can bring up Adobe Bridge CS3 where you can drag your appropriate content for the project. You can also import Fireworks CS3 files directly into Flash CS3, retaining support for multiple pages, shared layer components, library items and improved frames.
New Drawing Tools
If you are a previous user of this application you will doubtlessly realise that there have been added some drawing tools such as the Pen tool, now first thing to mention is that these are reminiscent of the ones found in Adobe Illustrator, and this means ultimate precision. For example you can manipulate Bezier control points, you can easily draw all sorts of shapes with ease, and manipulate the properties from the workspace, which they call the stage. It intelligently assists you in scaling objects, thereby avoiding the distortion of created objects. It also contains the same keyboard shortcuts, cursors, modifier keys as used in Adobe Illustrator.
Sophisticated Video Encoding
One of the features I liked within the dialogue box for video is the fact that you have a fairly good size preview window, with a longer bar to select cue points with precision this means you can select various in and out points to create different scenes, these cue points in turn can then be exported. The crop and resize tool also is another essential feature for enhanced presentation. The provision to export your custom profiles for flash video encoding is also very good when you need to access similar projects and use the same settings again.
As regards to new features, there are many more, but I have just selected the ones that I found interesting.
My Final Comments
There is no doubt about it that if you are a user of this application as part of the Creative Suite then you are really going to see the benefit of how each program compliments each other, this is something to take note of especially if you are using CS2 where you understand the tremendous frustration you have importing Photoshop and Illustrator files into the Flash workspace. The way the interface is logically laid out, thereby allows the stage to be clutter free giving freedom from limitation to the user to manipulate his or her project with the minimum of fuss. Just like Photoshop CS3 we see that even the surrounding toolbars and palettes can be adjusted to be like icons allowing more space for the stage to dominate the graphic user interface.
The sheer power of this application is amazing and some aspects of this can be quickly learned as soon as you master that most of your assets must be converted to “Symbols” and from there you can decide to convert them to “Movie” “Button” or “Graphic” then at that point you insert at selected points keyframes where you can then select these to be “Movie’s” or “Shapes”, in the properties section below the stage under “Tweens”, each asset manipulated can be attributed layers, and these layers can then be renamed and grouped into layer folders for easy identification and access. On the timeline you can then build up a story line to which then you can frequently preview your results to ascertain what is needed to improve the animation, this can be done by simply moving the guide in the timeline to preview your project or select “Control” “Test Movie” where a new tab is presented with your project swf file preview. Of course we have not made a great deal of mention of ActionScript 3.0, that is because this review is geared mainly for newcomers, and really a lot of the animation that a newcomer might use does not require hardly any knowledge at all. However I can see that it would be worthwhile to learn, especially as has already been stated that you can copy and paste motion into the “Actions Panel” this has the added benefit of saving time in adding enhancements to a project worked upon. Interestingly lynda.com has some good tutorials on ActionScript well worth looking at.
But to really make a well presented and eye catching presentation in Flash CS3 requires you to have a good working knowledge of Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator as well for your image content, this brings to mind another fantastic feature of Flash CS3 that of converting a bitmap to a vector image or tracing bitmaps, once you have selected the options presented for this task you can then see the results and this should lead to the point where you can select a portion of an image and edit it. Another feature made available along similar lines is an option called ”Breaking Apart Bitmaps” this is where you can select a specific region of an image and perhaps use this as a texture or colour to fill a shape, by using the shape tool for instance you could draw a rectangle and then using the eyedropper on the part of the image you originally selected, and drop that into the shape drawn. This then leaves you with many other choices for instance selecting alpha in the properties box below the stage and then adjusting the opacity with a view to animating the various levels of transparency connected to the movie object with a view to animating this along the flash timeline. As you will be able to deduce the possibilities are endless, and with these thoughts in mind we can safely come to the conclusion that Adobe show themselves to be master of design and development.
Let’s now concentrate on the new feature’s that impressed me in this outstanding application.
New Features
Importing from Photoshop and Illustrator
Both formats in Photoshop and Illustrator share the same new import dialogue, which enables you to choose which layers to import and how they should be imported. Text can remain editable or be converted to vectors or a flat bitmap. You can import each layer or group to a new movie clip and also choose the name of each one. Layers of differing types can also be merged into a single bitmap in Flash.
You can also have control over the compression settings for bitmap layers, which can follow the Flash document's pre-set. The project you are working on in Illustrator can also be quickly copied and pasted into Flash, preserving both simple and complex visual attributes including masks, text layers and blending modes, as well as layering.
