A look at Flash 8 Filters

[ivanthem]

In the Macromedia Edge Newsletter (http://http://www.macromedia.com/newsletters/edge/august2005/?trackingid=BXPW) posted out today, there was a link to a Flash 8 website: http://www.rodwerks.com/ a 3 page site using some Flash 8 filters and features, as well as Flash 8 detection (displaying all in one page). I wrote up a short post looking at how Flash 7 displays it and how the effects look when zoomed in on-
http://i2.net.nz/news/2005/08/20/flash-player-8-in-action/

Question: if, through Flash 8 you add a drop shadow, if you zoom in will it lose quality and appear as if zooming in on an imported PNG or transparent image?

[>flashl!ght<]

Erm, I don't get it? Is it a surprise that it won't display right in a previous player? The day F8 is released does not mean we can all go crazy with the FP8 (which will take some serious restraint!) we will have to wait for saturation as usual, call our shots for what's worth using the new features and what's not.

PS - I always disable zooming!

[ivanthem]

The only reason I'm referring to zooming is for variable width SWFs that are set to scale all objects. With Flash 8 effects, will the quality be preserved when the Player is maximised for a SWF that doesn't automatically keep the elements at the same size.

As for the backward compatibility, ofcourse I wasn't expecting prefection, but it is kinda strange why some seemingly simple shapes (that could've been created in Flash 2- e.g. the head) don't appear at all.

Onto saturation- you can expect that most 70 year olds won't upgrade to Flash Player 8 anytime soon. Nor will they visit a posh designer website with frilly Flash 8 specific effects. Is it wrong to ask a user to download a small update that will serve them for the next 2 years?