Tag Archives: Flash Artist

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Adobe Animate 2015 Manage Extensions Utility

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Screenshot 2016-05-31 14.32.07

Adobe Animate brings new features but some challenges when installing extensions. The old way of adding features was to use the Adobe Extensions Manager and install extensions that way, but with Adobe Creative Cloud they’ve done away with that and the Extensions Manager no longer exists. This creates a bit of a problem for classic Flash users because the new Adobe Store unfortunately does not have all the useful tools Flash developers have created over the years and so when you find an great extension you’re unable to install it unless you find it in the Adobe Add Ons store. Well, the developers at Adobe that work on Animate have your back in the form of a stand alone application to allow you install those older extensions. Enter the Manage Extensions Utility which allows you to manually install extensions not in the Add On Store. Simply double click the program, navigate to the Install An Extension button, find the extension you wish to install and double click it. The program will install the extension. You can also set it to install a whole folder full of extensions at one time. Easy Peasy!

 

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Flash Professional CC 2015 New features summary

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The 2015 release of Adobe® Flash Professional® CC reintroduces the IK bone tool that enables you to create bone armatures using symbols or shapes that can be easily turned into life-like animation. The release also comes with H.264 video import, universal document type converter, integration with the latest Flash Player and AIR SDK, and many more enhancements. Continue reading for a quick introduction to new features available with the latest update to Flash Professional CC, and links to other resources that provide more information.

Adobe Flash Professional CC 2015 release provides you capabilities to create great cartoon characters with life-like movements using the new bone tool, convert your projects to any document type using the universal document type converter, import H.264 videos, work with the latest Flash Player and AIR SDK, and many more cool capabilities that help you to take your graphics and animation projects to the next level.

Adobe Flash Professional CC 2015 Release

Bone tool

New in Flash Professional CC 2015

The Flash Professional CC 2015 Release offers you the capability to lend life-like movements to your animation characters using the all-new bone tool.

The bone tool gives you inverse kinematics (IK) capabilities within Flash. IK is a way of animating objects using bones chained into linear or branched armatures in parent-child relationships. When one bone moves, connected bones move in relation to it. Inverse kinematics lets you easily create natural motion. To animate using inverse kinematics, specify the start and end positions of bones on the Timeline. Flash automatically interpolates the positions of the bones in the armature between the starting and ending frames.

You can use IK in the following ways:

  • By using a shape as a container for multiple bones. For example, you can add bones to a drawing of a snake so that it slithers realistically. You can draw these shapes in Object Drawing mode.
  • By chaining symbol instances. For example, you can link movie clips showing a torso, arm, lower arm, and hand so that they move realistically in relation to each other. Each instance has only one bone.

Bone tool comes with on-stage controls to ensure greater precision in movements. The onstage controls allows you to switch between Locked, Open, and Constrained states for Rotation and Translation properties of individual bones in the IK armature. You can now directly adjust these constraints on stage with accuracy using clear visual feedback.

On-stage controls for the bone tool


For more information on using the bone tool, see Bone Tool Animation

Import H.264 videos with audio

New in Flash Professional CC 2015

In addition to FLV videos, this release also introduces an option to embed H.264 videos in the timeline. When an H.264 video is embedded, the frames of the video are rendered on the stage when you scrub the timeline. This feature enables you to use videos as a guide to synchronize your animation on stage. Since the Flash Player and other run-times do not support rendering embedded H.264 videos, they are not published. Importing H.264 videos is a design-time-only feature.

Audio playback is enabled for H.264 videos. You can now select the ‘Include audio’ option while importing H.264 videos. Once imported to the stage (with ‘place instance on stage’ option selected), scrubbing the timeline must play the audio for the relevant frames. Playing the timeline (Enter) must play back the animation at the fps of the imported video so that the audio is in sync with the video frames on stage.

To learn more about importing H.264 videos, see Add videos to Flash.

To import video:

Click File > Import > Import Video and select the Embed H.264 video in the timeline  (design time only – the video cannot be exported) option as shown in the following image:

For more information about using audio, see Using sounds in Flash.