Animation Conversion To ActionScript 3.0
One of the easiest ways to create animations in this version is to use the timeline tween animations provision, this is great for visually seeing your results, but the simple conversion process to ActionScript 3.0 is an exceptional feature for the beginner or the professional it is as easy as copy and paste, you can simply select edit - timeline and then click on the option “Copy Motion As ActionScript 3.0” then by pasting this code into the actions panel, the added benefit is that you can quickly pickup how to use the code, and save time in your project. For instance the position, rotation, scale, colour, plus many other useful functions for your imported files. By placing the code there, you insure that it is at your disposal to use again and again within your project should the need arise.
New CS3 Interface
As I have mentioned already that the new GUI is better than ever and unites with all the other applications in the Creative Suite 3 package, it really is a convenient and time saving feature. For instance in the file / browse menu, you can bring up Adobe Bridge CS3 where you can drag your appropriate content for the project. You can also import Fireworks CS3 files directly into Flash CS3, retaining support for multiple pages, shared layer components, library items and improved frames.
New Drawing Tools
If you are a previous user of this application you will doubtlessly realise that there have been added some drawing tools such as the Pen tool, now first thing to mention is that these are reminiscent of the ones found in Adobe Illustrator, and this means ultimate precision. For example you can manipulate Bezier control points, you can easily draw all sorts of shapes with ease, and manipulate the properties from the workspace, which they call the stage. It intelligently assists you in scaling objects, thereby avoiding the distortion of created objects. It also contains the same keyboard shortcuts, cursors, modifier keys as used in Adobe Illustrator.
Sophisticated Video Encoding
One of the features I liked within the dialogue box for video is the fact that you have a fairly good size preview window, with a longer bar to select cue points with precision this means you can select various in and out points to create different scenes, these cue points in turn can then be exported. The crop and resize tool also is another essential feature for enhanced presentation. The provision to export your custom profiles for flash video encoding is also very good when you need to access similar projects and use the same settings again.
As regards to new features, there are many more, but I have just selected the ones that I found interesting.
My Final Comments
There is no doubt about it that if you are a user of this application as part of the Creative Suite then you are really going to see the benefit of how each program compliments each other, this is something to take note of especially if you are using CS2 where you understand the tremendous frustration you have importing Photoshop and Illustrator files into the Flash workspace. The way the interface is logically laid out, thereby allows the stage to be clutter free giving freedom from limitation to the user to manipulate his or her project with the minimum of fuss. Just like Photoshop CS3 we see that even the surrounding toolbars and palettes can be adjusted to be like icons allowing more space for the stage to dominate the graphic user interface.
The sheer power of this application is amazing and some aspects of this can be quickly learned as soon as you master that most of your assets must be converted to “Symbols” and from there you can decide to convert them to “Movie” “Button” or “Graphic” then at that point you insert at selected points keyframes where you can then select these to be “Movie’s” or “Shapes”, in the properties section below the stage under “Tweens”, each asset manipulated can be attributed layers, and these layers can then be renamed and grouped into layer folders for easy identification and access. On the timeline you can then build up a story line to which then you can frequently preview your results to ascertain what is needed to improve the animation, this can be done by simply moving the guide in the timeline to preview your project or select “Control” “Test Movie” where a new tab is presented with your project swf file preview. Of course we have not made a great deal of mention of ActionScript 3.0, that is because this review is geared mainly for newcomers, and really a lot of the animation that a newcomer might use does not require hardly any knowledge at all. However I can see that it would be worthwhile to learn, especially as has already been stated that you can copy and paste motion into the “Actions Panel” this has the added benefit of saving time in adding enhancements to a project worked upon. Interestingly lynda.com has some good tutorials on ActionScript well worth looking at.
But to really make a well presented and eye catching presentation in Flash CS3 requires you to have a good working knowledge of Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator as well for your image content, this brings to mind another fantastic feature of Flash CS3 that of converting a bitmap to a vector image or tracing bitmaps, once you have selected the options presented for this task you can then see the results and this should lead to the point where you can select a portion of an image and edit it. Another feature made available along similar lines is an option called ”Breaking Apart Bitmaps” this is where you can select a specific region of an image and perhaps use this as a texture or colour to fill a shape, by using the shape tool for instance you could draw a rectangle and then using the eyedropper on the part of the image you originally selected, and drop that into the shape drawn. This then leaves you with many other choices for instance selecting alpha in the properties box below the stage and then adjusting the opacity with a view to animating the various levels of transparency connected to the movie object with a view to animating this along the flash timeline. As you will be able to deduce the possibilities are endless, and with these thoughts in mind we can safely come to the conclusion that Adobe show themselves to be master of design and development.
Adobe Flash CS3 Software Review