Let’s talk about a platform that has been used for professionals and amateurs alike to create animations, games, desktop apps and interactions in websites. The program is called, Adobe Flash, a dominant platform through which web content, such as Rich Internet Applications (RIA), was created and displayed for decades.
Adobe Flash got into business in 1996 with a software called Future Splash Animator and throughout the 90s, 2000 and 2010s Adobe Flash was the preferred-choice software used by designers, animators and programmers to deal with motion, graphics and hand-draw style animations.
What was the intentional purpose for Adobe Flash?
The original intention for this animation software was to create 2D web-based animations. Nowadays, because its popularity has increased is now a web authoring tool, because it is now used to build entire websites. Also, its scripting language “ActionScript” is now used to create applications or assets in web designs.
What is Adobe Flash Capable of doing now?
Besides general designs that can be used for videos and games, flash is known for being a vector-based application- This means that it works with vector-based images that when added to a flash movie it gives the final product the capacity of being scaled at any size without losing detail. Also, ActionScript and Flash player Adobe Air which is a common platform for mobile games.
Choosing Adobe Flash to Create a Game, Graphical Assets and Animations.
If you are thinking of using this program, you should think of your needs first. The reason why this is so important is because Adobe Flash offers the user tools to create a fully functional game, both coded and animated, graphical Assets and animation. So, it’s really up to you to define a purpose for the software.
If you want to animate graphical assets or work with graphical assets from scratch, the program lets you do it without ever using or interacting with ActionScript. Afterwards, once the path is chosen, think of the right software to use. The tools that can be used with Flash for animation, for instance, is Adobe Animation which was formerly known as Flash Professional. However, if you want to create games or desktop applications you can use FlashDevelop or ApacheDex instead.
Adobe Flash is nearing it's end, but this visual essay revives it's story by illustrating the influence this web player/ programming language had on the history of video games. Enjoy. https://t.co/ksHmR8UEWh
— The Leonardo (@the_leonardo) July 27, 2020
Get Familiar with The Program
This is a vital step to go through if you are serious about using Adobe Flash. To help you being more informed about this program, the company’s own website provides a number of tutorials, documentation and resource, such as Flashkit, that would guide you step by step on the different things the program lets you do.
Also, you need to go through a documentation process to understand Basic Flash Concepts. These go from what are vector graphics, asset graphics, ActionScript language for coding, and animation terminology. If you rather skipping this phase that might seem tedious, then you won’t be able to fully understand the features, possibilities and the tools that the program offers. In other words, you will have a limited understanding about what you can get out of this program.
As my final words, once you have grappled with the basic understandings of the program, you can only go deeper in knowledge. Plus, if you dedicate hours to use the program and create what you’ve set yourself to do, then you will master the software to create really amazing animation, videos, apps and interactions for websites. Welcome to this side of the digital world.