Adobe Flash C4 is out along with other great software of Adobe’s CS4 suite! We have been waiting for this release, along with Flash Player 10 for a very looong time, or at least I have. Promises of "pseudo" 3d, fully customizable and easy animations, animation presets, bone and IK systems and many many many wonderful things were ready to be delivered to the hungry audience! Bellow you will find my thoughts, first impressions and opinion about one of the best (maybe the best) software/platform in the web-town! My experience with Flash CS4 is short, about 3 or 4 hours...so maybe a month or two after I have worked fully with it, I will have a more concrete opinion and write a full review.

I am great fun of Flash since 1999, when I started to work professionally in the Flash platform. I’ve followed along every transition and never complaint. I must admit that I was a little afraid when Adobe bought Macromedia, but (thank god) the transition went smoothly like a baby’s butt! The following is not an actual review of the products, is something between: article, review, presentation and first impressions!

Interface & UI

The new interface that is shared along the creative suite 4 series, is sleek, self-explanatory and very easy to master. It took me less than 3 minutes to understand the layout, the tools and all the new capabilities and (new) features of Flash CS4. The colors, tabs and the whole layout is based on MAC/APPLE aesthetics (lot’s of grey, glyph tab fonts, smooth gradients etc). Let’s view some of the most notable features...

• The blue window bar in the top most part of the window, has been replaced with a MAC like menu, that holds the minimize, maximize and close buttons. Moreover the top bar has been enriched with a search area and quick change in the available workspaces. The number of menu items it’s the same, but note that you will be able to see them all once you have opened a file.

• The properties panel has been moved in the right sidebar (but that depends on the workspace you have selected) and the timeline with the new motion editor panel are now bellow the stage!

• Inline number editing with slider. Faster than the previews versions, with the ability to increment -/+ 10 if you hold the SHIFT button and move the slider left/right respectively.

Six New Tools!

Not one, not two...but six (!!!) new COOL tools are available in Flash CS4...

• 3d Rotation Tool (W)
  The new pseudo 3d tool (or 2.5d) gives us the opportunity to emulate 3d transformation in 2d instantiated symbols/objects! Note that last part S Y M B O L S, because only instantiated symbols can be 3d transformed not simple vector graphics. So if you want to apply 3d transformation, first of all convert the shape or shapes you want to transform to Movie Clips. Once you have an instantiated object selected with the 3d Rotation Tool a circle with a cross appears in the center of the object. The blue circle, represents the Z axis, the red vertical line represents the X axis and finally the green horizontal line represents the Y axis. The philosophy and colorization of the 3d environment is based on 3ds Max.
• 3d Translation Tool (G)
  This tool which is grouped under the 3d Rotation Tool, enables you to move the object in a 3dimensional space, where the center is positioned in the center of the stage! Once an instantiated symbol (from the library) is selected with the 3d Translation Tool, a set of arrows appear in the object. The green arrow controls the Y axis of the object, the red arrow controls the X axis of the objects and finally the back dot in the center controls the Z axis of the objects depth).
• Spray Brush Tool (B)
  At last...Flash CS4 has a Spray Brush, that create vector graphics based on Library symbols. In Spray Brush you can control scaling width/height, rotation, random scaling, brush angle and various other set of options. Spray Brush Tool is grouped under the Brush Tool (B).
• Deco Tool (U)
  This new vector graphics tool, that I hope will have an improved version in Illustrator CS4, is actually three different tools that are parented under a common name. Once you select the Deco Tool you have 3 available drawing effects (options) to decorate the stage: vine fill, grid fill and symmetry brush (this effect is very intuitive and innovative and I haven’t seen it in any kind of 2d vector graphics software, something similar can be found in various 3d packages). The Deco Tool works tightly with the Library panel, since it can draw custom shapes from there, unfortunately Flash CS4 has only one type of custom graphic build-in and everything else must be drawn from scratch and stored in the library (instead of just black rectangles, they could have: circle, rhomb, polygons, stars etc ) . The Deco Tool: Vine Fill creates a vine fill (vintage like) graphic effect animation in the stage that can have various customizations (leaf types, flower types, branch angles and animation). The Deco Tool: Grid Fill creates a custom grid fill, where you can control the spacing and the symbol that will create the Grid Fill (a very good design idea, is after creating a grid give it a 3d tilt, by using the 3d Rotation Tool). Finally and most notably is the Symmetry Brush is a very powerful custom brush tool that quickly and efficiently helps you draw symbols in various forms of symmetries (reflect across line, reflect across point, rotate around and grid translation). A remarkable tool, the only downside is that everything you with the Deco Tool is treated like any other brush, it is not editable after you have finished with it. For example after you set some kind of strange reflection axis in Deco Tool: Symmetry Brush you cannot go back and make changes to the axis, you must draw it again L.
• Invert Kinematics – Bone System
  Flash CS4 is equipped with a very handy tool from animators, the ability to implement Invert Kinematics/Bone System on draw objects (not instantiated symbols, or bitmap). You can apply invert kinematics in any vector graphics that you have created in Flash, or imported as editable vector graphic in Flash. To properly use and operate the whole process, Flash CS4 gives you two related tools, the Bone Tool (X) and the Bind Tool (Z). I will not go to any details, since I don’t have any hands on experience with those tools, but I believe that the possibilities for realistic and complex animations are now endless!

