Home
Subscribe
KSDD.com
Adobe Flash CS3 Professional
The former Macromedia superstar makes a strong Adobe debut
It hasn't even been two years since Macromedia-that-was unleashed Flash 8 (a huge step forward for the juggernaut [insert favorite use here] application), and now along comes Flash CS3 Professional. Sporting a new surname and a slew of new features, how does the now-Adobe product stack up, even as Microsoft's Silverlight (the technology formerly known as "Sparkle") begins its attempt to crash the party? Read on to find out.
Introduction
It was only recently that Microsoft's long-awaited Silverlight technology was announced at NAB 2007, representing (potentially, anyway) Flash's first true threat in a long, long time. I'm not exactly sure who specifically was awaiting Silverlight, but it sure has gotten a lot of press over the years. How successful Silverlight is going to be without a Linux client or any non-Windows development tools remains to be seen, but Adobe needs to take Microsoft seriously here, and by all indications, it has. Flash today is in about as good a position as it can be, what with Flash Video having exploded over the last couple of years coupled with (or the reason for) the impressive adoption of the Flash 9 Player, Adobe's open sourcing of some of the code in the ActionScript VM as well as the very fresh open source Flex announcement. And now that Flash CS3 has been fully integrated into the Adobe lineup, all that has to be done now is the not-so-small task of making sure Flash remains as ubiquitous as it is today. A big part of that is keeping the development tools the best they can be, and while Flash CS3 doesn't pack the groundbreaking punch that the Flash 8 upgrade did, the CS3 iteration of the Flash authoring tool manages to go well beyond the obvious Adobe integration and Universal Binary compatibility that is all the more skeptical amongst us were expecting.
New features
In the shameless plug department, I've already done a roundup of new features in Flash CS3 Professional, and as I have so lazily done in the past, I now direct you to that piece for the full scoop on what's new and notable. I'll just wait here patiently while you read that one:
For those of you who actually read the First Look piece, expect your gifts in the mail any day now. However, I understand that some of you may want instant gratification without having to leave the cozy confines of this particular page, so I'll take this time to briefly go over a few of the previously highlighted features which I think represent the best of the best in Flash CS3:
Photoshop/Illustrator import. For some, this is the alpha and the omega of Flash improvements, with true access to actual Adobe file formats representing one of the great productivity enhancements of the 21st century. And lest I get too hyperbolic in my praise of the PSD/AI import feature, I often remind myself of the hell and horror of spending countless hours and many painstaking steps to get complex artwork to import and display correctly in Flash, a nightmare that has now been turned into a dream with the single-step process. Select your file, set a few options, convert text, name instances, and you're set (fig. 1).
Figure 1
Accurate QuickTime export. For those long-suffering souls who wanted so much more out of Flash's QuickTime export functionality, your wishes have been granted. Flash now takes more than just what's on the timeline into account: nested Movie Clips, filters and blend modes, and ActionScript-generated content are all factored in. Figure 2 shows just such a clip—it's a single-frame sequence with scripted animation and several filters applied. However, I did have to fudge things a bit by manually entering an end time of 4 seconds to get Flash to render the entire length of the sequence. So while it's not perfectly executed, you should have little problem getting accurate QuickTime out of Flash once you get the hang of how to tweak the export settings a bit.
Motion copy. Flash CS3 finally allows for reusable motion, so let's all give a hearty golf clap for that. If you just want to copy a tween from instance to instance, just select the tween in the Timeline, right-click and select Copy Motion, and then paste the motion back onto another instance. However, Adobe didn't stop there. You can also copy tweens as ActionScript 3 code (fig. 3), meaning you can now have animators do the animating and then hand off precise code to a programmer to integrate into their scripting.
Figure 3
Customizable Components. The Halo theme is (mostly) dead, and good riddance to it. Flash CS3 now sports a new set of ActionScript 3-based Components, which are incredibly easy to skin and customize (fig. 4). Keep in mind, however, that you have to be working in an ActionScript 3-based project in order to use the new Components; otherwise, the old-school Components spring back from the ranks of the mostly dead to haunt your projects.
Figure 4
So, in my opinion, the preceding features are the big reasons why you would want to upgrade. Now, if you read the First Look piece I mentioned earlier, you'll know there are plenty more, some of which we'll discuss below when breaking out how Flash CS3 does for various user types. Speaking of which, let's do that now.
