New Flash Player 10 & Flash CS4 features announced at FITC Toronto!
One of the highlights of FITC Toronto for me, have always been the
Adobe keynotes, with Adobe showing off all sorts of cool new features from upcoming software that is still in development. However, these days there are more Flash/Flex and Adobe-based conferences around the world, especially with the growing success of FITC, I wondered if Adobe would have anything new to show. Or would it be very similar to previous keynotes, especially FITC Amsterdam 2008, which happened just 2 months ago, and for which there’s videos online?
Well, Adobe announced a few small but cool features that haven’t been shown anywhere else for Flash Player 10 (code named Astro) and Flash CS4 (code named Diesel). Plus they emphasized that this is all scratching the surface and there’s a lot more to come. I imagine there will be more features trickling out at various Flash conferences through out the year, while saving the really big announcements for Adobe MAX 2008.
New Flash CS4 features never before publically shown:
Motion Editor
The screenshot above almost explains the feature in itself. Basically, it’s a breakdown of every attribute of a Flash symbol that can be animated, so that you can fine tune a tween in way that was never possible before.
New 3D Tool
It’s been known since last year at MAX that Flash Player 10 will support a Z-axis, but this is the first time it’s shown how it will be accessible through Flash CS4. Now unfortunately, because of the low quality of the video it’s hard to see, but when a symbol gets selected there’s a circle in the middle of the symbol, with 3 arrows representing the X, Y and Z axis. Select these arrows and move the angle of the arrows and it changes the axis of the symbol. This allows for quick and easy 3D tween.
Flash Player 10 features never before publically mentioned:
Save bitmap data locally from the Flash Player
Just a small feature, but important to those who use it, now developers won’t have to send bitmap data to the server to be processed and then sent back to be saved. In Flash Player 10, bitmap data can be saved locally. Above is an example of a image distorted with a Hydra script saved locally right from the Flash player.
No more 2880x2880 limitation!
Another small feature, but important for certain developers is that in Flash Player 10, they will be removing the 2880 pixel limitation! For those developers unaware of this limitation, every since bitmap data was introduced into the Flash Player, there’s been a limitation on the size of bitmaps. Bitmap data could not be bigger than 2880 pixels width or 2880 pixels height. This was to reduce the amount of RAM being used on a user’s computer at one time. I’ve hit his barrier myself when creating panoramas inside of Flash with very wide images and more recently with AIR. An AIR application currently can only be 2880 pixels wide because of this Flash limitation, which means that you can’t create a dual-monitor AIR application that will stretch over two screens, but are instead forced to have two separate windows for each screen. It wasn’t mentioned by anyone from Adobe on whether this 2880 limitation will be lifted off of AIR, but since the latest version of the Flash player is imbedded into AIR, I assume this will be the case. However, I hope to talk to someone from Adobe later on in the conference to see if I can confirm this.
Comments
Matthew Fabb wrote on 04/21/08 1:17 AM
Bi-directional text wasn't mentioned in the keynote, but as far as I know it's still planned for Flash Player 10 and is included as one of the features on the <a href="http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Astro">Adobe labs Astro page</a>.It was just a quick overview of features shown in the keynote and I focused on reporting that Adobe has not publically mentioned before. Also tomorrow there's going to be a more in-depth session into new Flash features called "Flash: Now and the Future". I imagine bi-directional text will come up during that session. Hopefully they will even show some information on the new text API and how the new textbox and text components work.
Angel Romero wrote on 04/21/08 12:51 PM
WOW! These features are going to be huge for the Flash community. Can't wait to give them a shot! Thanks for the info!
bunnyhero wrote on 04/21/08 11:22 PM
the motion editor reminds me of adobe livemotion :)
Giovambattista Fazioli wrote on 04/23/08 5:44 PM
Then Papervision 3D is dead? Or not?
Matthew Fabb wrote on 04/23/08 8:54 PM
I've often heard Adobe refer to the 3D in Flash Player 10 as 2-and-half-D. You can take an Flash symbol and rotate it in the z-axis, but it's still a flat plane object roating around in 3D space. What you don't get natively in Flash 10, but do with Papervision3D is full 3D shapes and objects.Also while I didn't attend any of the 3D sessions at FITC, my understanding is that Papervision3D is going to be a running a LOT faster in Flash 10. Perhaps from using Hydra? I don't know, but either way, Papervision 3D is not dead at all.
Rick Mason wrote on 04/28/08 12:13 PM
Papervision3D is definitely not dead. This was actually a topic of discussion in the panel on 3D that I moderated. Adobe is working closely with projects like Papervision3D to ensure that they take advantage of any new features coming out.The addition of z-axis calculations and a refined VM are already showing large performance upgrades in pv3d. Adobe has no plans to support things like shapes or texture mapping, they are simply adding support for movement on the z-axis.
Hydra is another huge player in this area as it will enable all sorts of effects and most importantly it will allow for the creation of shaders. During the panel it was noted that games like Call of Duty now use lower polygon count models than they use to but still look better as a result of complex shaders applied to the textures.
In addition, as pointed out in another post, Hydra can be used simply to do complex math calculation and thus should be able to contribute to even more improvements in pv3d performance.
Hank wrote on 10/14/08 8:26 PM
Help me!!!!!Now My Problem is
Drawing mx.conrainers.Canvas By Flex Air or Flex RIA, at monitor maximum resolution(768 * 7168) So, Various UIComponents(ex : VideoDisplay, SWFLoader etc) arrange in Canvas. But, Canvas can not drawing at monitor maximum resolution Only, drawing about 4000 pixels, so UI Component can not arrange in Canvas at monitor maximum resolution
This problem with large bitmap data probably is relation, will not know If there is not relation of it How can mx.containers ’s components(ex:Canvas) arrange at monitor maximum resolution(768 * 7168)
If there is relationship of it
Of doing with Flex RIA there is a method which is the possibility (Flex SDK 3.2.x version support Flash player 10 Beta which I know)
I want there being will be able to arrange mx.containers’s component (exl:Canvas) at monitor maxium resolution(768 * 7168) Will help and Thanks very…
outline world map wrote on 08/08/09 1:55 AM
This seems like the most comprehensive blog on thisthanks
Nguyen
Flv Player wrote on 09/02/09 8:59 AM
It is unbelievable! Thanks for giving this.
coagulant wrote on 12/10/09 3:38 AM
The best hearts are always the bravest.
The early bird catches the worm.
polyaspartic acid wrote on 12/10/09 3:43 AM
The end justifies the means.
flocculant wrote on 12/10/09 3:54 AM
The fox knew too much, that's how he lost his tail.
PaulH wrote on 04/21/08 12:57 AM
what about RTL? is it still planned for 10? having BiDi support would be great.