Export bitmaps as spritesheet for HTML5 Canvas

New in Flash Professional CC 2015

Export sprite sheet as bitmap allows you to pack all the bitmaps in canvas document in to a sprite sheet. A new Export the Bitmap as Sprite Sheet check box has been added and enabled by default. You can specify the maximum size of the sprite sheet by giving the height and width values in the publish settings. This enhancement reduces the number of server requests, which in turn results in improved performance.

For more information about this feature, see Creating and publishing HTML5 Canvas documents.

Brush scaling with stage zoom

With this release, Flash Professional scales the brush size proportionately to the changing zoom level of the stage. Proportionate zooming allows you to draw seamlessly adjusting to any zoom level and preview your work as you draw. If you want to revert to the earlier default behavior of brushes maintaining a constant pixel size even when you change the zoom level of the stage, you must disable the ‘Stage zoom level’ checkbox in the brush Property Inspector.

A. Increase/decrease brush size B. Brush size preview C. Option to scale brush size according to the zoom level of the stage 

For more information about this feature, see Custom brushes.

Universal document type converter

New in Flash Professional CC 2015

The universal document type converter enables conversion of your existing FLA projects (of any type) to any other document type such as HTML5 Canvas or WebGL.

To use this feature, click Commands > Convert to Other Document Formats and then select the target document type and specify the path of the converted file.

To learn more about universal document type converter, see Convert to other document types.

Improved audio workflows

New in Flash Professional CC 2015

Enhanced import workflow

In earlier versions of Flash Pro, you had to import the audio file in to the library and then add it to a layer on the timeline. In this release, you can directly import audio in to your stage/timeline by dragging and dropping the file to a layer or by using the File > Import > Import to Stage option.

Split Audio option in context menu

The stream audio embedded on the timeline can be split at ease using the Split Audio context menu. Split Audio enables you to pause the audio when it is necessary and then resume the audio playback from the point it was stopped at a later frame on the timeline.

Remember audio sync options in PI

Flash Pro now remembers the sync options in property inspector. If a sound is selected from the “Sound” section of the Property Inspector, then on trying to set another sound on a new keyframe from the Property Inspector, Flash remembers the sync options “Stream” or “Event” of the previous sound.

To learn more about audio in Flash, see Using sounds in Flash.

Improved Motion Editor

New in Flash Professional CC 2015

The Paste functionality has been enhanced as follows:

  • Paste: Until the 2014.1 release, when you copy a curve in the Motion Editor and use the Paste option to paste it in a new range, it pastes within the current curve’s range and not with absolute values. In this release, the Paste option pastes the curve with absolute values.
  • Paste to fit current range: This option now replicates the old Paste operation and pastes the curve within the current curve’s range and not with absolute values.

To learn more about Motion Editor, see Editing Motion Tweens using Motion Editor.

Panel locking

A new option, Lock/Unlock, has been added to the fly-out menu of the panels to lock the dock. Once a dock is locked, all the panels in the dock can be resized, but cannot be moved. This feature helps you prevent accidental drag and resize of panels.

Code snippet support for WebGL

From this release, code snippets are available for some commonly used actions in the WebGL document type.

Note: This enhancement is available only in the English language version.

Enhancements in Custom Platform Support SDK

This release includes the following enhancements to Custom Platform Support SDK and the sample plug-in:

  • Ability to query the type of a library symbol: ILibraryItem::GetProperties() returns an additional key “SymbolType” for symbols. The value of key can be “Button,” “MovieClip,” or “Graphic.”
  • Ability to distinguish between button and movie-clip: Until the previous release, the button instances were treated as movie clips by both the DOM and the IFrameCommandGenerator service. Starting with Flash Pro CC 2015, an interface has been added to support button instances. If the IMovieClip instance also implements the IButton interface, then it can be treated as a button instance. The four states of a button namely, Up, Over, Down, and Hit are always mapped to the frames 0, 1, 2, and 3 respectively. See the file IButton.h to know more about the button instance.
  • New API to get the bounds of IClassicText objects: The AddClassicText function in ITimelineBuilder interface now returns an object of CLASSIC_TEXT_INFO_2 (instead of the old CLASSIC_TEXT_INFO), which contains a new field “bounds” representing the bounds of the IClassicText object.