Today on the afterschool special: Flash and you
I've made a habit in my previous reviews of Flash (found here and here, if you're curious) to try and assign recommendations based on user type, and I don't see any reason to stop now. Flash still manages to attract a widely varied user base, and while I didn't make any major additions to my motley lineup of Flash enthusiasts, I did retire one type profiled in my Flash 8 and MX 2004 reviews: the switcher. That particular type morphed from someone who was coming to Flash from another program like Director to someone who may not have felt Web 2.0 technologies like Ajax were right for a particular project. I'm not sure how relevant the switcher is to Flash CS3, so it's off to the retirement village with full benefits and a gold watch for that particular type. However, there are still plenty of sweeping barroom generalizations to be made with wild assumptions about each user type, so let's start with what is likely a one-time addition to the list.
User type: Intel Mac Owner/Early Vista Adopter
Previous Rating: N/A
Version CS3 Rating: Must Buy
Well, let's get right to it: if you're a Flash user, and you are moving to (or already have) an Intel-based Mac, the decision to upgrade to Flash CS3 is something of a slam dunk. Running Flash 8 in Rosetta is a painful experience, and with Flash CS3 (as well as the other CS3 products) absolutely smoking fast on an Intel Mac, you're only hurting yourself if you want to make some sort of moral stand against Adobe for taking so long to bring Universal Binary compatibility to its line-up. I'm not nuts that it took so long either, and I certainly was hoping for a free (or nominal charge) UB patch for Flash 8 early on during the Intel transition, but this is what is being offered. It likely wasn't a trivial task to move the Flash codebase into XCode, and while Universal Binary compatibility isn't the sexiest of features on the surface, it's at least understandable that Adobe would want to recoup the costs of doing so by folding native Intel Mac performance into a paid upgrade.
Vista users, Adobe has your needs in mind as well. Sure, I've read reports that Flash 8 runs just fine in Vista (I haven't tested it myself, though), but having installed and used Flash CS3 on a copy of Vista Business, I found that it runs beautifully on Microsoft's new OS. I'm not a huge fan of Vista itself so far, but the CS3 apps are slick, stable, and fast on it. So if you've made the move to Vista (or are planning to), at least do yourself a favor and treat yourself to the version of Flash that was actually designed for it. Flash CS3 works wonderfully on XP as well, but it would be something of a surprise if it didn't at this point.
User type: New to Flash
Previous Rating: Strong Buy
Version CS3 Rating: Strong Buy
I expressed some surprise in my review of Flash 8 that there were still folks out there for whom Flash was a completely new experience, but I'm actually less surprised this go-round. After all, Flash CS3 is being bundled in with the Design Premium product, where Photoshop junkies or print designers may be exposed to Flash for the first time. Regardless of my level of astonishment, CS3 earns the same Strong Buy rating for new users, for several reasons. The first is the level of integration with Photoshop and Illustrator, which encompasses several features, not the least of which is the CS3 interface that Flash now shares with its aforementioned brethren. (As an aside, I love the CS3 interface, not only for the dockable palettes, but also for bringing the Windows-like but incredibly useful "drag any edge" paradigm to palettes and windows on the Mac.) Now, while I still have issues with the overall steep learning curve inherent to Flash, it definitely helps that Flash shares the same interface paradigm as Photoshop and Illustrator. The import features are a definite plus, as new users (and veterans alike) won't have to wrangle with file conversion just to get artwork into Flash. Illustrator users should have an especially smooth transition, as not only does Illustrator itself adopt Flash's Symbol model (which makes it simple to prep Illustrator content for Flash), but Flash CS3 borrows Illustrator's Pen tool to streamline the behavior of common elements between products.
I also applaud the decision to drop the Basic variant from Flash CS3—that was a worthless offering in my opinion, and all Flash users, regardless of experience level, will have the same room to grow into the product. The Script Assist mode has been updated for ActionScript 3, and it retains its simple (yet reasonably powerful) interface for interactively building scripts for novice users.
User type: Designer or Animator
Previous Rating: Must Buy
Version CS3 Rating: Strong Buy
The improvements in Flash 8 for designers and animators are a tough act to follow, so there really isn't anywhere to go but down (hence "only" the Strong Buy rating here). Still, the new features of note for the tragically hip set aren't anything to sneeze at. First and foremost is the motion copy feature, which is just fantastic. It's trivial to now copy and paste an instance's motion (or a subset thereof) to another instance, and the ability to copy motion as ActionScript 3 is a boon to individual users who like to animate in code as well as those who have to hand off designs to a programmer.
I already mentioned that Flash CS3 sports a Pen tool that is much closer to its Illustrator counterpart, but it bears repeating here, as it's nice to have a familiar tool for drawing directly in Flash. Also new to Flash CS3 are the addition of primitive shapes, which come in oval and rectangular flavors. Using primitives allows you to draw rounded rectangles (the radius of the rounded edges remain editable) and arcs and the like. I have a major beef in that you can't directly animate primitives (though they can be shape tweened, for whatever that's worth), so put that on my wish list for CS4. Lastly, designers and animators alike should be giddy over the live Scale-9 previews on the Stage no more Test Movie just to see layouts with 9-slice scaled objects.
