A new FLASH for Animators? Finally! After three seasons of…

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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 6:06 PM - 2347 Views - 92 eProps - 91 comments

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These are the suggestions, in no particular order, from Boulder Media in Dublin – Producers of Foster’s Home For Imaginary Friends:

When a symbol is skewed and all you want to do is rotate a symbol that’s inside it, it shouldn’t start skewing itself. It’s such a waste of time to rotate, skew back to the original shape, rotate again etc.

Change the naming of ease in’s and ease out’s to the correct animation terms. E.g. ease in = slo out

The ability to flatten layers as in Photoshop would be great

It’s been said before, but it’s 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’t want to be seen; and, if possible, have both options – covering what you see, and covering what you don’t see.

The ability to alter the properties of multiple layers all at once, i.e. turning several layers in to guides.

A “create 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’re in. For example: if I’ve typed in the transform box and pressed enter, I’d want my keyboard shortcuts reactivated, rather than clicking back onto the stage before I can change tool.

When a symbol’s alpha is lowered, the symbol’s 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’d prefer the option of putting them in ourselves if needed, but generally they’re 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’s all we have for the moment. If we come up with any more we will post them too. Hopefully you’ll be able to take at least some of our suggestions on board.

C. McIntyre

Posted 9/10/2004 10:22 AM by cathmci - - reply

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 11:17 AM by rlaney - - reply

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)

•The 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).

•The 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 12:17 PM by Zardo - - reply

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 3:37 AM by VectorManipulator - - reply

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 8:13 AM by mdowney - - reply

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 1:06 PM by HSMattWilson - - reply

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 10:57 AM by cinestar - - reply

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 11:14 AM by cinestar - - reply

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 11:46 AM by fwak

- - reply

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 12:35 PM by xeth - - reply

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 2:14 PM by mudbubble - - reply

speed up the Mac version....pleeeeez!!!

Posted 9/14/2004 12:44 PM by jbach2 - - reply

enlarge the Search & replace dialog so the path to the script is visible

Posted 9/14/2004 12:46 PM by jbach2 - - reply

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 1:48 PM by cinestar - - reply

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 3:08 PM by fiddlestick123 - - reply

By the way, though this release will be focused on designers/animators, that doesn't mean we're going to completely write of Flash developers. We have ideas in mind for them as well...

And regarding the "tight deadline" I think that refers to our imperative to choose a small number of the right features and enhancements and do them really well, not spread ourselves thin with a huge number of features. Schedules are a reality of the software business, being smart and doing the right features is the key to building a successful product. I totally, and whole-heartedly agree, however, that the next release needs to be super-solid, stable, and high-performance. That is the top theme that our development team is working towards throughout the cycle.

Thanks,
MD

---------------------------------
Mike Downey
Technical Product Manager, Flash
mdowney@macromedia.com

Posted 9/14/2004 11:16 PM by mdowney - - reply

By the way 2, I like the radical thinking in this thread, but I don't think we'll be getting rid of the stage or renaming any existing core concepts like keyframes. If this were a 1.0 product it would be do-able, but in version 8.0 it's extremely risky to change anything. A great example was the decision to change "Undo" in order to introduce the History panel. That was a bad decision. We don't plan on doing anything like that in the next release. We are also looking into bringing back the old undo system. It will likely be a preference (if possible) so we don't interupt yet another workflow.

Cheers,
MD

---------------------------------
Mike Downey
Technical Product Manager, Flash
mdowney@macromedia.com

Posted 9/14/2004 11:19 PM by mdowney - - reply

Like many other animators here, I'm delighted to see macromedia's willingness to gear a release a little more toward animators. I don't use Flash in a studio environment, as most of my work is online and I operate from my home PC. Nonetheless, I do some pretty full-on animation and push Flash as hard as I can in many areas, so like everyone else I have my preferences and things I'd like to see in 8ball.

I have been upgrading with each new version of Flash and I could never go back to the earlier versions for anything. The workflow improvements (interface customizing, etc) are far too valuable for me - I even love the History panel (surprised to hear how much people hate it, frankly). I now get around the interface quicker than in any other version and can put out some classy illustration and animation really quickly.

Because of this I'd hate to see any major adjustments to the core of the interface, but some little fixes or perhaps options I think would be invaluable are:

1. I'm not sure whether or not 8ball is specifically intended to please or placate the animator, but perhaps at the start page of Flash, there would be options to choose your preferred setup... Much like the Designer, Developer choice of Panel Sets in MX. Choose "Animator" and all the options we've been discussing come to the front.

