Matt Stephens (dandt_matt)

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Sunday, January 16, 2011

Adobe Flash

Just wanted to prepare a quick post about Adobe Flash as I have been playing around with it over the holidays and haven't posted anyting for a while..!

Flash is a vector based animation package that can be used for just about any mulitmedia purpose imaginable. I have use it (and a competitor version; Corel RAVE) to produce simple animations, learning resources, videos, games, presentations and even structured lessons. Within the CS5 version it is even possible to make iphone apps.

One great example of a Flash project is the Impossible Quiz..

But lets not get ahead of ourselves...

Firstly, Flash takes a long time to learn and understand how to do even the most simple of animations. Once you understand the language of Flash it becomes easier to use, however when teaching students to use it for the first time, allocate a large amount of time to explaining the theatrical setting in which Flash is based, for example, terms like stage, scene, frame, etc are used to describe aspects of the software package. Some prior experience with Adobe products will help, however there is a steep learning curve.

Secondly, you need to be a good artist. To produce projects of a reasonable quality, you still need to be creative and artistic. Although Flash provides a wide range of features and tools, becoming a skilled user takes time, practice and a certain artistic flair..!

Thirdly, you need to have an understanding of coding. Flash objects can be told to do a wide range of things. If you think about an interactive learning resouuce, there are a number of options and animations that behave in certain ways, depending on the users selections. All of these tasks are called behaviours and Flash uses a coding language to get them done. Although there are some hints and basic code completed for you, some understanding is still necessary.

Finally, you need a good plan. The more complicated your project becomes, the more important a plan will be. Each scene in your project needs to be created from scratch and in order to make life much easier, certain aspects can be reused and repeated. I would certainy encourage a detailed storyboard be used even for the most basic project.

Some issues that I faced included:
* Understanding the terminology and processes can be quite time consuming. Figuring out how to tween, control buttons, etc can take a while.

* Being a vector package, importing images can be problematic. Issues with transparent backgrounds, resizing, colour changing, etc. can all occour when importing a bitmap image into the project. And unless you are skilled a producing high quality images in vector form, you will need to import images.. You will need to use a package such as Photoshop to prepare your images prior to importing into Flash.

* Once an item has been put in the timeline and tweened, changing it is problematic..! Any changes you make may result in an undesired tween, the removal of your tween and/or unwanted chages to other componenets of your project. This is generally a beginners problem and once you understand the way Flash operates it is easy to aviod these problems. Using labels for your keyframes and in your coding of behaviours is one of the best things to learn early on..!


Some positive aspects I discovered included:
* The flexibility and unlimited scope of the package is what really makes it great. Once you have a basic understanding, you just want to learn more and begin all sorts of crazy projects.

* Flash makes it easy to organise and find your cast of objects. The toolboxes are easy to understand and navigate.

* Although I have said Flash is quite difficult to learn, a majority of the learning involves exploring the vector graphic aspect of the software. In terms of automation, Flash does much of the work for you when producing projects.

* Support is excellent. There is a huge range of educational support for Flash, including videos, tutorials, forums, etc. Make great use of them. A collegue handed me her notes from an AIS inservice which helped me a lot.

Please feel free to comment and check out my previous posts.