以下中英文消息转载自数个网站
Flash8[Flash MX 2005]的消息 [2004-9-5]
5shan 发表在 Flash新闻
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Macromedia在今年 New York FlashForward 2004已经展示了下一个版本Flash(Flash 8/Flash MX 2005)，代号8Ball。转自[luar]
台湾MM俱乐部论坛中对Flash兼容其他格式的档案的支持不足 问题的看法。
总之我喜欢Flash，因为她不仅是一个工具软件，更是一种文化，一种追求，是自由自在的享受！我个人希望在开发方面还应沿着2004走下去，组件要多一些更灵活一些，还要闪的更酷一些，哈哈！期待中...
Flash2005(代号8ball)的小消息 [2004-9-10]
5shan 发表在 Flash新闻
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8ball的发布时间将在2005年，届时整合在8ball中的ActionScript将成为ActionsScript3.0，它将完全彻底的同ECMAScript 4进行100%的兼容。
对于8ball，Macromedia将性能的提升放在了最重要的一个优先级，这对于7.2已经大幅提升的性能而言，无疑又是一个巨大的好消息。我会密切关注8ball的发展动向的。
转自7yue(7yue是Macromedia中国员工的Blog)
真是振奋人心呀，希望它早日发布，本站也会密切注视它的相关新闻，关于8ball这是我以前的一篇日志：Flash8[Flash MX 2005]的消息
8ball的小消息
8ball的发布时间将在2005年，届时整合在8ball中的ActionScript将成为ActionsScript3.0，它将完全彻底的同ECMAScript 4进行100%的兼容。
对于8ball，Macromedia将性能的提升放在了最重要的一个优先级，这对于7.2已经大幅提升的性能而言，无疑又是一个巨大的好消息。我会密切关注8ball的发展动向的。
Viewing By Entry / Main
13 September 2004
Flash 8 (8Ball) Wishes
We all know that Mike Chambers and the Flash Team have been busy jetting around the world and speaking to 'select' Flash houses to see how they use Flash in their day-to-day jobs, as well as get some feedback on what Flash power users would like to see included in the next version of Flash (code named 8Ball).
Word on the street that is that after their recent Japan and US tours, the Flash United Front (MC and the Flash Team) are making their way across to the UK and Europe and will be dropping in to say g'day to a few to visit a few 'select' developers.
Its highly unlikely that they'll make it down here to Australia (at least until next Feb) so I thought i'd throw the floor open to the rest of us (who won't get the pleasure of a personalised Flash Team visit) to post your wishes for inclusion in Flash 8.
Here's a couple to get you started...
- Flash Cast CDK (including localised test feeds)
- Improved component performance (sorry Nige they still need a lot of work)
- Enhanced error codes/alerting with more verbose error descriptions
- ActionScript library panel (think supercharged snippets)
- The most important improvement - TAKE YOUR TIME IN DEVELOPING THIS RELEASE ! (Don't let Marketing or the powers that be pressure you into releasing a product that is inferior or anything less than the high standard Flash Developers have come to expect)
Of course you can always post your wishes/thoughts/feedback directly to Macromedia c/o this feedback form.
Posted by Matt Voerman at 10:10 | Link | Flash | Comments (20)
Comments
++MX2004 | ++FPlayer, give eclipse RCP some _real_ competition, whatever you do, or suffer some _real_ brain drain, because like it or not, java on the desktop is back, and take note of the number of 'experts' in parallel markets throwing your terminology (RIA) about... it's make or break times... and flex on its own cannot sustain a buzz; flash is the main *drug* here... push some flex engineers there, and whatever you do, get it right
Posted by eokyere / Posted At 13/09/04 12:33
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-Fully implement XPathAPI and relevant classes, with documentation... please :)
-AS2 standard code library, expanded util classes.
-Runtime type check.
-Genie wish... intrinsic Polygon/Quarternion etc :D
Rich
Posted by Richard Leggett / Posted At 13/09/04 12:35
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An easy way of excluding classes from being compiled.
The current system of using exclude xml files that have to be manually maintained for every swf, and without any wildcard recognition for excluding entire packages, is a real drag. So how about an "importNoInclude" command that allows compile time type checking without actually packaging the class into the swf?
Posted by Gil / Posted At 13/09/04 16:37
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Typographic control:
- Absolute linespacing, from baseline to baseline. Todays font size + leading is inaccurate and differs from the postscript way of doing things.
- Fractional line-height and font-sizes from Actionscript. Today fractions are only possible from the from the editing environment. Negative line-heights.
- non-breakingspaces, soft hyphens.
- Actionscript access to the line-breaking routine (e.g., txtFiedl.line[2])
Posted by Torbj?rn Caspersen / Posted At 13/09/04 16:45
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Real desktop projectors. Why do we have to deal with software like Screenweaver, Flashstudio, etc...? Flash generated exe's should be far more powerfull. If Flash exe's could natively access system features, database connectivity, etc... it would become THE desktop app's programmers favorite SDK.
Posted by Daniel / Posted At 13/09/04 17:43
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- File upload routines (like the breeze player) - better actionscript-editor (something like SEPY) - plugin-architecture for standalone player (like mprojector2) - characterspacing for dynamic text-fields!
Posted by Patrick Gutlich / Posted At 13/09/04 17:46
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1) scriptable reverse masks.
2) bevel inset/outset tool.
3) scriptable drop-shadow.
4) much faster player.
5) rotated text doesn't show up. why?
Posted by Intoxo Pox / Posted At 13/09/04 18:11
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1. Improved player performance 2. Better rendering quality 3. Smaller and faster components
Posted by Mike Klepper / Posted At 13/09/04 22:58
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Fill HTML and CSS support in textfields is what I wat most in the next release.
Posted by Jim Connolly / Posted At 14/09/04 00:30
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I'd love to see them rework how the library scrolls through the folders when you are dragging symbols to different folders. If you have a complex, nested and long folder structure- when you drag an item the library view likes to jumb to the next parent folder-but if you have many items in that folder's root your target child folder is pushed out of the view. Very annoying...
Posted by ethan / Posted At 14/09/04 04:36
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Ah! And also Bitmap-texture fill in the drawing API! Now only supports solid and gradient fill.
Posted by Daniel / Posted At 14/09/04 04:37
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GPS unit auto-detection/integration, just like the current player does for web cameras and microphones.
Posted by BB / Posted At 14/09/04 11:49
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- A powerful standalone application with support for Xtras like Director
- A better timeline editor, with separated keyframes for opacity, scale, rotation, etc Like After Effects. Being able to select multiple keyframes and move them all together in the stage directly.
- An actionscript code to find frame labels
- Full support for XPath
- Dynamic loading of PNG files
- Independent Frames per second for each movie clip
- Put the help as an outside application
Posted by Sebastian / Posted At 14/09/04 13:36
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Just a small thought:
when duplicating MC's It would be nice to have the option to duplicate all its children as well....
Posted by Karim / Posted At 14/09/04 21:20
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Oh just thought of one more:
- createTextField returns the instance it creates just like createEmptyMovieClip so we don't have to hack it in.
Posted by Richard Leggett / Posted At 15/09/04 01:42
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Oh, another one. I'd like to see a way that you can apply html text(bulleted list) to a textfield and see it displayed in the IDE without bouncing out to a swf. It would help with layout for boring PPT like presentations be more efficient since you could see how the text will break and have correct bullet placement.
Posted by ethan / Posted At 15/09/04 02:09
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Just 1 thing: the possibility to have rolls events (rollOver and rollOut and maybe also the others) that works also if another layer with rolls is over them. I mean some "global" rolls that don't take care if they're covered.
Posted by riccardo / Posted At 15/09/04 03:49
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1. precompiler (a jsfl run) 2. document.selection fixed in jsfl 3. events in jsfl 4. xpathapi (w3c complient) 5. better type checking (runtime) 6. runtime error handeling 7. _focusrect color options 8. components smaller footprint + better performance 9.1 removal of createTextField and attachMovie -> replaced wih new ClassName 9.2 better way of handeling constructor args passed to movieclips (really the initObj get rid of it) 10. refactoring tool (that changes the associated lib item classpath as well) 11. get rid of recursive limit (no flasm!)
Posted by johannes / Posted At 15/09/04 23:45
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got another one-i'd like to see a way to animate gradients inside a shape-and have it be able to animate to a path-think of showing flow throgh tubes. I can do it in After Effects but i have to kludge my way around with Flash using multiple movieclips for each turn. Graphical Bezier curve control over tweens. Better (more precise) overall vector tools so i can draw in the app as opposed to using illustrator.
Posted by ethan / Posted At 16/09/04 05:55
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13. the inability to have two objects in the same library name the same.
Posted by johannes / Posted At 16/09/04 08:14
« Macromedia update policy | Main
Rumours about 8ball
Rob Reinhard found an interesting discussion about flash 8 feature wishes animators would appreciate. Animators never use MovieClips, phew. Programmers always use MovieClips! Sounds like drama school, first semester. Shakespeare anyone? Also, i found it funny how Mike Downey, after encouraging people to express their needs and wishes, activates the emergency brake, and tells them that the aren't exactly the target group. Sounds familiar :)
Another interesting tidbit is MD's statement, that flex takes of the strain on the flash team to develop a tool for programmers. I wonder, what this means for programmers?
r .
Posted by bokel at September 15, 2004 08:13 AM
Comments
Hmm, hope this doesn't mean don't get "too" excited about the next release for coders :/ Flex certainly isn't a viable replacement for the masses now is it :P
Posted by Richard Leggett at September 15, 2004 09:37 AM
Yeah, I can just see the new version scheme:
Flash MX 2005 Standard Edition
Flash MX 2005 TV Effects Edition
Flash MX 2005 Animator Edition
Flash MX 2005 Professional Edition
Flash MX 2005 Professional with TV Effects
Flash MX 2005 Professional with Animator
Flash MX 2005 Professional with Animator & TV Effects
...
...
It kind of amazed me that some of the features most needed by non-programmers (eg: data components, connectors, media components) are only available in the version targeted towards programmers...not that they're not useful for us programmers, but...how many designers are going to write their own remoting connector? But I could definitely see them using it...
Posted by Jason at September 15, 2004 09:40 AM
Flash is not really able to handle big huge RIA applications. If you throw a dozend of components onto stage, it stucks. That is what they should work on ! Make Flash a real challenge to all those niffy and sniffy Visual-Basic / Active-X hacks.
Posted by Bernd at September 15, 2004 10:17 AM
Hi everyone -
It's unfortunate that my comments in an email to an animator were posted out of context. I did comment that the existence of Flex allows the Flash authoring tool to focus on our core audience of designers and *Flash developers*.
To provide some more context, Flash MX 2004 Professional was designed, in part, to target a new market of VB developers and Java developers in order to grow the Flash user base. So when I use the term "developers" I'm really referring to Java/VB developers/programmers who are not part of the traditional Flash user base. My comment is regarding the fact that Flex was designed to more appropriately address the needs of Java/VB developers and programmers.
Flash developers, on the other hand, are still part of our targetted market for Flash. We will continue to develop new features for Flash developers, but we don't necessarily need to *focus* the full, next release on developers like we did with MX 2004. In short, we've focused the last two releases of Flash on developers and we feel that we need to focus the next release on designers.
Now when I say *focus* don't take that to mean that we are doing zero for developers and everything for designers. Rather, we have plans for both - but most of our work will be on designer-oriented features.
Let me know if you have any specific questions on that. I hope I'm coming across clearly enough. We are certainly listening to all of the feedback that we get from all users and we think we know what we need to do for each type of Flash user to give them what they need to be successful.
Sorry for any confusion. Feel free to email me for clarity next time - I'm always open to any feedback.
Cheers,
MD
----------------------------------
Mike Downey
Technical Product Manager, Flash
mdowney@macromedia.com
Posted by Mike Downey at September 15, 2004 05:07 PM
i feel very upset you keep repeating how tight a schedule you have for 8ball.. i am an advanced flash developer and i won't ever touch mx2004 with a stick from all the bad press it got (i got no need for player 7 features and not about to use as2.0 also).. seriously you guys have got an incredible amount of bad mouthing from mx2004 and you definitely should learn from earning an amazon feedback of 1 1/2 stars.. screw the marketing department and get it right for once.. i am a huuuge fan of flash mx that was a superb piece of software.. stable and chuckfull of niiiiice new functionalities.. and i'm sticking to it..
Posted by frédéric dénommé at September 16, 2004 02:10 AM
I totally agree with fédéric... flash mx 2004 was a good step in te good direction...but hell !! can't macromedia deliver somethin as reliable as flash mx ? mx 2k4 still look like a beta in many way (the components for example...). take your time..give us, developpers, flash users, somethin reliable or we will just never upgrade to 8ball.
Posted by Benoit Schiex at September 16, 2004 03:06 AM
I'm with frédéric dénommé!
But i'm a Fmx2k4 user, and as 2.0 programmer.