2. Having 12 years experience in animation at Disney's Sydney studio, one thing I've noticed missing from Flash since I first laid wacom on it, is invisible paint. If you could designate a layer as invisible paint (much as you can designate Guide or Mask layers) then it would have an 'inverse mask' effect, where, rather than the mask acting as the window through which you see stuff, invisible paint blocks stuff making it invisible (I hope I've made sense here). At the risk of over-explaining: imagine a character ankle-deep in long grass. You want his feet hidden by the grass, so with invisible paint you can simply paint a small patch of grass that cuts grass-shaped mattes out of his legs. To do this with Flash's current masking, you need to create the reverse of this, i.e. a large block of colour over the character that doesn't cover his feet.

3. I'd like to see a smaller brush-size, either that, or a "detect no pressure" button while the sensitivity button is clicked. Why? I notice that if you click the sensitivity button on, set the brush-smoothing to 0, then draw with the mouse, you get a beautiful thin line, thinner than any I've ever seen. This is simply because when using the mouse, there is no pressure detected so you have the thinnest possible brush line allowing for some really fine detail. You have very poor control over it though, cos you're using the mouse :)

4. I second the earlier suggestion that you can save a colour palette that affects all instances of that colour within the movie. This shouldn't be automatic however.. you should have to save the palette as a global palette before it affects everything in the movie.

5. Finally (there are a few more, but this is getting long), I second the other earlier suggestion that you have colour-naming options. i.e. Palette_003, skin_day, skin_night, shirt_day, shirt_night, etc..

6. oop yeah I'd just like to add my support to the spline curve/graph editor easing thing.. with the added suggestion of having an option to apply a constant timing.. i.e. exact measured interpolation between keys with no auto easing (all tweens, even at 0 easing have a frustrating degree of auto ease).

Posted 9/15/2004 4:27 AM by chluaid - - reply

oh sorry for the double-post.. one more thing if I may. I knew I'd remember something important the second I'd press 'submit' :)

Currently, to combat the inability to stream sounds or music across scenes, you need to place many scenes in one, so you have an uninterrupted timeline for the sound to stream over.

I thought it would be really cool to have vertical folders on the timeline that hold groups of frames, in the same way that the horizontal folders hold groups of layers.

Say for example you have one scene that goes from fr1 - 55, so you create a folder to group those frames and call it Sc_1, or something. The next scene may go from fr56 - 287 and it too could be placed in a folder and collapsed, taking up no more space than one frame. That way, you could collapse hundreds and hundreds of frames into each folder and effectively have a 18,000-frame movie appear as 150 frame folders, one for each scene (taking up only as much space on the timeline as 150 frames).

You could also shuffle and re-order those folders in the same way that you'd re-order Scenes or docking panels.

I came up with that idea when I heard a rumour that macromedia were going to ditch Scenes for MX2004.. glad it didn't happen, but the frame-folder idea I reckon is a good one (if i say so myself!)

While I'm on the subject of the timeline, it also would be great to have a field where you type in a frame number (or the name of a 'frame folder' as mentioned above) and the playhead centres on that frame.

ok.. thanks for listening Mike! Gnight!

Posted 9/15/2004 5:05 AM by chluaid - - reply

fyi:

What does "8Ball is focused on designers" mean?
http://www.markme.com/mesh/archives/006055.cfm

mike chambers

mesh@macromedia.com

Posted 9/15/2004 10:30 AM by mike_chambers - - reply

The ability to work with "individually named 'dynamic' colors" has existed in Flash quite sometime now. Way before Toon Boom Studio came out. Most people just don't think to make use of it. http://flashfilmmaker.com/index.php?id=5,8,0,0,1,0

I like the idea of an "upfront" version though, however It would benice to have a way to lock the colors so that you dont accidentally modify them.

Posted 9/15/2004 5:59 PM by cinestar - - reply

How about adding that elusive "Animate Scene" button that some producers seem to think exists...

Harhar

....everything I've read covers all my thoughts and concerns, and I'm thrilled that Macromedia is at least considering some fixes. Thanks

gene_galiano

Posted 9/15/2004 6:02 PM by gene_galiano - - reply

Requests? Huh, i made one at the time Flash MX had to be born, and someone answered me "thanks", but... Oh, anyhow, it would be great to have collection of fill tools i've seen in Newtek Toonz, if i'm not mistaken: rectangle fill tool, that fills every closed shapes in area, switcher if it will fill only unfilled shapes or not and "multiplication" of this or basic fill tool, which allow to define filling spot or area in starting frame and filling spot/area in ending frame, and after filling it in every frames between, moving spot/area just like standard motion-tween. Having this 3 tools (area-fill, don't touch filled and multiple frames fill) togather will be extremely helpful in many and many animation tasks!

