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Hey flash kit members,
Is it just myself, or can you see adobe taking over macromedia a huge disaster? After watching the overview for the new flash 8 the only new changes made are for design and video elements. What about enhancements for the animaters and developer’s, these people are the core behind the whole flash existence? Livemotion was a good example of adobe’s animation and development potential for the web. What a heap of ****!!!.
You won’t see me buying the upgrade.
D.
the last version had major developments in it for programmers/developers. I guess animators will have to wait their turn until the next version
It's just you. Adobe isn't stupid. They're not gutting the product teams.
If you watched the feature tour you'd see some decent features for animators, like ink modes, effects and tween curves. Not to mention alpha support in video.
MX2K4 was the big release for developers with AS2.0 dropping.
Mabie i should scrap up on my livemotion skills before moving from MX2004 PRO to flash 8 or later. Adobe will butcher a good piece of software just give it time.
Check out the News Forum for more details on this release.
/delurk
I'm curious as to what features you would like to see for animators. There are a bunch of features packed into the IDE this release that I could see animators taking advantage of.
That goes the same for developers. Have you fully explored the capabilities of AS2 and integration with server-side tech &c? The performance improvements coupled with cacheAsBitmap alone are enough to get this developer to upgrade.
an obvious troll.
I can't wait for Flash file up- and downloads. Then finally you can develop full featured applications in the browser.
Oh please, stop trolling.Quote:
Originally Posted by flash_joker
Quite ironic that these new improvements to Flash were things people wanted before Flash 5 came out. Everyone wanted aspects of Photoshop combined with Flash to take much of the hard work out of it.
I think those people are happy now, but people like me that wish it would focus on being an authoring environment where graphic elements are imported are a little worried that it's becoming bloated.
The thing that I always remember from those wish threads are the endless requests for flash to come with a 3d engine....
Haven't seen that name in aaaaaages!Quote:
Originally Posted by gSOLO_01
From what I've seen I'm extremely impressed with this new flash version. All of the new bitmap rendering aspects are amazing, some of the movies I've seen could easily be confused for director movies.
ie:
http://www.rgblaster.de/ff/f8toys3.html
http://bellat.pair.com/maximov2/f8/blur01.swf
http://www.margaris.de/flash8/bitmap/bitmapcache.html
For more droolworthy viewing try this list:
http://www.franto.com/blog2/collecte...strom-examples
I can definitely see animators making great use of this type of stuff. Game developers should be freaking with the new bitmap capabilities. I know some of the built in filters have potential to be overused and cheesy, but I can definitely see them being put to some interesting uses.
Video integration is a lot more indepth, and looks like they're also giving you more control over text rendering and appearance. Text is looking far less blurry.
Best of all, they've gone back to the old style of 'undo' in the authoring environment which they screwed up in MX2004.:)
Definitely one of their more impressive releases.
Have patience young child. Dont be so hasty to make assumptions about something you oviously dont know alot about. There are alot of things for developers and animators in this release. Namely:
Animators:
Custom Easing
Filters
Blend Modes
Object Drawing Model
Developers:
Script Assist
BitmapData API
Bitmap Caching + opaqueBackground + scrollRect
flash.geom.* API's
Movieclip transformations (mc.transform)
File Upload/Download
and lots lots more....
Wow, whats with this bitmap rendering? I've got no idea how to do graphics like that. Cant wait till #8.Quote:
Originally Posted by stevietat
here is an email i got with great screens
Flash 8 Screenshots
http://www.flashmagazine.com/1132.htm
Flash 8 Review
http://www.flashmagazine.com/1131.htm
Flash 8 revealed
http://www.flashmagazine.com/1130.htm
Preorder your copy of Flash 8 today
http://www.flashmagazine.com/1129.htm
NeoSwiff shaping up
http://www.flashmagazine.com/1126.htm
SUSHI Multiuser Server Version 2.2 released http://www.flashmagazine.com/1125.htm
Flash Player 8 Public Beta
http://www.flashmagazine.com/1123.htm
Flash Forward Film Festival Winners
http://www.flashmagazine.com/1122.htm
The page is not working now for some reason, but check it later.
niceQuote:
With the new upload functions, the Browse-dialogue can be triggered directly from Flash using the simple command "browse();" That's it. Only two windows for novice users to relate to. There's plenty of events to listen for such as "onProgress" that will allow you to make progress bars and "onHTTPError", "onIOError" and "onSecurityError" to allow for error handling.
*drools*
I just want better stability, a Library palette that remembers it's position automatically - I don't wanna hear that whole layout, do this, do that... blah blah yackity smackity... do it automatic, dammit.
The other features... I'm a PS fanatic, so those are all pluses for me. But I just want it to work better than MX 2004 did.
Quote:
Originally Posted by gerbick
Great links guys.Quote:
you can pin the current library so that it stays on screen
Thanks.
Funny, they made a big deal out of that in the podcast.Quote:
Originally Posted by gerbick
now only if they'd give me a f'n discount.
I hear there's an alarm that goes off in their offices when the word 'discount' is uttered. The only time I've seen jack from them or Adobe, aside from educational pricing, is "Save 600 bucks on studio when you spend $4k+ on a new PowerMac."
I am animator and I am not impressed.
care to explain why, phacker? I'm actually wondering what people are taking from this version... I'm just too skeptical to listen to the hype-mongers and MM boot lickers to listen to anything other than some raw, unsolicited comments.