Posted by Martin Arvisais at September 16, 2004 03:56 AM
fyi:
What does "8Ball is focused on designers" mean?
www.markme.com/mesh/archives/006055.cfm
btw,
performance / stability / usability
is one of the primary themes of the 8ball release.
mike chambers
mesh@macromedia.com
Posted by mike chambers at September 16, 2004 04:27 AM
Wednesday, September 15, 2004 :::
Macromedia Flash MX 2005 to "focus on designers" (update)
Well, I got a tip this morning of rumors and comments about the next version of Flash, code named 8Ball (Flash MX 2005).
I think is great Macromedia is thinking about enhancing Flash with designers in mind this time around, the last 3 versions have vastly improved in development and expanding their user base.
The fact that Macromedia Flash MX 2005 will "focus on designers", apparently has mislead some poeple to think that Macromedia is completely ignoring developers in the next incarnation of the IDE, but at the contrary you will find in the comments section Mike Chambers left a brief note with a link explaining What does "8Ball is focused on designers" mean? basically Macromedia feels that the center of attection for the next release should be designers but, that does not mean, in any way, that inprovements on the developement side of Flash MX will be ignored.
Here a few hot zones talking about 8Ball: (I will update the links as they come)
www.xanga.com/item.aspx?user=fwak&tab=weblogs&uid=130664522
www.bokelberg.de/cgi-bin/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=109
www.markme.com/mesh/archives/006055.cfm
Cheers.
::: posted by LordAlex at 11:41:55 AM [ 2 comments ]
» September 15, 2004
What does "8Ball is focused on designers" mean?
There has been some discussions over the past couple of days around 8Ball (the next full release of Flash) and what its focus is going to be.
I wanted to make a quick post, and just clarify something:
8Ball is focused on designers.
What exactly does that mean? It means that the past 2 releases of Flash have been focused almost solely on developers, and that it is time that we once again show some love to designers. Does this mean that 8Ball will have no developer features? No, not at all (there is going to be some very cool stuff). It does mean that one of the primary themes though are designer focused. What are the primary themes?
Performance / Stability / Usability
Expressiveness
Again, just to repeat, this doesn't mean we are dropping developers, or that we are not going to have any features for developers. It does mean that we are spending a lot of time adding new features to Flash that will once again make it the top tool and platform for creating expressive content. Regardless of the focus, this is something that will benefit both designers and developers.
We are really focusing on building a great platform for creating content and applications (more info on this in the coming weeks and months). Flash Developers are vital to the success of that platform.
TrackBack
Comments
good move.
I feel that a lot of the interactive arty experiments of the flash 4 days drew a lot of creative people to flash...these people have now moved to proce55ing. Id like to see flash take some ideas from processing.org/ and encourage creativity.
Posted by david doull
September 15, 2004 01:58 PM
Maybe some more integrated options for Central or enhanced Flex component builder or something????
Just to have some developer stuff as well in the next release ;-)
But the looking forward to a beta ;-)
Posted by Mike
September 15, 2004 02:42 PM
Hi Mike,
your blog post has arrived just in time..It started a thread about that on macromedia.general.italy forum .... you saved us ;)
thanks
Posted by Marco Casario
September 15, 2004 02:49 PM
I think that's really exciting news. Although I have followed Macromedia's lead and tried to keep up with the great advances on the dev side, I have felt the neglect on the art and animation side. The biggest thing MM could do in my opinion, is to update the timeline to be closer to what Adobe did with LiveMotion - more animation-friendly. Advanced easing options, and easier to handle bezier motion paths for every tween should be the standard!
It also occurs to me that there are a lot of developers trying to simulate the timeline using math - perhaps there could be some way to combine these capabilities with the timeline environment? That's sort of a stretch though, a better timeline would be enough.
Posted by Moses Gunesch
September 15, 2004 03:59 PM
"we once again show some love to designers. Does this mean that 8Ball will have no developer features? No, not at all " so what's the point ? There won't be any new interesting improvements to the swf format AGAIN ? you'll only be fixing some usability features ? so we may still stick to flash MX and wait for Flash NINE for the real deal ? or is it all over with flash ?
Posted by Robert
September 15, 2004 08:37 PM
>There won't be any new interesting improvements to the swf format AGAIN ?
Where in the world did you get that from? No one has said we were not making changes to the SWF format.
Instead of assuming things for the worst, why dont we all make informed decisions on real information. Lets not make up stuff...
mike chambers
Posted by mike chambers
September 15, 2004 08:59 PM
Hmm nice to know things are moving in the relm of designers. Is this also going to apply to animators? I remember a while back there being a discussion on a prmiative Boning Structure for 2D characters being tested in house. Any word on features like this coming in?
I take my hat off to you guys, it's a very hard line to walk "Designers" or "Developers" ... I had my own suspisions that maybe version 8 or 9 would see Flash split into 2 items to service each community. It will be nice to see it tightening up back into ONE solid app.
Can't wait to see it and start working with it.
Posted by Mr K
September 15, 2004 09:07 PM
maybe the developers wish the 8ball that it will make as3 100% compatible with ECMA 4
Posted by 7yue
September 15, 2004 09:43 PM
past 2 releases, are you insane. Try, past 4 releases. Whatever MM does it going to have to be big, Microsoft Sparkle is just around the corner and quite frankly I'm already in line with wallet in hand.
Posted by Ibis Fernandez
September 15, 2004 09:46 PM
Why the pessimism? Isn't this good news to you? Flash has been good to most of us here Ibis, so have fun with Sparkle. Hope to see you at the next Annecy!
I've enjoyed Flash for 4 years now and I've always been happy with it. I've found design and animation with the interface nigh-on perfect for what I want to do (i.e. web animation which is the type of animation for which Flash is designed).
True it's limited (and limiting) but take a look around the internet at what some people have managed to achieve with it. Now just imagine what they'll be doing with a designer-focused Flash :)
I'm eagerly awaiting 8ball.
Posted by chluaid
September 15, 2004 10:30 PM
Thanks for the clarification Mike. For those of us with a foot in both camps, and who doesn't these days, its all good news!
Posted by NickC
September 16, 2004 12:20 AM
Number 1 on my wishlist: make component skinning extremely easy and fast.
Posted by Vinny Timmermans
September 16, 2004 02:08 AM
Expressiveness? ... it is time that we once again show some love to designers? ... is perhaps better 3D animation support in the works?
Posted by Peter
September 16, 2004 02:33 AM
Friday, September 10, 2004
A new FLASH for Animators?
Finally! After three seasons of Mucha Lucha, we are very relieved and excited to learn that a new version of Flash for Animators/Designers is in development! In a recent email received from Mike Downey of Macromedia Inc.:
... I'm happy to tell you that we're in the early stages of defining the next version of Flash, code-named "8ball", and will be focusing the release on animators, multimedia designers, and digital artists. We have a lot of features in mind, but one of the biggest areas that we are having difficulty defining is video export from Flash. We understand that there are limitations in our Quicktime exporter (which I understand is necessary for exporting to broadcast television). One of these limitations is the fact that we don't support exporting nested movieclips. Several experienced developers in your industry have told us that they must export from Flash as SWF and then import into Director MX 2004 as SWF, then export from Director as Quicktime - just to get nested movieclips recognized on export. We obviously want to fix this for the next release.
So, I'd really like to get your feedback. I couldn't help but notice your comment about each release of Flash moving away from your use of it - and I don't disagree. The next product release is being managed by an entirely new team of long-time Flash and graphics experts (unlike the last release) and we are all super-determined to return Flash to it's roots and make it much better for designers and animators. We may not be able to do everything within the next release, but we definitely have Flash back on track for the future. Luckily we created Macromedia Flex to target traditional application developers so we no longer need to stretch the Flash authoring tool into a completely different direction than what it was built for.
In any case, I look forward to your feedback....
So I am collating feedback and suggestions from our Mucha Lucha Flash team. So far having spoken with Joel Kuwahara (Line Producer) and Jason Bierut (Flash Animator), here are some responses:
'Nested movie-clips' is not an issue. We (and every other Flash animation studio) use GRAPHIC symbols and these pose no problems at all when exported.
We don't use Director MX 2004 at all. ML production uses Adobe After Effects. From the FLA --> we export/publish a Flash version 5 SWF --> import to Adobe After Effects --> Render to QUICKTIME for AVID. Sound files are exported separately; so in the end we have four files for each scene:
the FLA file
the SWF 5 file
the sound file
the rendered QT
Jason: "SWF 5 files are compatible with Adobe After Effects software, and it is an essential part of our QT exporting process. If Flash could incorporate a TRUE quicktime generator the way After FX does, Then that would save us a huge extra step in our production process. AND it would save on cost of Adobe software licences."
The problem with Camera moves and Camera Control. Technically, there really isn't a camera in Flash, and to zoom in and out of a scene, we are really just scaling objects up or down. But what if you could move the camera like you can in US Animation/Toonboom Studio? There, you have a Virtual camera that you can move in 3-d space even though you are working with 2-d artwork. Sort of a Multi plane camera display. Currently, Flash has a real hard time with camera moves that rotate, and the easing in and out controls are VERY primitive.
Problem with Sound Editing. A suggestion for the next version of Flash is to let you slice the sound right on the timeline by setting a key frame. Currently you have to search for the cut by pushing "edit" and finding your cue. Sound controls could be WAY better here. Eddie: Maybe "markers" could be placed on the timeline for editing sound?
Problem with Tweening. Jason: Flash only interpolates/inbetweens LINEAR-ly. What would make Flash powerful is if you could animate using SPLINE curves, like most 3D packages. Better easing in and out capability, by means of a "graph editor" (like in Maya), would make FLASH a more powerful animation tool. IK is another possibility (ie, linking joints together to form a chain of symbols like an hand linked to a fore arm, linked at the elbow, and finally the elbow to the shoulder). There are separate programs for this, but it would be great to have this feature embodied into flash.
Some other suggestions:
the ability to bend gradients of color. Right now the gradients can only go straight across or radial.
Embedding the capablity of Adobe Streamline for cleaning up drawings once they get converted to vectors, would be wonderful.
And for symbol conflicts, it would be nice if Flash would tell you which symbols have been changed or are "conflicted" so you don't have to hunt them down.
Flashers, please feel free to add your two-cents in the Comments below, or email me (and I will fwd. your feedback to Mike).
A new Flash for Animators/Designers is a GOOD thing!
*update: In the comments below are also suggestions from:
Aaron Simpson - Flash Producer, Cartoon Monsoon, WB Animation
Eric Pringle - Flash Director, 'Fosters...', Cartoon Network Burbank
C. McIntyre - Producer, 'Fosters..', Boulder Media, Dublin
Roman Laney - Flash Designer, 'Maggie The Maggot' (& Mucha Lucha), Walt Disney Animation
Rich Ferguson-Hull - Director, 'Harvey Birdman Attorney at Law', Cartoon Network/Turner.
and more...
Posted 9/10/2004 at 6:06 PM - email it
Give eProps or Post a Comment
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32 Comments browse comments: Next › | Last »
(thanks for the heads-up email on this entry, Lili! <3 )
If the folks at Macromedia want any clarification on my notes, they can reach me at peganthyrus at rdwarf dot com.
My first thought here is "YES! It's about @#$% TIME!". Part of my deep and intimate annoyance with Flash comes from the fact that it was awkward, at best, to animate in, and it's only gotten more so with recent releases. I'm really glad to hear that Macromedia is finally interested in some input from the growing number of pro animators who use Flash.
5, aside from its initial crashiness, was mostly a step forward in usability over 4 (though a lot of people tend to prefer 4's color selector in my experience), but 6/MX? I only keep it around to convert FLA files to something 5 can use. You'll see why later. I haven't touched 7/MX2004 yet.
Things I Wish For Every Time I Touch Flash:
- the ability to choose what the default type for a new symbol is; Flash has oscillated between defaulting to 'movie clip' and 'whatever you choose last'. My method of working with video in mind (and probably that of every studio that has ex-Sp黰c?people involved) is to never use movie clips. Ever. It would be nice to just have a switch in the prefs to make it always default to "graphic", so that I don't accidentally have a movie clip lurking somewhere. I wasn't aware of the Flash->FLA->Director->Quicktime fix!
This is a much simpler fix than 'make the video export routines understand movie clips', although I must confess I have visions of using programmatic movie clip effects now - Tinkerbell sparkle-trail generators, simple particle effects, whatever our more coderly-oriented team members can come up with or adapt... at present, movie clips are only for work that will never leave the web, in my book.
- bend symbols? (I know this is heavy lifting in terms of calculation, and may not be something that can be achieved in realtime for a few more generations of processor power.) Something I've wanted for my entire time with Flash. I want my rubber-hose animation! I want to twist and bend and warp stuff without fighting the shape tweens!
(I almost never shape tween. When I do I'm always left with a lingering suspicion that I would've done better in terms of time and blood pressure to do it by hand.)