To learn about Custom Platform Support APIs, see Custom Platform Support API reference.

Integration of latest Flash Player and AIR SDK

This release comes to you with the Flash Player version 17.0 and AIR SDK 17.0 integrated.

Integration of latest CreateJS libraries

This release of Flash Professional comes with the latest CreateJS libraries integrated.

Since the latest libraries are not yet hosted via CDN, clear the Hosted LIbraries checkbox under the Advanced section of the Publish Settings dialog box (Edit > Publish Settings > Advanced) to see the output.

Other enhancements

New in Flash Professional CC 2015

Save optimizations

This release comes with the following Save optimizations:

  • Save algorithm optimization resulting in faster saving of FLA
  • File corruption issues while saving files over the network are now resolved

Auto-recovery optimizations

The following auto-recovery enhancements are part of this release:

  • Flash Professional does not create unnecessary auto-recovery files. An auto-recovery file is created only if the document is modified after the last auto-recovery files were created.
  • Progress bar is displayed only when the Flash Pro application is in focus.
  • Auto-recovery file is removed only after completing a successful save operation.

The following auto-recovery changes help you avoid continuous loop of auto-recovery for short auto-recovery duration:

  • At each auto-recovery interval,  snapshot for all files modified after last auto-recovery are created.
  • Next auto recovery timer is started only after this process is completed.

To learn more about auto-recovery options in Flash, see Set preferences in Flash.

Organize imported GIFs in library

This enhancement allows you to import Animated GIF files in a more organized way so that you can keep your library in proper order. In previous releases, the imported GIF assets were placed in the library root folder without proper naming. In this release, a folder with the GIF filename is created and all the associated bitmaps are organized under it. As shown in the following image, the bitmaps are now named appropriately based on their sequence.

To learn more about organizing your library, see Working with the library.

In this release, the library search panel has been enhanced to include searching for symbols by ActionScript linkage names in addition to searching by symbol names.

To learn more about searching your library, see Working with the library.

Invert selection

This new option in the Edit menu and the Stage context menu inverts the selection of currently selected objects or shapes on the stage.

Paste and overwrite frames

New in Flash Professional CC 2015

The new ‘Paste and Overwrite Frames’ timeline context menu option enables you to paste the copied frames by replacing the exact number of frames without pushing the frames forward. This replaces the existing way of selecting the exact number of frames which you want to replace with the same number of copied frames. For example, if you want to copy ten frames from a timeline and replace the exact number of frames in another timeline, copy the ten frames and use the Paste and Overwrite Frames frames to paste it at the starting frame-the next ten frames are overwritten with the copied frames.

To learn more about the Paste options, see Classic Tween animation.

Reset timeline zoom to the default level

You can now reset the timeline zoom to the default level with one click as shown in the image.

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Noah Cawein

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What is your name and your current occupation?
Freelance Flash Artist / Animator.

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
I was a simultaneously a corporate mascot and an actuary.  I mean, I didn’t sit at a desk in the mascot gear while crunching numbers, but I would periodically leave the desk, don the apparel, entertain people with my corporate mascot-y antics, then take off the costume and go back to the desk.

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
How did you become interested in animation? I’ve been a cartoon nut ever since I was a little kid.  When I was young I wanted to make video games as well.  It’s pretty much been in my blood since I was little.

Where are you from and how did you get into the animation business?
I grew up in Memphis, TN, and though I wanted to do fun things as a kid, eventually Continue reading
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Maeve McGrath

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What is your name and your current occupation?

Maeve McGrath, Flash artist and animator
What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
Worked at a pet store and helped hatch lizards and baby birds, fed mice to snakes.

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
The Simpsons Movie, Neopets the startup…

How did you become interested in animation?

Ever since I watched my first cartoon as a kid, I have been interested…I created my own comic books based on the smurfs. They are pretty bad, but when I was little I thought they were awesome…

Where are you from and how did you get into the animation business?

I grew up all over the world.  Lived in Papua New Guinea and Burma, among other places… I found myself in Continue reading