Flash
is a useful tool for those wanting to try working their way into animations or
game creation, purely down to its user friendly interface, and its simple to
use techniques, granted flash can be complicated but once you get your head
round it it can be quite simple.
Flash
consists of various features which enable the user to create efficiently and
effectively, onion skinning for example helps users who prefer a slower and
effectively accurate approach to animation, which lets them see the previous
frames drawing so they can accurately draw the following frame, if the user is
doing frame by frame animation.
Flash
also consists of several abilities and options which enable an easy approach to
animation, take for example the tweening abilities, for which you have 3
different types of tweens which are capable of creating different types of
animations. Shape tweens are capable of creating a different approach to animation,
which allows you to transform shapes and objects in a more fluid approach. Flash
is also a very useful tool for creating vector images, which can effectively
turn real life images into a more cartoon appearance, which is extremely useful
for creating cartoon like appearances and animations. Flash has many tutorials
you can follow on YouTube which allow you to get step by step guides on how to
create the very many alternative creations that flash can give you. Flash also
consists of having code snippets which are little bits of code you can add into
your actions box to create different ways of making and playing a game. Flash’s
coding language is quite different to that of say C which focuses more in using
individual letters and numbers to create variations rather than action script 3
which use mathematical sentences instead to create animated or optional
outcomes. There are many different ways of creating animations, one of which
you can use onion skinning and frame by frame animations. Frame by frame
animations let you create drawings and move them ever so slightly to create an
animated drawing, onion skinning is a very useful tool for using this mechanic
because it enables you to see what your previous frame’s drawing was, while creating
your next frame which can be very useful for creating very accurate drawings.
Other
interesting points about flash is it’s ability to immediately export into
android and IOS, as these mechanics are built into the program, you do not need
to download the plugins, unfortunately it blackberry and windows mobile are
unsupported, as well as MAC which requires the plug-ins to be downloaded to
export into those operating systems. While creating games for IOS and Android,
you have to try and ensure that you are visualizing playing the game on IOS or
Android, because the operating systems support tilt, which allows you to move
the game objects by tilting either tablet or phone, or even having buttons on
the side of the game so you can add fire buttons or power up buttons etc. to
add to the complexity of the game. Another advantage to flash is its user
interface is much tidier than most other game builders due to their complexity,
although that’s not necessarily a bad thing for other game builders as if you
have the time to understand it, you have access to much better options and abilities
that you wouldn’t normally have in flash. Flash is limited to its art tools and
coding in action script, which doesn’t allow too many options, but this at the
same time is able to create a much more user friendly interface. Regardless with
what tools is possesses it still remains as one of the most used tools to date
to create web animations, advertisements, even games and cartoons alike, as any
program it retains time consumption so normally you’ll have teams of people
working on lengthy projects like cartoons.
Generally
all round it retains its ability to be one of the most used tools in the games
and animation industry, with its ability to create swift and smooth animation,
or even turn images into vector based graphics, it benefits any aspiring
animator or graphic’s designer and game designer. Flash will be used for the
years ahead, still competing against the technology that challenges it.