- I will agree that ease-in/ease-out on motions are a pain. I am to the point where I almost never use a tween in the final animation; I might use one as a start, but I'll drop in some keyframes, move them around, and pretty much control the curve manually.
Maybe some way to have time-weighting handles on motion curves?
Maybe something inspired by the little timing charts you'll see scrawled in the corner of hand-animation keys?
This is as much a user interface problem as a feature-set one.
- Here's a weird one: "On Twos" for tweens. I favor a more hand-tweaked look to my work, and will just move symbols around by hand on every 2nd frame (at 24fps) for an effective 12fps. It's a common practice going back to the early days of animation. But when I do want to throw a tween against this, I either have to go in and hand-tweak everything onto ones (every frame a keyframe), or convert the tween to keyframes and throw away every other one, otherwise it Looks Weird. I'd like to just have a switch I could throw for this and keep it a tween. (Or a slider to tweak: maybe I might want a tween to run on fours, or tens...)
- Get rid of that 'contextual information panel', or make it an option and bring back the old, separate object info/frame info/etc palettes. When doing dialogue synch, my pattern with 5 was to click on a frame, f6 for a keyframe, then go over to the symbol properties palette and put the right number into the 'frame' slot. With 6, I hit f6 and the 'helpful contextual input panel' displays info on the current frame; I then have to go click on the object I want to keyframe, and then in the symbol properties palette. It doesn't sound like much, but I find this extra conceptual step and extra mouse mileage really adds up. It's the major reason I stick to 5 when I do freelance. (That, and 6 runs horribly on my Mac, but I admit that I need more RAM in it.)
- Sound issues: Synch is always a problem. Anything over about three minutes or so seems to drift for me, no matter what, with discrepancy between what the editor thinks will be played at a particular frame and what you get when playing as a FLA or exporting to video. This is mostly a problem in web production; I have a file that demonstrates this reliably, if I can get clearance from Cartoon Network and Sp黰c?to share it. And other attacks on it that display the same problem in different ways.
Most TV production I've been involved with is done with the scenes as separate FLAs, or with several related scenes. Usually no more than a minute or two. Each gets exported as video, then assembled in a video editor. Usually with the final audio mix happening here. Assembling into one massive Flash file is fraught with symbol conflicts, instabilities with large files, and synch-drift issues.
- Definite agreement on the 'let's slice sound with a new keyframe' idea mentioned in the main entry. If I have a 20-frame sound in the timeline and make a new keyframe on the frame 10 of it, this new keyframe should have the sound starting right on the 10th frame - I should be able to play it back without any change in the audio from before I made that keyframe.
- Also, how about the volume envelope being available on the timeline? It's impossible to do any kind of quick and dirty volume tweaks with the current method.
- Non-circular line caps. Sometimes you just need that straight, flat edge. This is not a big issue. Just a little throwaway.
- A way to mark a timeline as 'drop frames to keep up'. We live and breathe by our timing, and not being able to rely on our tools to deliver rock-steady timing is a constant source of stress. Current practice (which I can claim to be one of the simultaneous discoverers of - I know the folks at Renegade figured it out for 'Elmo' around the same time I worked it out for 'WPH') is to have a layer in the timeline that contains nothing but a many-times-looped sample of silence, set to 'stream', which forces Flash to drop frames in playback; otherwise timing is highly dependant on how complex a frame is to draw, and varies widely with the power of the machine you're editing and playing on... and the video you output has completely wrong timing. It'd be nice to be able to just say we care more about the motion and precise timing than the individual drawings. Bonus points to be able to mark a particular drawing as Important if the rendering is going slow - show THIS one instead of the ones nearby, if things're too slow to show them all - and for the ability to choose a default 'try to play all frames/try to show precise timing' for all new files/scenes.
other timing-tweak suggestions: new timing-over-features view-modes in the editor? turn off transparency? ignore Actionscript (um, I think that may already be a menu choice - must check)? etc. There's a suggestion in the back of my mind, but it's not coming to words.
May I suggest sending some observers to willing animation studios with a video tape recorder and just... watching? Encourage us to curse. I'm sure there are things that drive us crazy that I can't think of offhand. Things we've learnt to unconsciously work around that we just don't think about any more, when some simple interface fix could save us a lot of work.
Or even start up a small production company in-house. This is why I was very interested in investigating Creature House's "Living Cels" as a possible replacement for Flash; they did some animation, and the feature set of the tool was being developed as a direct dialogue between animators and programmers. Unfortunately Microsoft ate them up.
Maybe doing a little light TV contract work, maybe doing some personal films as a way of testing/critiquing the program's evolution that I don't have the sense you've had before. (I'm moving to San Francisco and don't have anything long-term lined up yet, if this idea intruigues Macromedia. I wouldn't say no to a year or two as a high-end in-house Flash abuser, especially if I got some personal work out of it!)
Posted 9/8/2004 at 1:36 PM by EgyptUrnash
Gee, that was longer than I expected it to be. o.O;
Posted 9/8/2004 at 1:38 PM by EgyptUrnash
beyond the suggestions already listed, here's....
?/P> ADDITIONS AND CHANGES I'D LIKE TO SEE IN THE NEXT FLASH VERSION
?/P> Pen tool doesn't work while 'editing in place' - often times when an animator is diving deep into layers and nested symbols in a scene, the pen tool doesn't work.?From what I抳e heard it's because the image has been altered or flipped, and the remedy is to right-click (PC) and 'edit' as opposed to 'edit in place,' but that process takes the artist out of the scene and off track.
?/P> Infinite zoom - if a graphic has been scaled on the timeline to a much smaller scale than it's original rendering, the zoom tool often doesn't allow the artist to go further in.
?/P> Locking graphics - this would help greatly in the case of character models.?Our crews often run into the problem of multiple versions of models that have been altered in the process of animation.?Not sure exactly how this would work - whether it would be password protect or a simple 'click' to lock and unlock. The later might make more sense.
?/P> More elaborate masking capability - masks currently have to be a single symbol, and it would be nice if masks could be made of multiple symbols.
?/P> jpg rippling - JPGs tend to ripple and distort when moved on the stage
?/P> More brush options - more photoshop-esqe brushes, like texture brushes and sponges, and the ability to import bmp designs that are turned into brush shapes
?/P> Control over爐weens - tween on the 2's would be a big help in taking out the overly-smooth feel of certain tweens.
?/P> Contrast - ability to manipulate contrast (and brightness on the same palette) on graphics and other symbols
?/P> Global color - the ability to build global color lists for various characters would greatly speed up any global color changes.
?/P> Flash MX & 2004 importing issues - both of these versions (PC) seem to have difficulty importing illustrator (.ai) files, and often drop points in the process.?We often use Flash 5 instead for this task.
?/P> Transparency of layered symbols - when a graphic consists of many layered symbols, and the opacity is lowered, the layering of the symbol is revealed.?For instance, if a character is a complicated 'puppet' model of a ghost, and we wanted the ghost to be opaque, we would have to do this in post, outside of flash, or the structure of the model would be revealed.
?/P> ?/P> ?/P> PIE-IN-THE-SKY REQUESTS
?/P> 3D extrude and rotate tools - not unlike the Kai power tool package for illustrator
?/P> Brush tricks - the illustrator brush tool tricks that have developed over the last few years are exceptionally cool.?Helps with animating a single image in a very dynamic way.?Can take a static flag design and warp it to create a waving flag.
?/P> FX - a stronger blur tool (rack focus & whatnot), ripple glass, glows, a stronger drop-shadow tool,
?/P> Parenting/IK - seen this option in other vector animation offerings, and not sure if it's worth the trouble, but would be something fun to play with
?/P> Play in reverse - playing frames in reverse can currently be achieved with the 'reverse frames' button, but it would be very useful if a multiple-frame graphic could be flagged to play in reverse from a certain frame.?This would help with cycles and other re-use options.
?/P> ?/P> AARON SIMPSON
Warner Bros. Animation
Producer - Animatics
?/P> ?/P>
Posted 9/8/2004 at 2:55 PM by aasimpy
Hi Lili,
Great opportunity here so I couldn't help but put my bit in.
I would love Flash to have a rotatable work space to make it a bit more "wrist friendly".
BTW, Happy Birthday Eddie!
Cheers,
Mic
Posted 9/8/2004 at 3:49 PM by mrdunn
Great feedback, folks. We have a VERY tight schedule for the next release, but we'll cetainly try to do as much of this as possible.
Also, to clarify, the next release (8ball) won't be *just* for pro TV animators, rather the key focus will be on animators and multimedia designers. I don't want to mislead you into thinking that we are creating a special version of Flash just for pro TV animation. Believe me, I wish the TV animation market were big enough to target a full release towards.
We have been visiting with and talking to pro animators and designers from all around the world while building a spec for 8ball and we think we've defined a great product that should make all of you very happy. Please keep the feedback coming as we're still early in feature development.
Thanks,
MD
--------------------------------
Mike Downey
Technical Product Manager, Flash
mdowney@macromedia.com
Posted 9/8/2004 at 10:31 PM by mdowney
There's not much more I can add that already hasn't been said, so here I go:
-Bring back the Flash 5 interface where you can have the instance panel open at the same time as the motion tween panel.
-Bring back the old undo, need I say more about that
-Do not have the right-click create motion tween default on sync and snap.
-Often on 'Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends' the files get really slow when we have characters with instance buried in instance buried in instance and so on.?I understand it's not the program itself but the complexity of the character's setup.?But it would be nice if Flash had a little more power to support the complex setups.
-When there is a ease set on the motion tween it would be a lot cooler if when a keyframe is set between the tween that the keyframe doesn't set the ease back to zero.
-Make the shape tweens a little more intelligent much more like the Blend tool in Adobe Illustrator.
I don't really care for the 3-d or camera junk, or tweens animating on archs, I don't want to let the computer do everything for me.?However it would be nice if flash did also have the same kind of capabilities that adobe illustrator offers ie. the brush libraries.?And some better sound editing capabilities would be nice.?Please don't get overwhelmed and change the program entirely because I, and I'm sure many others, can get around the current version of Flash (with the help of other programs) without too much trouble.
Thanks for your time,
Eric Pringle
Cartoon Network
"Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends" -Flash Director
Posted 9/9/2004 at 11:40 AM by Pringle_Chips
NTSC safe color palatte
Posted 9/9/2004 at 11:46 AM by ameza
I'm glad I'm not the only one who misses the separate instance/frame/etc palettes, Pringle - I actually miss it enough that I convert things to Flash 5 when I do freelance.
And to think I used to laugh at Photoshop people who stuck with a three-years-back version! The only thing you lose is layer folders and running native under OSX (if you're on Macs), and since I still have the many-symbols-on-one-layer, few tweens, habits left from "Booty Call", that's not a big deal when it makes the rest of the work feel 10x faster.
(This is Paul, by the way. Hi. Haven't seen you since Nebulous - glad to see you're doing well!)
Posted 9/9/2004 at 2:41 PM by EgyptUrnash
Simple things really: Separate outline colours for symbols and groups. It's so annoying when you realise you've just tweened a group and you have to go back and reset your keyframes.
When you come out of a symbol and then hit undo I'd prefer if it would bring you back to edit in place rather than switching to edit mode.
Just by selecting things new points are added. No thanks.
The envelope tool needs oodles of work done to it. Things are constantly disappearing when I'm trying to work with it, unless I distribute to layers.
Distribute to layers - it could be an Adobe illustrator thing, but I've frequently imported graphics that bring up 1000's of empty layers when I click distribute to layers. It's very time consuming to get rid of them all.
Sometimes flash crashes when all you've done is hit undo after inserting a keyframe. That should not happen.
I'll ask around and get some more.
C McIntyre
Posted 9/10/2004 at 4:18 AM by cathmci
Guys, no matter what, you've GOT to fix the audio sync problem.
AND
You have to fix that frame limitation! I don't even understand why Flash HAS a frame limitation! But it prevents me from having a 30fps FLA over 8 minutes, and that's jacked up. FIX THIS. I'm not a TV animator like them but I like to produce stuff for the web that's LONG, and I am getting sick of having to rig together multiple SWFs. This problem has existed since Flash has existed and it's got to stop.
Posted 9/10/2004 at 7:48 AM by HSMattWilson
These are the suggestions, in no particular order, from Boulder Media in Dublin ?Producers of Foster抯 Home For Imaginary Friends:
When a symbol is skewed and all you want to do is rotate a symbol that抯 inside it, it shouldn抰 start skewing itself. It抯 such a waste of time to rotate, skew back to the original shape, rotate again etc.
Change the naming of ease in抯 and ease out抯 to the correct animation terms. E.g. ease in = slo out
The ability to flatten layers as in Photoshop would be great
It抯 been said before, but it抯 very important that when a symbol is flipped, you should still be able to paint inside it.
When double clicking into a symbol, you should enter on the same keyframe as in Flash 5
When importing a swf into a new fla it would be good to keep the original symbol names
Change the masking technique so that you cover up what you don抰 want to be seen; and, if possible, have both options ?covering what you see, and covering what you don抰 see.
