OxCreative
2009
Recently at work I have had a large amount of small amendment and update jobs which can be a little tedious.
However, I have now been given a flash-based project which looks pretty cool and from what I have understood it is going to push me out of my “comfort zone”.
For the project I will have to build a flash video player to stream .flv files from a server and also an clickable movieclip to link the view to another site/page.
All the elements in the flash project will be customizable including the .flv file (so different clips can be played) as will the positioning of the .flv and the positioning, colour and style of the moviclip button.
I really like the idea of creating re-usable work as eventually you end up with a library you can use to make your more productive in the future.
I will however have to brush up on Flash CS4 (which has changed alot since CS3) and also my AS3.
For anyone learning Adobe Flash, Lynda.com is a great tutorial site covering every aspect of coding, development, 2d and 3d design and lots more. Also the people over at FlashKit are great for help with AS3 and offer a whole bunch of tutorials, resources and help via their forum board.
2008
I recently got the chance to work on a Flash project and test Flash CS4. From the moment of opening the application it was clear adobe had been very busy updating Flash for the CS4 version.
The default layout is somewhat confusing and seems like they have changed it just because they could – but onced swapped back to the old default (tools on the left, timeline on the top, properties and actions at the bottom) things became a bit more familiar.
The new motion editor offers alot more than the classic tween from earlier versions but at the same time can be quite complex. The classic tween method can still be used which is something I imagine alot of people will use.
Along with the motion editor comes 3D motion, allowing you to twist, flip and rotate shapes as if they were 3D.
Another useful feature is Adobe’s Media Encoder which comes bundled with many of the Adobe packages. It allows you to convert various video formats into flv files so they can be used in flash.
As a whole, Flash CS4 feels alot more robust than previous versions and is definitely worth upgrading.