The only thing that I would appreciate is the improved stroke/line tool. I am not looking for more weight to the program just to add little special filters that most of us have already figured out how to do in vector since the beginning. I was hoping for a little more than the improved line tool and ease in/ease out function. I used to preorder each new version, but since MX2004, I take a hesitant view of things. It didn't work well for me it was bloated with newby tools, that I would never use, and components which I don't use with my animation unless I absolutely need to because they bog down my web delivery. MX broke the shared library thing for me. I had to rebuild over 200 files on my site to make them work again. I'll never even go there again, because Macromedia never even acknowledged that it was a bug. I remember how lean and mean Flash four was, it was easy to download even on a dialup and the player could be installed without a reboot. I am sure the innovations for the developers and programers are great, but I only use a few of those. I draw and animate, make it easier for me, but don't think of me as an idiot that needs a filter to make a drop shadow.
Don't get me wrong I use MX now (but I'll never use shared library assets again), but not MX2004, my computer is older and I had memory system resources issues with it. I can only imagine what I would have with eight with all it's little filter effects. I don't want Photoshop built into Flash, I want to animate.
Pat
Drop shadow, blur, glow, bevel and and color adjust...I am just holding my sides in ecstasy!!!! I've always needed someone to do these things for me. NOT in case someone takes this seriously!Quote:
Flash Professional 8 enables creative professionals to design and develop interactive content that provides customers with the most engaging online experiences. Flash Professional 8 now includes unique tools for designing graphic effects, animation, text, video, and content for mobile devices. New effects, including drop shadow, blur, glow, bevel, and color adjust, permit more compelling designs with pixel-perfect control and precision. The new custom easing tool enables precise control over animation. The revolutionary FlashType™ font-rendering engine ensures clear, high-quality text. These new expressive features raise the bar for the quality of business and individual websites and improve digital experiences.
The font rendering engine they should have fixed three versions back. Everyone has *****ed about it.
Sorry Gerbick you shouldn't have ask me to elaborate.
Pat
Phacker, I am not sure what it is but it seems they have done some things in the drawing area.Look at some of those example movies stevietat posted too. I think it looks like a good upgrade.Quote:
Custom New stroke possibilities, advanced gradient control, Object Drawing
I think you will be pleasantly suprised Phacker.
Custom Easing for starters.
Blend Modes, alpha masks.
Stroke joins.
Gradient Strokes.
Filters - tweenable.
Object drawing mode.
Gradient enhancements.
New Library Panel workflow.
Tabbed Panels/ Custom Panel Grouping
Thousands of bug fixes.
And much much more...
Oh hell no. I'm glad you did.Quote:
Originally Posted by phacker
What is much much more? Custom Panel Groupings you could do that before if you learned to use the tools. I don't need someone to hold my hand or bevel my shapes. I need tools that are supposed to work the way they should. Filters...."I don't need your stinking "filters". Gradient enhancements, I've never been unable to do anything with gradients that I wanted to do, with the Gradient tools, the Gradient transform and interactive gradient tool. I don't know why you guys need it dumbed down.Quote:
Originally Posted by FlashGuru
Stroke joins...never had a problem...what's yours?
Filters tweenable, what the H*lll learn to animate.
Alpha masks, learn to see. I know why they weren't included in the early versions because if you thought about what you were trying to accomplish a gradient overlay with a zero alpha would have accomplished the same thing for you, but you need to learn how to construct things.
I'm curious as to what features for animators are missing; from what you've seen with F8 and experienced with earlier versions of Flash. Macromedia put a lot of effort into addressing the needs / requests of designers this release after MX04s focus on developers [IMO]. Unfortunately they can't address everyone's needs of course, but offering up suggestions would be the next direction to head.Quote:
Originally Posted by phacker
One of my biggest gripes is the fact that snap to object is the the default setting when drawing. I don't how many times I have to backtrack and unclick that. It's really minor but it is annoying.
I do like the improved stroke thing where the lines don't have to be rounded, that's an improvement, but not enough for me to buy it. And I hope they fixed the undo thing they broke in MX2004.
I've used Flash for so long, that I've learned to work with it's limitations. Drop shadows and bevels are somethings that an illustrator/animator can contruct they don't need a filter to do it for them. Blurs might be a good thing, but so many beginning animators use them just because....
And I don't just use Flash for animation I use it as a vector creation tool, for logos and static design.
hmm... not to nitpick, I am using MX 2004 / Win. The default here is snap align and snap to guides.Quote:
Originally Posted by phacker
I think the biggest headache I've had with Flash as an animator is that the player drops graphic frames when it overloads...not sure there's an easy solution to that, but I've fought it for ever.
Quote:
Originally Posted by admedia
Are you creating vector art? Or importing bitmaps.
Click on pen tool and draw. Does it matter though... I open flash and that's what it's set to.Quote:
Originally Posted by phacker
Also for static stuff or anything more complex I use Freehand. I don't think Flash has the power for well designed drawings. Maybe this version will help that some.
I'm not sure of your target audience but each release comes with some pretty hefty performance improvements. You would benefit just by publishing with MX04+; even more so if you targeted the latest player. With F8 you could probably get a nice boost with the new bitmap caching feature.Quote:
Originally Posted by phacker