The ability to alter the properties of multiple layers all at once, i.e. turning several layers in to guides.
A 揷reate shape tween?option in the right click menu would be super, and the ability to assign a shortcut key to both.
The ability to change properties on motion tweens and shape tweens at the same time, instead of separately.
You should be able to use keyboard shortcuts no matter what window you抮e in. For example: if I抳e typed in the transform box and pressed enter, I抎 want my keyboard shortcuts reactivated, rather than clicking back onto the stage before I can change tool.
When a symbol抯 alpha is lowered, the symbol抯 separate parts become transparent separately. It would be better if it was possible to turn down the alpha as if it were a solid shape.
Instead of turning off a mask and then turning the layer that was masked into a guide layer, it would be great if we could turn the masked layer into a guide layer directly
Easings should be more sensitive. The graph suggested earlier is a good idea.
An option for changing all layer outlines to one colour. Also, the yellow, grey, black, light blue etc. outlines are usually difficult to see. They can be dropped. We抎 prefer the option of putting them in ourselves if needed, but generally they抮e a nuisance when they turn up as default.
Labels for custom colours would be good.
The option to save a palette to import it later.
The old undo option was better, as in flash 5. and the inclusion of a history panel for symbols.
That抯 all we have for the moment. If we come up with any more we will post them too. Hopefully you抣l be able to take at least some of our suggestions on board.
?/P> C. McIntyre
Posted 9/10/2004 at 10:22 AM by cathmci
I have a few ideas. I am heavilly on the design side of Flash, so nothing I have to say involves animation...
It seems that you guys need to make a decision... are you gonna try and have the kind of strong design tools that are available in Adobe Illustrator ( robust bezier tools, brush assignment to lines, etc.) ... or are you gonna make importing Adobe Illustrator files seemless... where colors and shapes are IDENTICAL when brought into Flash. I have no preference... but having neither is frustrating.
I would also like to see more ability to manipulate colors. Not tinting whole symbols, but altering the artwork's actual colors similar to how old bitmap programs would work... where you could replace a certain color, and every occurance of a color, with another color. And giving us the option of doing it throughout an entire .fla too would be cool... where we could create different time of day palletes for characters and even locations. I often have to take things into Photoshop as Raster art, play with the saturation and hue there... then re-import it into Flash and color pick the new colors... too many steps!
I hate that the "lock" is default... every file I've ever opened I've had to unclick that little button... waste of time...
Similar to what I was saying about Illustrator, Flash needs more robust vector tools. Complicated objects dissapear on me constantly when broken apart, or converted to lines... I have work arounds... but for my limited understanding, it's just because there are a lot of points very close together which define the shape, and when they are asked to solve themselves for optimization... they freak out and break. Illustrator does not do this. You can have a storm of points all on top of each other and Illustrator can figure out the shape and not freak. This would be a welcome fix.
Along with this, it would be great if the line tool had different ends. The current rounded tip is functional, but I am constantly converting it to a fill and then having to sharpen and taper the ends... if there were other options on how the line tool ended, that could be really great and save me from spending a ton of time "nubbin-killing"
Optimization for the Mac would be nice. There is no processor excuse for why Flash runs faster on PC than Macs...
Alright, I'm sure there is more, but if you even did half of all these great suggestions... you make a wizzened Flash artist very happy.
Roman Laney
Walt Disney TV Animation
Posted 9/10/2004 at 11:17 AM by rlaney
Here are some additional suggestions that the Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law crew came up with that aren't mentioned above (well, we're also re-listing ones that are important to us):
New:
?The ability to select lines of a certain weight across an entire shot and globally change that weight.
?Setting in and out points in the timeline for rendering (i.e., not having to render the entire file if you only want a small portion of it)
昑he ability to define multiple layers at once (Setting 2 or more layers simultaneously to guide, mask, etc. We frequently use the 'guide' setting as a workaround to indicate layers that shouldn't render, like reference images and movies).
?Fix the issue that when you try to scale a symbol up (via the tranfrom dialog box) past the visible work area, it messes up the proportion.
?When editing in place, being put at the same frame displayed on the timeline, instead of defaulting you to frame 1. Ex: Frame 498 is displayed on the timeline, double-click into the symbol and be on frame 498 inside the symbol.
?Two possible fixes with the keyboard zoom (Ctrl + or -). When in a symbol zooming out is fine, but when zooming in it will only zoom to the designated center point of the symbol. Even more annoying is when you're in a group, once again the zoom out works fine, but the zoom in will pop you to the upper left hand corner of the frame. If it is possible to fix it so that the Ctrl + works the same way in the symbols and groups as out in the scene, that would be great.
?The ability to swipe paint bucket through multiple shapes to color them all at once, but not changing an already existing painted shape (This is similar to the 'Paint Unpainted' tool in USAnimation/Toonboom Studio).
昑he ability to find and replace colors in a group (currently the find and replace ignores colors within groups).
?In the properties inspector for a symbol, ability to see more than just 2 digits where you type in the 'First:' frame number
?Ability to use the same shape hints over all keyframes?not having to set a new bunch with every key frame
And while we're asking....
?Better sensitivity with the brush tool, more like Photoshop. Even possibly having varied opacity with a brush.
?Animatable line weight over time.
?Filters for lines like noise, etc.
?A more robust render engine that could handle a large render (up to a five thousand frame) without stalling out
Already mentioned but things we'd really appreciate:
?Rotating work surface. The Toon Boom platform rotates in small (10 degree?) increments, which captures the essence of turning the old animation disc very well.
?The addition of a camera.
?More complex motion path controls, including eases in and out on the same path.
?Better sound editing capability, especially being able to cut the audio layer and not lose the edit point.
?Ability to have various, not-circular ends of ink lines, especially tapered ones.
?Similar performance from Macs to PCs.
There are a lot of good general notes posted above, and it's interesting to see how many issues are common to every post. Even if we saw half of these additions/fixes implemented, it would make our lives easier (but here's hoping for all).
Rich Ferguson-Hull
Cartoon Network/Turner Studios
Posted 9/10/2004 at 12:17 PM by Zardo
This is exciting news! Flash is already a great tool, but there are a few things that would make it much more powerful and user-friendly. The following are my personal suggestions- mostly related to animation. We use MX 2004 on the Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi Show- Ill ask around and see if we can come up with additional suggestions for a later post.
First off, PLEASE undo the undo function of MX 2004 and return it to the powerful, intuitive tool it once was in previous versions. I dont know anyone in our studio who is happy with the redesign. Its pretty much useless and disorienting past a couple of moves. The old undo worked perfectly and was VERY powerful, with individual undos within each layer of nested animation. I used to be able to test multiple parameters on different nested layers concurrently, knowing I could undo things independently in each layer at any time. This was great for experimental FX animation....
A Maya-style graph editor would be fantastic, with the ability to edit individual parameters. This would make organic or eccentric movements much easier to create and edit. The graph editor would also cover another suggestion... which is to have greater flexibility and control in eases. That includes everything from making scaling independent of movement on tweens, to the ability to do more extreme easing without having to employ a time consuming "cheat" method.
More control over sound clips right on the timeline.
A variety of bug fixes, like the inability to paint in flipped symbols, or the sluggish response (and sometime program crashes) when undoing keyframes in complex, nested animations.
Better usage of screen real estate. For example, the Properties toolbar in MX 2004 has plenty of empty space when docked in most locations, but it frequently cuts longer names short, even though theres plenty of empty area within the box. Unfortunately it can also display only 2 digits of a frame assignment, which creates all sorts of problems (you have to scroll through with the arrow keys to see whats hidden- and there is no way to tell if your frame assignment is 11, 111, 1111, or 11111, for example.
Animators at our studio almost never use the shape tween tool because it rarely follows the most obvious tween path, and often creates bizarre solutions to seemingly simple shape tweens. Animators on TV productions timelines rarely have time to use elaborate, time consuming shape hints.
A pie-in-the-sky suggestion would be to include a deformation tool similar to Photoshop's Liquify. I can think of plenty of uses.....
My dual G5 is very fast a just about everything EXCEPT Flash. Why is the Mac version so much slower than the PC version?
A few of these suggestions have been mentioned earlier, but I hope similar postings from multiple users will increase the chances of some of these improvements being implemented.
Im looking forward to this next release of Flash. Its a good sign that Macromedia is willing to listen to suggestions from artists using their programs.
T Szabo
Animator,
Renegade Animation
Posted 9/11/2004 at 3:37 AM by VectorManipulator
Wow! You guys are great! Thanks for taking so much time to articulate your feedback. This has all been circulated around the Flash team for review.
Now comes the fun part. We have to prioritize these things and try to fit them into our ever-shrinking development schedule. In fact, as you continue to post feedback, please post the version of Flash you currently use, platform, and please prioritize your feature requests (if possible) in order to help us out.
Thanks again. This is great.
Cheers,
MD
--------------------------------
Mike Downey
Technical Product Manager, Flash
mdowney@macromedia.com
Posted 9/11/2004 at 8:13 AM by mdowney
First, PLEASE consider the previously suggested CAMERA.
Then, just a pie in the sky thing.. it'd be nice to get some motion blur or general blur/focus options. That's one thing that Adobe After Effects has over Flash, from my perspective.
And if you can fix the Stream audio sync or frame limitation, that would sell the product for me, I think.
Posted 9/11/2004 at 1:06 PM by HSMattWilson
well "tight dealine" aside I would much rather have you guys take your time to do things right, rather than released another rushed and unpolished version.
1. Non Linear Editing of SWF files.
The ability to import SWF "clips" and edit, composit, retime, transition, in much the same way video clips can be edited in After efects. And be able to export finished product in native swf vector format, from there.
2. Particle System Support. The ability to attach symbols to aparticles system and create effecs like snow, leaves in the winds, smoke, etc...give the canon a series of propperties, like gravity, time to live, wind, direction, velocity, spread, etc...
3. Dynamic and programatic effect export for video.
What good is being able to generate beautifull effects using action script if they can actually be used in production work.
4. Wall, Obstruction, and Friction system.... Much like the motion guide layers, you could set up a layer where objects you draw act as obstructions. Say I animate a ball from one side of the stage to the other. I can place an obstruction layer and draw a rectangle in the way of the two keys. This would cause the ball to have to go around the box in order to reach the second key.
5. Timecoding/Timestamping...I dont really think I need to explain this too much, but it involves hours:minutes:seconds:frames
6. Fix the freaking terminology. The colums are the frames, the rows are the layers, and the intercection of the two are NOT frames, they are "CELLS". Inserting a key frame is not "inserting anything, but rather "duplicating" the previous "cell". "Insert Frame" does not insert anything, but rather it "extends the exposure" of the previous "cell".
Posted 9/13/2004 at 10:57 AM by cinestar
oh yeah...
7. Fix the frellin' terminology.
The colums in thetime line are the "frames". The rows are the "layers". The interception btween a row and a colum is called a "cell".... "Insert Keyframe" is inacurate because you are NOT inserting a frame. You are merely duplicating the contents of the pervious "cell". "Insert Frame" is also misnamed, because again, you are not inserting a frame, but rather "extending the exposure" of the previous cell.
Posted 9/13/2004 at 11:14 AM by cinestar
Hey everyone...the feedback is great. Unfortunately terms like "Fix the freaking terminology" do no-one any good.
Macromedia are going out of their way to improve their products, by way of this dialogue. Please let's keep it professional. -Eddie
Posted 9/13/2004 at 11:46 AM by fwak
I'm very excited to hear that Macromedia has finally realized the need to focus on Flash as an animation tool. I've been sticking with Flash 4 (!) because the various benefits of later versions have always been balanced out by drawbacks. Most of the comments cover anything I can think of right now... Anything that improves the drawing and line control capabilities top my wish list... This might lead to the first new version I will actually look forward to!
xeth feinberg
mishmashmedia.com
Posted 9/13/2004 at 12:35 PM by xeth
all these suggestions are spot-on! Let me add:
being able to crop/enlarge the canvas stage from it's center point as opposed to just the right and bottom sides. Then we won't have to use edit multiple frames to adjust the animation to reflect the new stage size.
Posted 9/13/2004 at 2:14 PM by mudbubble
speed up the Mac version....pleeeeez!!!
Posted 9/14/2004 at 12:44 PM by jbach2
enlarge the Search & replace dialog so the path to the script is visible
Posted 9/14/2004 at 12:46 PM by jbach2
Muddbubble... the complete and total anihalation of the stage would solve a lot of problems. Having simply the work area and a separate camera system would be the ideal approach. Adding features to the "stage" would imply that you want to keep the stage, and if that happens we would continue to be limmited by the confines of the stage.
Posted 9/14/2004 at 1:48 PM by cinestar
It'd be pretty awesome if movie clips actually worked in video/picsequence export's... Also, if the importing of png's actually worked... ie. not fill the background, that'd be pretty awesome. It'd be pretty cool if the distort tool actually worked on graphics/movie clips.
