Macromedia Flash is a multimedia graphics program especially for creating moving images for use on the Web. Flash has opened up a whole new world for digital animators. You can rotoscope with it, but you can also animate directly in Flash. Learning this program can be very motivating for students because they don’t have to be the greatest artists to be successful. The drawing tools in Flash function as a virtual pencil making it easy to create original animated images.

Mac versus PC


Wakom Tablets

This pressure-sensitive graphic tablet (as pictured) consists of a pen-like stylus and a drawing surface that make using Flash much simpler. Basically, the stylus replaces your mouse when you’re drawing with the computer and does a much better job of emulating a pen or paintbrush than do mice and trackballs. Flash also responds to different pressure levels of a tablet enabling you to vary the width of your strokes by varying the pressure on the stylus.



Bitmap image


Pixels versus Vectors

Two kinds of images are in the digital world: bitmaps and vectors:

Bitmaps are images made up from thousands of tiny dots called pixels (picture elements.) Programs such as Photoshop work with bitmaps. Bitmap images are similar to photographs; if you enlarge them too much, the image becomes grainy or pixilated.

Vector files are typically much smaller than bitmap files because these graphics are defined by their geometry, by the curves that make them up. Flash defines an object by a set of curves, allowing you to zoom in or enlarge as far as you like without changing the quality of the image. Vector graphics generated in Flash are great for the Internet because they are small files.



Vector Image


Advantages:

  • Flash animation, because of its small file size, downloads quickly and can be available worldwide the minute it’s finished.

  • Flash is a multimedia platform that allows the embedding of images, sounds, movies, HTML files, and can run consistently on various computer systems.

  • According to FlashMagazine, this program is "a great authoring tool for interactive content such as the capability to integrate most features needed for making a game."

  • Flash as a format has become widespread. According to Macromedia, 95% of Web users have Flash Player installed.

Disadvantages:

  • Flash is not very search engine friendly and chooses not to include support for concepts such as the Back button.

  • Not all computers have a recent version of the Flash Player installed, particularly older systems.

  • Some critics tend to generalize that "Flash sites are ugly and unusable."




 
 
 

© 2008 Karin Gunn. All rights reserved.
Last Updated: February 2008