A final note, the Ink Bottle Tool (S) from now on is grouped under the Paint Bucket Tool (K).

New Features/Panels

Many new features are available in Adobe Flash CS4 (I am still, not used to Adobe, I am always writing Macromedia then deleting and writing Adobe:P). These new features are mainly available via new panels, that can be found in the Window menu.

• Motion Editor: A super analytic panel for fine tuning (complex) tweened object animation properties. This is a must have for every animation package (2d, 3d or video) that now Flash has and it is very proud of. Through a series of graphs and properties that span across the timeline, the user can access all animated properties and customize it quickly, accurately and efficiently. Excellent work.
• Motion Presets: A premade library for animations with a preview window that can be applied to any instantiated symbol. Moreover you can create a custom animation and save it as a custom motion preset, in order to apply later in other objects. A very useful feature, that was borrowed from Adobe After Effects (among many others).
• Extensions > Kuler: A very nice addition/panel that connects with the Kuler service of Adobe (http://kuler.adobe.com/) and helps you create consistent colored UIs. Very useful for guys like me that don’t have any idea about correct color combinations.
• Metadata (XMP) support. Now you can add metadata information to SWF files using the new XMP panel. You can assign tags for enhanced collaboration and better mobile experiences.

Those Small Little Things!

• Animation Curves: Although this is not a panel, it is very useful visual and interactive feature that enables the user to actually view the animation path of the selected object and instantaneous corrections. Guide layers and paths are still there for more complex animation paths, but I believe that they will soon extinct, if some uses correctly the Motion Editor and the Animation Curves.
• The default grid size is 10px by 10px, instead of 18px by 18px (it was a weird default value, that was left there from the Macromedia era).
• The default frame rate (FPS) for a new document is set to 24, instead of 12. Now that the AVM 2.0 is more powerful they doubled the value!
• At last we can develop AIR applications straight from Flash. Previously this capability was available from the FlexBuilder.
• All 3d thingies and tricks that I presented earlier, are available from ACTIONSCRIPT 3 code as properties of the object. Although a great addition, for more complex projects regarding the 3d universe, the users will still have to rely on Papervision3d, Sandy3d, Away3d and Alternativa Platform (more on that in my article: Thoughts about Adobe, design, the future and 3d!).
• Adobe continuous to support ActionScript 2.0 projects, although I am fun of evolution and moving forward, I have to recognize that a great deal of people are still (OMG!) «coding»(I prefer the term scripting) in AS2, especially here in Greece.
• Adobe Pixel Blender Toolkit. An excellent tool that comes with Flash CS4 (runs as a separate application) that enables you to create custom filters and effects that can be later imported to Flash for compelling on-demand visual effects.
• Excellent collaboration with Flex 3.

What they missed

Below I have conducted a short list of features that I wanted to see in Flash CS4...but they didn’t show up, maybe we will see them in CS5!

• No new ready shape tool has been added, the shapes are the same as in Flash CS3. Probably anyone wanting more shapes should use Fireworks...
• Since they got in some much trouble as to apply 3d transformations in Flash engine, why they left out some kind of bevel effect in order to give a natural depth in various objects? They have it in Illustrator since the CS versions (or CS2 I think). It’s nice to be able to rotate a flat (plane-like) surface in 3d space, but it would be more fun if you were able to add some depth to the object!
• Components, are still at minimum, since most of them where moved to Flex and cut down form flash when it upgraded from version 8 to version CS3. Back then I was using Flash for design/animation and RIA, but when Adobe decided to create a distinct product for these categories and in the same time address the Java audience, it removed most of the components from Flash and moved them to Flex. So although I believe that they will NEVER bring those components, I am still whining like a bitch.
• The ActionScript editor is still “unfriendly”, my personal favorite regarding AS3 coding (in Flash) is FlashDevelop. Adobe should study the features of this editor and apply it Flash. I thought Adobe was aware of FlashDevelop and maybe they had copied a number of features, but no...they did nothing regarding the build-in AS editor. Maybe DreamWeaver CS4 will fill the above gap, when I found out I will update.

Conclusion

I believe that Adobe Flash CS4 is a robust upgrade, worthy of the Flash history. Many new features, an improved and faster player (Flash Player 10) that I didn’t mention here and a great future full of promises for a better web, multimedia, interactivity and RIAs. The price for Adobe Flash CS4 is $699 and $199 if you upgrade (from versions CS3, 8 and 2004) I believe that it’s as cheap as it can get and everyone must upgrade (I did)! Don’t think about skipping this version, it’s a really good product and comes at very affordable and logical price. After all, what’s the completion...SilverLight? Blah :P
Anyways I hope you found this review/article helpful, maybe later I will create a separate review/article for the new AS3 features of Flash CS4 and the Flash Player 10.

Best regards,
Nikos “DuMmWiaM” Kontis