Posted 9/14/2004 at 3:08 PM by fiddlestick123
Flash8[Flash MX 2005]的消息 [2004-9-5]
5shan 发表在 Flash新闻
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Macromedia在今年 New York FlashForward 2004已经展示了下一个版本Flash(Flash 8/Flash MX 2005)，代号8Ball。转自[luar]
台湾MM俱乐部论坛中对Flash兼容其他格式的档案的支持不足 问题的看法。
总之我喜欢Flash，因为她不仅是一个工具软件，更是一种文化，一种追求，是自由自在的享受！我个人希望在开发方面还应沿着2004走下去，组件要多一些更灵活一些，还要闪的更酷一些，哈哈！期待中...
Flash2005(代号8ball)的小消息 [2004-9-10]
5shan 发表在 Flash新闻
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8ball的发布时间将在2005年，届时整合在8ball中的ActionScript将成为ActionsScript3.0，它将完全彻底的同ECMAScript 4进行100%的兼容。
对于8ball，Macromedia将性能的提升放在了最重要的一个优先级，这对于7.2已经大幅提升的性能而言，无疑又是一个巨大的好消息。我会密切关注8ball的发展动向的。
转自7yue(7yue是Macromedia中国员工的Blog)
真是振奋人心呀，希望它早日发布，本站也会密切注视它的相关新闻，关于8ball这是我以前的一篇日志：Flash8[Flash MX 2005]的消息
8ball的小消息
8ball的发布时间将在2005年，届时整合在8ball中的ActionScript将成为ActionsScript3.0，它将完全彻底的同ECMAScript 4进行100%的兼容。
对于8ball，Macromedia将性能的提升放在了最重要的一个优先级，这对于7.2已经大幅提升的性能而言，无疑又是一个巨大的好消息。我会密切关注8ball的发展动向的。
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13 September 2004
Flash 8 (8Ball) Wishes
We all know that Mike Chambers and the Flash Team have been busy jetting around the world and speaking to 'select' Flash houses to see how they use Flash in their day-to-day jobs, as well as get some feedback on what Flash power users would like to see included in the next version of Flash (code named 8Ball).
Word on the street that is that after their recent Japan and US tours, the Flash United Front (MC and the Flash Team) are making their way across to the UK and Europe and will be dropping in to say g'day to a few to visit a few 'select' developers.
Its highly unlikely that they'll make it down here to Australia (at least until next Feb) so I thought i'd throw the floor open to the rest of us (who won't get the pleasure of a personalised Flash Team visit) to post your wishes for inclusion in Flash 8.
Here's a couple to get you started...
- Flash Cast CDK (including localised test feeds)
- Improved component performance (sorry Nige they still need a lot of work)
- Enhanced error codes/alerting with more verbose error descriptions
- ActionScript library panel (think supercharged snippets)
- The most important improvement - TAKE YOUR TIME IN DEVELOPING THIS RELEASE ! (Don't let Marketing or the powers that be pressure you into releasing a product that is inferior or anything less than the high standard Flash Developers have come to expect)
Of course you can always post your wishes/thoughts/feedback directly to Macromedia c/o this feedback form.
Posted by Matt Voerman at 10:10 | Link | Flash | Comments (20)
Comments
++MX2004 | ++FPlayer, give eclipse RCP some _real_ competition, whatever you do, or suffer some _real_ brain drain, because like it or not, java on the desktop is back, and take note of the number of 'experts' in parallel markets throwing your terminology (RIA) about... it's make or break times... and flex on its own cannot sustain a buzz; flash is the main *drug* here... push some flex engineers there, and whatever you do, get it right
Posted by eokyere / Posted At 13/09/04 12:33
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-Fully implement XPathAPI and relevant classes, with documentation... please :)
-AS2 standard code library, expanded util classes.
-Runtime type check.
-Genie wish... intrinsic Polygon/Quarternion etc :D
Rich
Posted by Richard Leggett / Posted At 13/09/04 12:35
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An easy way of excluding classes from being compiled.
The current system of using exclude xml files that have to be manually maintained for every swf, and without any wildcard recognition for excluding entire packages, is a real drag. So how about an "importNoInclude" command that allows compile time type checking without actually packaging the class into the swf?
Posted by Gil / Posted At 13/09/04 16:37
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Typographic control:
- Absolute linespacing, from baseline to baseline. Todays font size + leading is inaccurate and differs from the postscript way of doing things.
- Fractional line-height and font-sizes from Actionscript. Today fractions are only possible from the from the editing environment. Negative line-heights.
- non-breakingspaces, soft hyphens.
- Actionscript access to the line-breaking routine (e.g., txtFiedl.line[2])
Posted by Torbj?rn Caspersen / Posted At 13/09/04 16:45
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Real desktop projectors. Why do we have to deal with software like Screenweaver, Flashstudio, etc...? Flash generated exe's should be far more powerfull. If Flash exe's could natively access system features, database connectivity, etc... it would become THE desktop app's programmers favorite SDK.
Posted by Daniel / Posted At 13/09/04 17:43
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- File upload routines (like the breeze player) - better actionscript-editor (something like SEPY) - plugin-architecture for standalone player (like mprojector2) - characterspacing for dynamic text-fields!
Posted by Patrick Gutlich / Posted At 13/09/04 17:46
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1) scriptable reverse masks.
2) bevel inset/outset tool.
3) scriptable drop-shadow.
4) much faster player.
5) rotated text doesn't show up. why?
Posted by Intoxo Pox / Posted At 13/09/04 18:11
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1. Improved player performance 2. Better rendering quality 3. Smaller and faster components
Posted by Mike Klepper / Posted At 13/09/04 22:58
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Fill HTML and CSS support in textfields is what I wat most in the next release.
Posted by Jim Connolly / Posted At 14/09/04 00:30
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I'd love to see them rework how the library scrolls through the folders when you are dragging symbols to different folders. If you have a complex, nested and long folder structure- when you drag an item the library view likes to jumb to the next parent folder-but if you have many items in that folder's root your target child folder is pushed out of the view. Very annoying...
Posted by ethan / Posted At 14/09/04 04:36
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Ah! And also Bitmap-texture fill in the drawing API! Now only supports solid and gradient fill.
Posted by Daniel / Posted At 14/09/04 04:37
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GPS unit auto-detection/integration, just like the current player does for web cameras and microphones.
Posted by BB / Posted At 14/09/04 11:49
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- A powerful standalone application with support for Xtras like Director
- A better timeline editor, with separated keyframes for opacity, scale, rotation, etc Like After Effects. Being able to select multiple keyframes and move them all together in the stage directly.
- An actionscript code to find frame labels
- Full support for XPath
- Dynamic loading of PNG files
- Independent Frames per second for each movie clip
- Put the help as an outside application
Posted by Sebastian / Posted At 14/09/04 13:36
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Just a small thought:
when duplicating MC's It would be nice to have the option to duplicate all its children as well....
Posted by Karim / Posted At 14/09/04 21:20
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Oh just thought of one more:
- createTextField returns the instance it creates just like createEmptyMovieClip so we don't have to hack it in.
Posted by Richard Leggett / Posted At 15/09/04 01:42
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Oh, another one. I'd like to see a way that you can apply html text(bulleted list) to a textfield and see it displayed in the IDE without bouncing out to a swf. It would help with layout for boring PPT like presentations be more efficient since you could see how the text will break and have correct bullet placement.
Posted by ethan / Posted At 15/09/04 02:09
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Just 1 thing: the possibility to have rolls events (rollOver and rollOut and maybe also the others) that works also if another layer with rolls is over them. I mean some "global" rolls that don't take care if they're covered.
Posted by riccardo / Posted At 15/09/04 03:49
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1. precompiler (a jsfl run) 2. document.selection fixed in jsfl 3. events in jsfl 4. xpathapi (w3c complient) 5. better type checking (runtime) 6. runtime error handeling 7. _focusrect color options 8. components smaller footprint + better performance 9.1 removal of createTextField and attachMovie -> replaced wih new ClassName 9.2 better way of handeling constructor args passed to movieclips (really the initObj get rid of it) 10. refactoring tool (that changes the associated lib item classpath as well) 11. get rid of recursive limit (no flasm!)
Posted by johannes / Posted At 15/09/04 23:45
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got another one-i'd like to see a way to animate gradients inside a shape-and have it be able to animate to a path-think of showing flow throgh tubes. I can do it in After Effects but i have to kludge my way around with Flash using multiple movieclips for each turn. Graphical Bezier curve control over tweens. Better (more precise) overall vector tools so i can draw in the app as opposed to using illustrator.
Posted by ethan / Posted At 16/09/04 05:55
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13. the inability to have two objects in the same library name the same.
Posted by johannes / Posted At 16/09/04 08:14
« Macromedia update policy | Main
Rumours about 8ball
Rob Reinhard found an interesting discussion about flash 8 feature wishes animators would appreciate. Animators never use MovieClips, phew. Programmers always use MovieClips! Sounds like drama school, first semester. Shakespeare anyone? Also, i found it funny how Mike Downey, after encouraging people to express their needs and wishes, activates the emergency brake, and tells them that the aren't exactly the target group. Sounds familiar :)
Another interesting tidbit is MD's statement, that flex takes of the strain on the flash team to develop a tool for programmers. I wonder, what this means for programmers?
r .
Posted by bokel at September 15, 2004 08:13 AM
Comments
Hmm, hope this doesn't mean don't get "too" excited about the next release for coders :/ Flex certainly isn't a viable replacement for the masses now is it :P
Posted by Richard Leggett at September 15, 2004 09:37 AM
Yeah, I can just see the new version scheme:
Flash MX 2005 Standard Edition
Flash MX 2005 TV Effects Edition
Flash MX 2005 Animator Edition
Flash MX 2005 Professional Edition
Flash MX 2005 Professional with TV Effects
Flash MX 2005 Professional with Animator
Flash MX 2005 Professional with Animator & TV Effects
...
...
It kind of amazed me that some of the features most needed by non-programmers (eg: data components, connectors, media components) are only available in the version targeted towards programmers...not that they're not useful for us programmers, but...how many designers are going to write their own remoting connector? But I could definitely see them using it...
Posted by Jason at September 15, 2004 09:40 AM
Flash is not really able to handle big huge RIA applications. If you throw a dozend of components onto stage, it stucks. That is what they should work on ! Make Flash a real challenge to all those niffy and sniffy Visual-Basic / Active-X hacks.
Posted by Bernd at September 15, 2004 10:17 AM
Hi everyone -
It's unfortunate that my comments in an email to an animator were posted out of context. I did comment that the existence of Flex allows the Flash authoring tool to focus on our core audience of designers and *Flash developers*.
To provide some more context, Flash MX 2004 Professional was designed, in part, to target a new market of VB developers and Java developers in order to grow the Flash user base. So when I use the term "developers" I'm really referring to Java/VB developers/programmers who are not part of the traditional Flash user base. My comment is regarding the fact that Flex was designed to more appropriately address the needs of Java/VB developers and programmers.
Flash developers, on the other hand, are still part of our targetted market for Flash. We will continue to develop new features for Flash developers, but we don't necessarily need to *focus* the full, next release on developers like we did with MX 2004. In short, we've focused the last two releases of Flash on developers and we feel that we need to focus the next release on designers.
Now when I say *focus* don't take that to mean that we are doing zero for developers and everything for designers. Rather, we have plans for both - but most of our work will be on designer-oriented features.
Let me know if you have any specific questions on that. I hope I'm coming across clearly enough. We are certainly listening to all of the feedback that we get from all users and we think we know what we need to do for each type of Flash user to give them what they need to be successful.
Sorry for any confusion. Feel free to email me for clarity next time - I'm always open to any feedback.
Cheers,
MD
----------------------------------
Mike Downey
Technical Product Manager, Flash
mdowney@macromedia.com
Posted by Mike Downey at September 15, 2004 05:07 PM
i feel very upset you keep repeating how tight a schedule you have for 8ball.. i am an advanced flash developer and i won't ever touch mx2004 with a stick from all the bad press it got (i got no need for player 7 features and not about to use as2.0 also).. seriously you guys have got an incredible amount of bad mouthing from mx2004 and you definitely should learn from earning an amazon feedback of 1 1/2 stars.. screw the marketing department and get it right for once.. i am a huuuge fan of flash mx that was a superb piece of software.. stable and chuckfull of niiiiice new functionalities.. and i'm sticking to it..
Posted by frédéric dénommé at September 16, 2004 02:10 AM
I totally agree with fédéric... flash mx 2004 was a good step in te good direction...but hell !! can't macromedia deliver somethin as reliable as flash mx ? mx 2k4 still look like a beta in many way (the components for example...). take your time..give us, developpers, flash users, somethin reliable or we will just never upgrade to 8ball.
Posted by Benoit Schiex at September 16, 2004 03:06 AM
I'm with frédéric dénommé!
But i'm a Fmx2k4 user, and as 2.0 programmer.