Sorry for my not-so-good english, hope my explainations it understandable. =)

Posted 9/16/2004 1:11 AM by bswan - - reply

I need to choose type of transparency of simbol (or layer). For example, additive and substractive. Thank you.

Anton Volkov
info@antonvolkov.com

Posted 9/16/2004 2:08 AM by AntonVolkov - - reply

I have to say that I thought this was a lost cause. We've had conversations in the past with the fine folks at macromedia who have basically told us that there wasn't any point in trying to incorporate suggestions from animators because we are such a small part of their market.

Great comments from everybody so far. I agree with the majority of you.

Needless to say, I have some suggestions to make, and I will do my best to not belabor points already made.

Let me first say that our shop uses FLASH MX. (not 2004, the new UNDO alone was reason enough to avoid MX-2004) We found that alot of the issues created by the move from 4 to 5 had been corrected, and the organizational tools (folders on the timelines) were big improvements.

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DISTORT AND ENVELOPE TOOLS THAT WORK ON SYMBOLS (AND ALLOW TWEENING)
As far as I'm concerned this is the single most important improvement they could make, and would go along way toward decimating the characteristic "FLASH-look" that things animated in Flash tend to have, because symbols can only be scaled, skewed or rotated. If we were able to manipulate symbols in the ways that Flash allows us to manipulate broken apart materials, it would save an unmeasurably high amount of fresh drawing, and produce an end-product that was of much higher quality.

CAMERA EFFECTS
As previously mentioned, the ability to move the camera, (multi-plane, change focus and motion-blur) as well as other camera-style effects (lens flare and aperature changes) would be very helpful, but I totally disagree that this should be separate from the stage. That separation is the major thing that has kept us away from TOON BOOM. It is much more intuitive to animate directly under-camera, and the loss of this would be a huge blow.

TIMELINE HIGHLIGHTING
It would be nice to be able to mark up the timeline in ways beyond the label flags. I'm thinking in terms of highlighters that can color directly onto the timeline, or writing tools that would allow for marking above the timeline, so that we can make notes the way we would on traditional exposure sheets.

ALSO, just as we can hold the space bar, and reposition the stage, it would be helpful to do the same with the timeline which can often be very large and hard to negotiate.

FOLLOW GRADIENTS
Previously mentioned, but very important. More options for the gradients, beyond linear and radial. A 'follow gradient' that conformed to the edge of it's fill would be very useful.

DIFFERENT LINE CAPS
Please? Tapers, and squares.

ALSO, regarding lines: When custom lines are used, they behave unpredicably when partially selected. It would be nice if what you saw was what you got.

CONNECTIONS and KINEMATICS
Connected symbol anchors would save alot of time.

SELECTIVE TIMELINE RENDERING
Again, on time-saving. A lot of time is lost to waiting for tests to export. It would be extremely helpful to select only the portion of the timeline one wishes to render, rather than rendering the entire scene over and over again, when the area in question may be very small.

FLATTEN LAYERS
Merge layers, maintaining the original layering. The opposite of the distribute tool. Right now, it is a frame-by-frame process.

PHOTOSHOP-STYLE FILTERS and DRAWING TOOLS.
A pipe-dream maybe in a vector-based environment, but would radically change the options for style of the end-product. If macromedia is going to improve the tool for artists, they should be looking to the tools that artists use.

SYMBOL HIGHLIGHT IN LIBRARY
When a symbol is selected onstage it would be nice to have it highlight in the library.

SOUND
Currently, the sound capabilities of Flash are practically useless. We almost exclusively incorporate our sound elements post-Flash. Any improvements here would be welcomed.

FLIP HOTKEYS
I cannot understand why Flip Horizontal and Vertical do not have default hotkeys. We use these very frequently, and the commands are nested rather deeply in the overhead menus. (I have added my own hotkeys for them, but it would be nice if they were defaults)

FRAME LOCK
Like layer-locking, so that things are not inadvertently altered, something that could be applied to single or multiple frames, just by clicking on the timeline.

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This is tip-of-the-iceberg stuff, but then, I've been working with FLASH as a professional animation tool for four or five years. Improvements in these areas would make Flash absolutely irreplaceable.

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D. Campbell Mackinlay
Director
Trapeze Animation Studios, Ltd.

Posted 9/16/2004 4:28 AM by DCMACK - - reply

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