Posted by Martin Arvisais at September 16, 2004 03:56 AM
fyi:
What does "8Ball is focused on designers" mean?
www.markme.com/mesh/archives/006055.cfm
btw,
performance / stability / usability
is one of the primary themes of the 8ball release.
mike chambers
mesh@macromedia.com
Posted by mike chambers at September 16, 2004 04:27 AM
Wednesday, September 15, 2004 :::
Macromedia Flash MX 2005 to "focus on designers" (update)
Well, I got a tip this morning of rumors and comments about the next version of Flash, code named 8Ball (Flash MX 2005).
I think is great Macromedia is thinking about enhancing Flash with designers in mind this time around, the last 3 versions have vastly improved in development and expanding their user base.
The fact that Macromedia Flash MX 2005 will "focus on designers", apparently has mislead some poeple to think that Macromedia is completely ignoring developers in the next incarnation of the IDE, but at the contrary you will find in the comments section Mike Chambers left a brief note with a link explaining What does "8Ball is focused on designers" mean? basically Macromedia feels that the center of attection for the next release should be designers but, that does not mean, in any way, that inprovements on the developement side of Flash MX will be ignored.
Here a few hot zones talking about 8Ball: (I will update the links as they come)
www.xanga.com/item.aspx?user=fwak&tab=weblogs&uid=130664522
www.bokelberg.de/cgi-bin/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=109
www.markme.com/mesh/archives/006055.cfm
Cheers.
::: posted by LordAlex at 11:41:55 AM [ 2 comments ]
» September 15, 2004
What does "8Ball is focused on designers" mean?
There has been some discussions over the past couple of days around 8Ball (the next full release of Flash) and what its focus is going to be.
I wanted to make a quick post, and just clarify something:
8Ball is focused on designers.
What exactly does that mean? It means that the past 2 releases of Flash have been focused almost solely on developers, and that it is time that we once again show some love to designers. Does this mean that 8Ball will have no developer features? No, not at all (there is going to be some very cool stuff). It does mean that one of the primary themes though are designer focused. What are the primary themes?
Performance / Stability / Usability
Expressiveness
Again, just to repeat, this doesn't mean we are dropping developers, or that we are not going to have any features for developers. It does mean that we are spending a lot of time adding new features to Flash that will once again make it the top tool and platform for creating expressive content. Regardless of the focus, this is something that will benefit both designers and developers.
We are really focusing on building a great platform for creating content and applications (more info on this in the coming weeks and months). Flash Developers are vital to the success of that platform.
TrackBack
Comments
good move.
I feel that a lot of the interactive arty experiments of the flash 4 days drew a lot of creative people to flash...these people have now moved to proce55ing. Id like to see flash take some ideas from processing.org/ and encourage creativity.
Posted by david doull
September 15, 2004 01:58 PM
Maybe some more integrated options for Central or enhanced Flex component builder or something????
Just to have some developer stuff as well in the next release ;-)
But the looking forward to a beta ;-)
Posted by Mike
September 15, 2004 02:42 PM
Hi Mike,
your blog post has arrived just in time..It started a thread about that on macromedia.general.italy forum .... you saved us ;)
thanks
Posted by Marco Casario
September 15, 2004 02:49 PM
I think that's really exciting news. Although I have followed Macromedia's lead and tried to keep up with the great advances on the dev side, I have felt the neglect on the art and animation side. The biggest thing MM could do in my opinion, is to update the timeline to be closer to what Adobe did with LiveMotion - more animation-friendly. Advanced easing options, and easier to handle bezier motion paths for every tween should be the standard!
It also occurs to me that there are a lot of developers trying to simulate the timeline using math - perhaps there could be some way to combine these capabilities with the timeline environment? That's sort of a stretch though, a better timeline would be enough.
Posted by Moses Gunesch
September 15, 2004 03:59 PM
"we once again show some love to designers. Does this mean that 8Ball will have no developer features? No, not at all " so what's the point ? There won't be any new interesting improvements to the swf format AGAIN ? you'll only be fixing some usability features ? so we may still stick to flash MX and wait for Flash NINE for the real deal ? or is it all over with flash ?
Posted by Robert
September 15, 2004 08:37 PM
>There won't be any new interesting improvements to the swf format AGAIN ?
Where in the world did you get that from? No one has said we were not making changes to the SWF format.
Instead of assuming things for the worst, why dont we all make informed decisions on real information. Lets not make up stuff...
mike chambers
Posted by mike chambers
September 15, 2004 08:59 PM
Hmm nice to know things are moving in the relm of designers. Is this also going to apply to animators? I remember a while back there being a discussion on a prmiative Boning Structure for 2D characters being tested in house. Any word on features like this coming in?
I take my hat off to you guys, it's a very hard line to walk "Designers" or "Developers" ... I had my own suspisions that maybe version 8 or 9 would see Flash split into 2 items to service each community. It will be nice to see it tightening up back into ONE solid app.
Can't wait to see it and start working with it.
Posted by Mr K
September 15, 2004 09:07 PM
maybe the developers wish the 8ball that it will make as3 100% compatible with ECMA 4
Posted by 7yue
September 15, 2004 09:43 PM
past 2 releases, are you insane. Try, past 4 releases. Whatever MM does it going to have to be big, Microsoft Sparkle is just around the corner and quite frankly I'm already in line with wallet in hand.
Posted by Ibis Fernandez
September 15, 2004 09:46 PM
Why the pessimism? Isn't this good news to you? Flash has been good to most of us here Ibis, so have fun with Sparkle. Hope to see you at the next Annecy!
I've enjoyed Flash for 4 years now and I've always been happy with it. I've found design and animation with the interface nigh-on perfect for what I want to do (i.e. web animation which is the type of animation for which Flash is designed).
True it's limited (and limiting) but take a look around the internet at what some people have managed to achieve with it. Now just imagine what they'll be doing with a designer-focused Flash :)
I'm eagerly awaiting 8ball.
Posted by chluaid
September 15, 2004 10:30 PM
Thanks for the clarification Mike. For those of us with a foot in both camps, and who doesn't these days, its all good news!
Posted by NickC
September 16, 2004 12:20 AM
Number 1 on my wishlist: make component skinning extremely easy and fast.
Posted by Vinny Timmermans
September 16, 2004 02:08 AM
Expressiveness? ... it is time that we once again show some love to designers? ... is perhaps better 3D animation support in the works?
Posted by Peter
September 16, 2004 02:33 AM
Friday, September 10, 2004
A new FLASH for Animators?
Finally! After three seasons of Mucha Lucha, we are very relieved and excited to learn that a new version of Flash for Animators/Designers is in development! In a recent email received from Mike Downey of Macromedia Inc.:
... I'm happy to tell you that we're in the early stages of defining the next version of Flash, code-named "8ball", and will be focusing the release on animators, multimedia designers, and digital artists. We have a lot of features in mind, but one of the biggest areas that we are having difficulty defining is video export from Flash. We understand that there are limitations in our Quicktime exporter (which I understand is necessary for exporting to broadcast television). One of these limitations is the fact that we don't support exporting nested movieclips. Several experienced developers in your industry have told us that they must export from Flash as SWF and then import into Director MX 2004 as SWF, then export from Director as Quicktime - just to get nested movieclips recognized on export. We obviously want to fix this for the next release.
So, I'd really like to get your feedback. I couldn't help but notice your comment about each release of Flash moving away from your use of it - and I don't disagree. The next product release is being managed by an entirely new team of long-time Flash and graphics experts (unlike the last release) and we are all super-determined to return Flash to it's roots and make it much better for designers and animators. We may not be able to do everything within the next release, but we definitely have Flash back on track for the future. Luckily we created Macromedia Flex to target traditional application developers so we no longer need to stretch the Flash authoring tool into a completely different direction than what it was built for.
In any case, I look forward to your feedback....
So I am collating feedback and suggestions from our Mucha Lucha Flash team. So far having spoken with Joel Kuwahara (Line Producer) and Jason Bierut (Flash Animator), here are some responses:
'Nested movie-clips' is not an issue. We (and every other Flash animation studio) use GRAPHIC symbols and these pose no problems at all when exported.
We don't use Director MX 2004 at all. ML production uses Adobe After Effects. From the FLA --> we export/publish a Flash version 5 SWF --> import to Adobe After Effects --> Render to QUICKTIME for AVID. Sound files are exported separately; so in the end we have four files for each scene:
the FLA file
the SWF 5 file
the sound file
the rendered QT
Jason: "SWF 5 files are compatible with Adobe After Effects software, and it is an essential part of our QT exporting process. If Flash could incorporate a TRUE quicktime generator the way After FX does, Then that would save us a huge extra step in our production process. AND it would save on cost of Adobe software licences."
The problem with Camera moves and Camera Control. Technically, there really isn't a camera in Flash, and to zoom in and out of a scene, we are really just scaling objects up or down. But what if you could move the camera like you can in US Animation/Toonboom Studio? There, you have a Virtual camera that you can move in 3-d space even though you are working with 2-d artwork. Sort of a Multi plane camera display. Currently, Flash has a real hard time with camera moves that rotate, and the easing in and out controls are VERY primitive.
Problem with Sound Editing. A suggestion for the next version of Flash is to let you slice the sound right on the timeline by setting a key frame. Currently you have to search for the cut by pushing "edit" and finding your cue. Sound controls could be WAY better here. Eddie: Maybe "markers" could be placed on the timeline for editing sound?
Problem with Tweening. Jason: Flash only interpolates/inbetweens LINEAR-ly. What would make Flash powerful is if you could animate using SPLINE curves, like most 3D packages. Better easing in and out capability, by means of a "graph editor" (like in Maya), would make FLASH a more powerful animation tool. IK is another possibility (ie, linking joints together to form a chain of symbols like an hand linked to a fore arm, linked at the elbow, and finally the elbow to the shoulder). There are separate programs for this, but it would be great to have this feature embodied into flash.
Some other suggestions:
the ability to bend gradients of color. Right now the gradients can only go straight across or radial.
Embedding the capablity of Adobe Streamline for cleaning up drawings once they get converted to vectors, would be wonderful.
And for symbol conflicts, it would be nice if Flash would tell you which symbols have been changed or are "conflicted" so you don't have to hunt them down.
Flashers, please feel free to add your two-cents in the Comments below, or email me (and I will fwd. your feedback to Mike).
A new Flash for Animators/Designers is a GOOD thing!
*update: In the comments below are also suggestions from:
Aaron Simpson - Flash Producer, Cartoon Monsoon, WB Animation
Eric Pringle - Flash Director, 'Fosters...', Cartoon Network Burbank
C. McIntyre - Producer, 'Fosters..', Boulder Media, Dublin
Roman Laney - Flash Designer, 'Maggie The Maggot' (& Mucha Lucha), Walt Disney Animation
Rich Ferguson-Hull - Director, 'Harvey Birdman Attorney at Law', Cartoon Network/Turner.
and more...
Posted 9/10/2004 at 6:06 PM - email it
Give eProps or Post a Comment
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32 Comments browse comments: Next › | Last »
(thanks for the heads-up email on this entry, Lili! <3 )
If the folks at Macromedia want any clarification on my notes, they can reach me at peganthyrus at rdwarf dot com.
My first thought here is "YES! It's about @#$% TIME!". Part of my deep and intimate annoyance with Flash comes from the fact that it was awkward, at best, to animate in, and it's only gotten more so with recent releases. I'm really glad to hear that Macromedia is finally interested in some input from the growing number of pro animators who use Flash.
5, aside from its initial crashiness, was mostly a step forward in usability over 4 (though a lot of people tend to prefer 4's color selector in my experience), but 6/MX? I only keep it around to convert FLA files to something 5 can use. You'll see why later. I haven't touched 7/MX2004 yet.
Things I Wish For Every Time I Touch Flash:
- the ability to choose what the default type for a new symbol is; Flash has oscillated between defaulting to 'movie clip' and 'whatever you choose last'. My method of working with video in mind (and probably that of every studio that has ex-Sp黰c?people involved) is to never use movie clips. Ever. It would be nice to just have a switch in the prefs to make it always default to "graphic", so that I don't accidentally have a movie clip lurking somewhere. I wasn't aware of the Flash->FLA->Director->Quicktime fix!
This is a much simpler fix than 'make the video export routines understand movie clips', although I must confess I have visions of using programmatic movie clip effects now - Tinkerbell sparkle-trail generators, simple particle effects, whatever our more coderly-oriented team members can come up with or adapt... at present, movie clips are only for work that will never leave the web, in my book.
- bend symbols? (I know this is heavy lifting in terms of calculation, and may not be something that can be achieved in realtime for a few more generations of processor power.) Something I've wanted for my entire time with Flash. I want my rubber-hose animation! I want to twist and bend and warp stuff without fighting the shape tweens!
(I almost never shape tween. When I do I'm always left with a lingering suspicion that I would've done better in terms of time and blood pressure to do it by hand.)
- I will agree that ease-in/ease-out on motions are a pain. I am to the point where I almost never use a tween in the final animation; I might use one as a start, but I'll drop in some keyframes, move them around, and pretty much control the curve manually.
Maybe some way to have time-weighting handles on motion curves?
Maybe something inspired by the little timing charts you'll see scrawled in the corner of hand-animation keys?
This is as much a user interface problem as a feature-set one.
- Here's a weird one: "On Twos" for tweens. I favor a more hand-tweaked look to my work, and will just move symbols around by hand on every 2nd frame (at 24fps) for an effective 12fps. It's a common practice going back to the early days of animation. But when I do want to throw a tween against this, I either have to go in and hand-tweak everything onto ones (every frame a keyframe), or convert the tween to keyframes and throw away every other one, otherwise it Looks Weird. I'd like to just have a switch I could throw for this and keep it a tween. (Or a slider to tweak: maybe I might want a tween to run on fours, or tens...)
- Get rid of that 'contextual information panel', or make it an option and bring back the old, separate object info/frame info/etc palettes. When doing dialogue synch, my pattern with 5 was to click on a frame, f6 for a keyframe, then go over to the symbol properties palette and put the right number into the 'frame' slot. With 6, I hit f6 and the 'helpful contextual input panel' displays info on the current frame; I then have to go click on the object I want to keyframe, and then in the symbol properties palette. It doesn't sound like much, but I find this extra conceptual step and extra mouse mileage really adds up. It's the major reason I stick to 5 when I do freelance. (That, and 6 runs horribly on my Mac, but I admit that I need more RAM in it.)
- Sound issues: Synch is always a problem. Anything over about three minutes or so seems to drift for me, no matter what, with discrepancy between what the editor thinks will be played at a particular frame and what you get when playing as a FLA or exporting to video. This is mostly a problem in web production; I have a file that demonstrates this reliably, if I can get clearance from Cartoon Network and Sp黰c?to share it. And other attacks on it that display the same problem in different ways.
Most TV production I've been involved with is done with the scenes as separate FLAs, or with several related scenes. Usually no more than a minute or two. Each gets exported as video, then assembled in a video editor. Usually with the final audio mix happening here. Assembling into one massive Flash file is fraught with symbol conflicts, instabilities with large files, and synch-drift issues.
- Definite agreement on the 'let's slice sound with a new keyframe' idea mentioned in the main entry. If I have a 20-frame sound in the timeline and make a new keyframe on the frame 10 of it, this new keyframe should have the sound starting right on the 10th frame - I should be able to play it back without any change in the audio from before I made that keyframe.
- Also, how about the volume envelope being available on the timeline? It's impossible to do any kind of quick and dirty volume tweaks with the current method.
- Non-circular line caps. Sometimes you just need that straight, flat edge. This is not a big issue. Just a little throwaway.
- A way to mark a timeline as 'drop frames to keep up'. We live and breathe by our timing, and not being able to rely on our tools to deliver rock-steady timing is a constant source of stress. Current practice (which I can claim to be one of the simultaneous discoverers of - I know the folks at Renegade figured it out for 'Elmo' around the same time I worked it out for 'WPH') is to have a layer in the timeline that contains nothing but a many-times-looped sample of silence, set to 'stream', which forces Flash to drop frames in playback; otherwise timing is highly dependant on how complex a frame is to draw, and varies widely with the power of the machine you're editing and playing on... and the video you output has completely wrong timing. It'd be nice to be able to just say we care more about the motion and precise timing than the individual drawings. Bonus points to be able to mark a particular drawing as Important if the rendering is going slow - show THIS one instead of the ones nearby, if things're too slow to show them all - and for the ability to choose a default 'try to play all frames/try to show precise timing' for all new files/scenes.
other timing-tweak suggestions: new timing-over-features view-modes in the editor? turn off transparency? ignore Actionscript (um, I think that may already be a menu choice - must check)? etc. There's a suggestion in the back of my mind, but it's not coming to words.
May I suggest sending some observers to willing animation studios with a video tape recorder and just... watching? Encourage us to curse. I'm sure there are things that drive us crazy that I can't think of offhand. Things we've learnt to unconsciously work around that we just don't think about any more, when some simple interface fix could save us a lot of work.
Or even start up a small production company in-house. This is why I was very interested in investigating Creature House's "Living Cels" as a possible replacement for Flash; they did some animation, and the feature set of the tool was being developed as a direct dialogue between animators and programmers. Unfortunately Microsoft ate them up.
Maybe doing a little light TV contract work, maybe doing some personal films as a way of testing/critiquing the program's evolution that I don't have the sense you've had before. (I'm moving to San Francisco and don't have anything long-term lined up yet, if this idea intruigues Macromedia. I wouldn't say no to a year or two as a high-end in-house Flash abuser, especially if I got some personal work out of it!)
Posted 9/8/2004 at 1:36 PM by EgyptUrnash
Gee, that was longer than I expected it to be. o.O;
Posted 9/8/2004 at 1:38 PM by EgyptUrnash
beyond the suggestions already listed, here's....
?/P> ADDITIONS AND CHANGES I'D LIKE TO SEE IN THE NEXT FLASH VERSION
?/P> Pen tool doesn't work while 'editing in place' - often times when an animator is diving deep into layers and nested symbols in a scene, the pen tool doesn't work.?From what I抳e heard it's because the image has been altered or flipped, and the remedy is to right-click (PC) and 'edit' as opposed to 'edit in place,' but that process takes the artist out of the scene and off track.
?/P> Infinite zoom - if a graphic has been scaled on the timeline to a much smaller scale than it's original rendering, the zoom tool often doesn't allow the artist to go further in.
?/P> Locking graphics - this would help greatly in the case of character models.?Our crews often run into the problem of multiple versions of models that have been altered in the process of animation.?Not sure exactly how this would work - whether it would be password protect or a simple 'click' to lock and unlock. The later might make more sense.
?/P> More elaborate masking capability - masks currently have to be a single symbol, and it would be nice if masks could be made of multiple symbols.
?/P> jpg rippling - JPGs tend to ripple and distort when moved on the stage
?/P> More brush options - more photoshop-esqe brushes, like texture brushes and sponges, and the ability to import bmp designs that are turned into brush shapes
?/P> Control over爐weens - tween on the 2's would be a big help in taking out the overly-smooth feel of certain tweens.
?/P> Contrast - ability to manipulate contrast (and brightness on the same palette) on graphics and other symbols
?/P> Global color - the ability to build global color lists for various characters would greatly speed up any global color changes.
?/P> Flash MX & 2004 importing issues - both of these versions (PC) seem to have difficulty importing illustrator (.ai) files, and often drop points in the process.?We often use Flash 5 instead for this task.
?/P> Transparency of layered symbols - when a graphic consists of many layered symbols, and the opacity is lowered, the layering of the symbol is revealed.?For instance, if a character is a complicated 'puppet' model of a ghost, and we wanted the ghost to be opaque, we would have to do this in post, outside of flash, or the structure of the model would be revealed.
?/P> ?/P> ?/P> PIE-IN-THE-SKY REQUESTS
?/P> 3D extrude and rotate tools - not unlike the Kai power tool package for illustrator
?/P> Brush tricks - the illustrator brush tool tricks that have developed over the last few years are exceptionally cool.?Helps with animating a single image in a very dynamic way.?Can take a static flag design and warp it to create a waving flag.
?/P> FX - a stronger blur tool (rack focus & whatnot), ripple glass, glows, a stronger drop-shadow tool,
?/P> Parenting/IK - seen this option in other vector animation offerings, and not sure if it's worth the trouble, but would be something fun to play with
?/P> Play in reverse - playing frames in reverse can currently be achieved with the 'reverse frames' button, but it would be very useful if a multiple-frame graphic could be flagged to play in reverse from a certain frame.?This would help with cycles and other re-use options.
?/P> ?/P> AARON SIMPSON
Warner Bros. Animation
Producer - Animatics
?/P> ?/P>
Posted 9/8/2004 at 2:55 PM by aasimpy
Hi Lili,
Great opportunity here so I couldn't help but put my bit in.
I would love Flash to have a rotatable work space to make it a bit more "wrist friendly".
BTW, Happy Birthday Eddie!
Cheers,
Mic
Posted 9/8/2004 at 3:49 PM by mrdunn
Great feedback, folks. We have a VERY tight schedule for the next release, but we'll cetainly try to do as much of this as possible.
Also, to clarify, the next release (8ball) won't be *just* for pro TV animators, rather the key focus will be on animators and multimedia designers. I don't want to mislead you into thinking that we are creating a special version of Flash just for pro TV animation. Believe me, I wish the TV animation market were big enough to target a full release towards.
We have been visiting with and talking to pro animators and designers from all around the world while building a spec for 8ball and we think we've defined a great product that should make all of you very happy. Please keep the feedback coming as we're still early in feature development.
Thanks,
MD
--------------------------------
Mike Downey
Technical Product Manager, Flash
mdowney@macromedia.com
Posted 9/8/2004 at 10:31 PM by mdowney
There's not much more I can add that already hasn't been said, so here I go:
-Bring back the Flash 5 interface where you can have the instance panel open at the same time as the motion tween panel.
-Bring back the old undo, need I say more about that
-Do not have the right-click create motion tween default on sync and snap.
-Often on 'Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends' the files get really slow when we have characters with instance buried in instance buried in instance and so on.?I understand it's not the program itself but the complexity of the character's setup.?But it would be nice if Flash had a little more power to support the complex setups.
-When there is a ease set on the motion tween it would be a lot cooler if when a keyframe is set between the tween that the keyframe doesn't set the ease back to zero.
-Make the shape tweens a little more intelligent much more like the Blend tool in Adobe Illustrator.
I don't really care for the 3-d or camera junk, or tweens animating on archs, I don't want to let the computer do everything for me.?However it would be nice if flash did also have the same kind of capabilities that adobe illustrator offers ie. the brush libraries.?And some better sound editing capabilities would be nice.?Please don't get overwhelmed and change the program entirely because I, and I'm sure many others, can get around the current version of Flash (with the help of other programs) without too much trouble.
Thanks for your time,
Eric Pringle
Cartoon Network
"Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends" -Flash Director
Posted 9/9/2004 at 11:40 AM by Pringle_Chips
NTSC safe color palatte
Posted 9/9/2004 at 11:46 AM by ameza
I'm glad I'm not the only one who misses the separate instance/frame/etc palettes, Pringle - I actually miss it enough that I convert things to Flash 5 when I do freelance.
And to think I used to laugh at Photoshop people who stuck with a three-years-back version! The only thing you lose is layer folders and running native under OSX (if you're on Macs), and since I still have the many-symbols-on-one-layer, few tweens, habits left from "Booty Call", that's not a big deal when it makes the rest of the work feel 10x faster.
(This is Paul, by the way. Hi. Haven't seen you since Nebulous - glad to see you're doing well!)
Posted 9/9/2004 at 2:41 PM by EgyptUrnash
Simple things really: Separate outline colours for symbols and groups. It's so annoying when you realise you've just tweened a group and you have to go back and reset your keyframes.
When you come out of a symbol and then hit undo I'd prefer if it would bring you back to edit in place rather than switching to edit mode.
Just by selecting things new points are added. No thanks.
The envelope tool needs oodles of work done to it. Things are constantly disappearing when I'm trying to work with it, unless I distribute to layers.
Distribute to layers - it could be an Adobe illustrator thing, but I've frequently imported graphics that bring up 1000's of empty layers when I click distribute to layers. It's very time consuming to get rid of them all.
Sometimes flash crashes when all you've done is hit undo after inserting a keyframe. That should not happen.
I'll ask around and get some more.
C McIntyre
Posted 9/10/2004 at 4:18 AM by cathmci
Guys, no matter what, you've GOT to fix the audio sync problem.
AND
You have to fix that frame limitation! I don't even understand why Flash HAS a frame limitation! But it prevents me from having a 30fps FLA over 8 minutes, and that's jacked up. FIX THIS. I'm not a TV animator like them but I like to produce stuff for the web that's LONG, and I am getting sick of having to rig together multiple SWFs. This problem has existed since Flash has existed and it's got to stop.
Posted 9/10/2004 at 7:48 AM by HSMattWilson
These are the suggestions, in no particular order, from Boulder Media in Dublin ?Producers of Foster抯 Home For Imaginary Friends:
When a symbol is skewed and all you want to do is rotate a symbol that抯 inside it, it shouldn抰 start skewing itself. It抯 such a waste of time to rotate, skew back to the original shape, rotate again etc.
Change the naming of ease in抯 and ease out抯 to the correct animation terms. E.g. ease in = slo out
The ability to flatten layers as in Photoshop would be great
It抯 been said before, but it抯 very important that when a symbol is flipped, you should still be able to paint inside it.
When double clicking into a symbol, you should enter on the same keyframe as in Flash 5
When importing a swf into a new fla it would be good to keep the original symbol names
Change the masking technique so that you cover up what you don抰 want to be seen; and, if possible, have both options ?covering what you see, and covering what you don抰 see.
The ability to alter the properties of multiple layers all at once, i.e. turning several layers in to guides.
A 揷reate shape tween?option in the right click menu would be super, and the ability to assign a shortcut key to both.
The ability to change properties on motion tweens and shape tweens at the same time, instead of separately.
You should be able to use keyboard shortcuts no matter what window you抮e in. For example: if I抳e typed in the transform box and pressed enter, I抎 want my keyboard shortcuts reactivated, rather than clicking back onto the stage before I can change tool.
When a symbol抯 alpha is lowered, the symbol抯 separate parts become transparent separately. It would be better if it was possible to turn down the alpha as if it were a solid shape.
Instead of turning off a mask and then turning the layer that was masked into a guide layer, it would be great if we could turn the masked layer into a guide layer directly
Easings should be more sensitive. The graph suggested earlier is a good idea.
An option for changing all layer outlines to one colour. Also, the yellow, grey, black, light blue etc. outlines are usually difficult to see. They can be dropped. We抎 prefer the option of putting them in ourselves if needed, but generally they抮e a nuisance when they turn up as default.
Labels for custom colours would be good.
The option to save a palette to import it later.
The old undo option was better, as in flash 5. and the inclusion of a history panel for symbols.
That抯 all we have for the moment. If we come up with any more we will post them too. Hopefully you抣l be able to take at least some of our suggestions on board.
?/P> C. McIntyre
Posted 9/10/2004 at 10:22 AM by cathmci
I have a few ideas. I am heavilly on the design side of Flash, so nothing I have to say involves animation...
It seems that you guys need to make a decision... are you gonna try and have the kind of strong design tools that are available in Adobe Illustrator ( robust bezier tools, brush assignment to lines, etc.) ... or are you gonna make importing Adobe Illustrator files seemless... where colors and shapes are IDENTICAL when brought into Flash. I have no preference... but having neither is frustrating.
I would also like to see more ability to manipulate colors. Not tinting whole symbols, but altering the artwork's actual colors similar to how old bitmap programs would work... where you could replace a certain color, and every occurance of a color, with another color. And giving us the option of doing it throughout an entire .fla too would be cool... where we could create different time of day palletes for characters and even locations. I often have to take things into Photoshop as Raster art, play with the saturation and hue there... then re-import it into Flash and color pick the new colors... too many steps!
I hate that the "lock" is default... every file I've ever opened I've had to unclick that little button... waste of time...
Similar to what I was saying about Illustrator, Flash needs more robust vector tools. Complicated objects dissapear on me constantly when broken apart, or converted to lines... I have work arounds... but for my limited understanding, it's just because there are a lot of points very close together which define the shape, and when they are asked to solve themselves for optimization... they freak out and break. Illustrator does not do this. You can have a storm of points all on top of each other and Illustrator can figure out the shape and not freak. This would be a welcome fix.
Along with this, it would be great if the line tool had different ends. The current rounded tip is functional, but I am constantly converting it to a fill and then having to sharpen and taper the ends... if there were other options on how the line tool ended, that could be really great and save me from spending a ton of time "nubbin-killing"
Optimization for the Mac would be nice. There is no processor excuse for why Flash runs faster on PC than Macs...
Alright, I'm sure there is more, but if you even did half of all these great suggestions... you make a wizzened Flash artist very happy.
Roman Laney
Walt Disney TV Animation
Posted 9/10/2004 at 11:17 AM by rlaney
Here are some additional suggestions that the Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law crew came up with that aren't mentioned above (well, we're also re-listing ones that are important to us):
New:
?The ability to select lines of a certain weight across an entire shot and globally change that weight.
?Setting in and out points in the timeline for rendering (i.e., not having to render the entire file if you only want a small portion of it)
昑he ability to define multiple layers at once (Setting 2 or more layers simultaneously to guide, mask, etc. We frequently use the 'guide' setting as a workaround to indicate layers that shouldn't render, like reference images and movies).
?Fix the issue that when you try to scale a symbol up (via the tranfrom dialog box) past the visible work area, it messes up the proportion.
?When editing in place, being put at the same frame displayed on the timeline, instead of defaulting you to frame 1. Ex: Frame 498 is displayed on the timeline, double-click into the symbol and be on frame 498 inside the symbol.
?Two possible fixes with the keyboard zoom (Ctrl + or -). When in a symbol zooming out is fine, but when zooming in it will only zoom to the designated center point of the symbol. Even more annoying is when you're in a group, once again the zoom out works fine, but the zoom in will pop you to the upper left hand corner of the frame. If it is possible to fix it so that the Ctrl + works the same way in the symbols and groups as out in the scene, that would be great.
?The ability to swipe paint bucket through multiple shapes to color them all at once, but not changing an already existing painted shape (This is similar to the 'Paint Unpainted' tool in USAnimation/Toonboom Studio).
昑he ability to find and replace colors in a group (currently the find and replace ignores colors within groups).
?In the properties inspector for a symbol, ability to see more than just 2 digits where you type in the 'First:' frame number
?Ability to use the same shape hints over all keyframes?not having to set a new bunch with every key frame
And while we're asking....
?Better sensitivity with the brush tool, more like Photoshop. Even possibly having varied opacity with a brush.
?Animatable line weight over time.
?Filters for lines like noise, etc.
?A more robust render engine that could handle a large render (up to a five thousand frame) without stalling out
Already mentioned but things we'd really appreciate:
?Rotating work surface. The Toon Boom platform rotates in small (10 degree?) increments, which captures the essence of turning the old animation disc very well.
?The addition of a camera.
?More complex motion path controls, including eases in and out on the same path.
?Better sound editing capability, especially being able to cut the audio layer and not lose the edit point.
?Ability to have various, not-circular ends of ink lines, especially tapered ones.
?Similar performance from Macs to PCs.
There are a lot of good general notes posted above, and it's interesting to see how many issues are common to every post. Even if we saw half of these additions/fixes implemented, it would make our lives easier (but here's hoping for all).
Rich Ferguson-Hull
Cartoon Network/Turner Studios
Posted 9/10/2004 at 12:17 PM by Zardo
This is exciting news! Flash is already a great tool, but there are a few things that would make it much more powerful and user-friendly. The following are my personal suggestions- mostly related to animation. We use MX 2004 on the Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi Show- Ill ask around and see if we can come up with additional suggestions for a later post.
First off, PLEASE undo the undo function of MX 2004 and return it to the powerful, intuitive tool it once was in previous versions. I dont know anyone in our studio who is happy with the redesign. Its pretty much useless and disorienting past a couple of moves. The old undo worked perfectly and was VERY powerful, with individual undos within each layer of nested animation. I used to be able to test multiple parameters on different nested layers concurrently, knowing I could undo things independently in each layer at any time. This was great for experimental FX animation....
A Maya-style graph editor would be fantastic, with the ability to edit individual parameters. This would make organic or eccentric movements much easier to create and edit. The graph editor would also cover another suggestion... which is to have greater flexibility and control in eases. That includes everything from making scaling independent of movement on tweens, to the ability to do more extreme easing without having to employ a time consuming "cheat" method.
More control over sound clips right on the timeline.
A variety of bug fixes, like the inability to paint in flipped symbols, or the sluggish response (and sometime program crashes) when undoing keyframes in complex, nested animations.
Better usage of screen real estate. For example, the Properties toolbar in MX 2004 has plenty of empty space when docked in most locations, but it frequently cuts longer names short, even though theres plenty of empty area within the box. Unfortunately it can also display only 2 digits of a frame assignment, which creates all sorts of problems (you have to scroll through with the arrow keys to see whats hidden- and there is no way to tell if your frame assignment is 11, 111, 1111, or 11111, for example.
Animators at our studio almost never use the shape tween tool because it rarely follows the most obvious tween path, and often creates bizarre solutions to seemingly simple shape tweens. Animators on TV productions timelines rarely have time to use elaborate, time consuming shape hints.
A pie-in-the-sky suggestion would be to include a deformation tool similar to Photoshop's Liquify. I can think of plenty of uses.....
My dual G5 is very fast a just about everything EXCEPT Flash. Why is the Mac version so much slower than the PC version?
A few of these suggestions have been mentioned earlier, but I hope similar postings from multiple users will increase the chances of some of these improvements being implemented.
Im looking forward to this next release of Flash. Its a good sign that Macromedia is willing to listen to suggestions from artists using their programs.
T Szabo
Animator,
Renegade Animation
Posted 9/11/2004 at 3:37 AM by VectorManipulator
Wow! You guys are great! Thanks for taking so much time to articulate your feedback. This has all been circulated around the Flash team for review.
Now comes the fun part. We have to prioritize these things and try to fit them into our ever-shrinking development schedule. In fact, as you continue to post feedback, please post the version of Flash you currently use, platform, and please prioritize your feature requests (if possible) in order to help us out.
Thanks again. This is great.
Cheers,
MD
--------------------------------
Mike Downey
Technical Product Manager, Flash
mdowney@macromedia.com
Posted 9/11/2004 at 8:13 AM by mdowney
First, PLEASE consider the previously suggested CAMERA.
Then, just a pie in the sky thing.. it'd be nice to get some motion blur or general blur/focus options. That's one thing that Adobe After Effects has over Flash, from my perspective.
And if you can fix the Stream audio sync or frame limitation, that would sell the product for me, I think.
Posted 9/11/2004 at 1:06 PM by HSMattWilson
well "tight dealine" aside I would much rather have you guys take your time to do things right, rather than released another rushed and unpolished version.
1. Non Linear Editing of SWF files.
The ability to import SWF "clips" and edit, composit, retime, transition, in much the same way video clips can be edited in After efects. And be able to export finished product in native swf vector format, from there.
2. Particle System Support. The ability to attach symbols to aparticles system and create effecs like snow, leaves in the winds, smoke, etc...give the canon a series of propperties, like gravity, time to live, wind, direction, velocity, spread, etc...
3. Dynamic and programatic effect export for video.
What good is being able to generate beautifull effects using action script if they can actually be used in production work.
4. Wall, Obstruction, and Friction system.... Much like the motion guide layers, you could set up a layer where objects you draw act as obstructions. Say I animate a ball from one side of the stage to the other. I can place an obstruction layer and draw a rectangle in the way of the two keys. This would cause the ball to have to go around the box in order to reach the second key.
5. Timecoding/Timestamping...I dont really think I need to explain this too much, but it involves hours:minutes:seconds:frames
6. Fix the freaking terminology. The colums are the frames, the rows are the layers, and the intercection of the two are NOT frames, they are "CELLS". Inserting a key frame is not "inserting anything, but rather "duplicating" the previous "cell". "Insert Frame" does not insert anything, but rather it "extends the exposure" of the previous "cell".
Posted 9/13/2004 at 10:57 AM by cinestar
oh yeah...
7. Fix the frellin' terminology.
The colums in thetime line are the "frames". The rows are the "layers". The interception btween a row and a colum is called a "cell".... "Insert Keyframe" is inacurate because you are NOT inserting a frame. You are merely duplicating the contents of the pervious "cell". "Insert Frame" is also misnamed, because again, you are not inserting a frame, but rather "extending the exposure" of the previous cell.
Posted 9/13/2004 at 11:14 AM by cinestar
Hey everyone...the feedback is great. Unfortunately terms like "Fix the freaking terminology" do no-one any good.
Macromedia are going out of their way to improve their products, by way of this dialogue. Please let's keep it professional. -Eddie
Posted 9/13/2004 at 11:46 AM by fwak
I'm very excited to hear that Macromedia has finally realized the need to focus on Flash as an animation tool. I've been sticking with Flash 4 (!) because the various benefits of later versions have always been balanced out by drawbacks. Most of the comments cover anything I can think of right now... Anything that improves the drawing and line control capabilities top my wish list... This might lead to the first new version I will actually look forward to!
xeth feinberg
mishmashmedia.com
Posted 9/13/2004 at 12:35 PM by xeth
all these suggestions are spot-on! Let me add:
being able to crop/enlarge the canvas stage from it's center point as opposed to just the right and bottom sides. Then we won't have to use edit multiple frames to adjust the animation to reflect the new stage size.
Posted 9/13/2004 at 2:14 PM by mudbubble
speed up the Mac version....pleeeeez!!!
Posted 9/14/2004 at 12:44 PM by jbach2
enlarge the Search & replace dialog so the path to the script is visible
Posted 9/14/2004 at 12:46 PM by jbach2
Muddbubble... the complete and total anihalation of the stage would solve a lot of problems. Having simply the work area and a separate camera system would be the ideal approach. Adding features to the "stage" would imply that you want to keep the stage, and if that happens we would continue to be limmited by the confines of the stage.
Posted 9/14/2004 at 1:48 PM by cinestar
It'd be pretty awesome if movie clips actually worked in video/picsequence export's... Also, if the importing of png's actually worked... ie. not fill the background, that'd be pretty awesome. It'd be pretty cool if the distort tool actually worked on graphics/movie clips.
Posted 9/14/2004 at 3:08 PM by fiddlestick123
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