Overall, Flash CS3 doesn't offer the smorgasbord of improvements that Flash 8 provided in the design and animation department, but CS3 does nonetheless offer some solid new features.
User type: Programmer
Previous Rating: Neutral
Version CS3 Rating: Buy
Admittedly, I have the hardest time stepping into the programmer's shoes, as they have needs well beyond my ability to sometimes comprehend, but I'm giving it my best shot anyway. Now, we've got a slight step up from Flash 8, as Flash CS3's programming tools have actually been improved this time rather than remaining largely unchanged. First, programmers should be pleased with Flash's inclusion of ActionScript 3 as its default scripting language. Now, the truly hardcore coders out there probably have been playing with AS3 since the release of the Flash 9 Player last summer, but I suppose its inclusion in the Flash IDE itself is welcome.
Next up is the new debugger, which Flash CS3 now shares with Flex Builder, so if you ping-pong between those apps you should at least be comfortable. The new debugger also provides clickable links to erroneous code, so when a compiler error is encountered, you don't have to manually locate the code yourself.
Lastly, I'll mention the tweaks to the Actions Panel. Flash CS3 makes it much easier to comment and uncomment your code, adding buttons for those tasks to the toolbar as well as right-click access. Then there's the code folding, which actually allows you to select portions of code to collapse, in addition to allowing you to collapse functions between the braces. These are long-overdue tweaks that even a casual scripter will find useful.
User type: "Tweener"
Previous Rating: Must Buy
Version CS3 Rating: Buy
I know I'm making up what "tweener" means in this context, and if I were to ask Inigo Montoya, he would tell me the following: "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." Yes, I know, Inigo. Now get back to looking for that six-fingered man. Anyway, I'm using tweener in reference to those Flash users who bounce back and forth between design and coding in Flash. In other words, tweeners are "one (wo)man band" kind of people. They're looking for all-around improvements that make Flash easier to work with in as many aspects as possible, and with Flash CS3, it's something of a wash.
On the one hand, you have an unbelievably fantastic set of new Components, the inclusion of which addresses a long-standing Flash annoyance: often times it was easier and less time-consuming to create interface widgets from scratch than it was to try and skin or theme Flash's included Components. No longer. Drag a Component to the Stage, double-click, and the Component magically reveals all of its inner workings for you to mess with. However, to use said components, you need to be working in an ActionScript 3 project, which takes me to the other hand.
And on that aforementioned other hand, the changeover to ActionScript 3 represents a major, major shift to tweeners like myself, in that it's markedly different than ActionScript 2 (see this blog post I recently made for an example). The problems are twofold: one, using ActionScript 3 is going to require significant re-training for some, and that's never something I can get behind. Sure, you can use ActionScript 2 in your Flash CS3-based projects, but you'll be missing out on cool things like being able to copy motion to script and the funky-fresh new Component model. The other problem is that while you may be tempted to bring Flash 8 projects into Flash CS3, change the scripting model to AS3, and call it a day, it won't work like that. Chances are that you would need to port major sections of many AS2-based projects into AS3. It may or may not be worth the proposition to gain speed enhancements inherent in ActionScript 3, but either way, moving to AS3 is likely not a trivial task.
So, in short, it's not that I don't like AS3, it's the level of re-training involved for casual scripters and the fact that some cool features are tied to AS3 use that rubs me the wrong way. Initially, it's a step back, since it introduces hurdles to overcome rather than clearing them away, and that's why I'm taking issue. I'm sure I'll feel I overreacted once I've had time to get up to speed, but it's a warning I wanted to get out of the way nonetheless. Hence, Flash CS3 only gets a Buy rating this time for tweeners.
User type: Video Enthusiast
Previous Rating: Strong Buy
Version CS3 Rating: Must Buy
We end our user type roundup on a very positive note by looking at Flash CS3 as a tool for those who are simply looking to put clips online in FLV format, but who may not know much about Flash otherwise. Sure, there are other tools to do this, but why not go straight to the source? Flash CS3 makes it easy to prepare video for delivery to the Flash Player, adding several features which take a lot of the guesswork out of the process. The import procedure has been simplified, adding an option to assign a background color to Flash's basic player skins, so you truly can import and publish Flash Video with a few clicks. Compression presets, the ability to save and reuse cue points, and deinterlacing have also been added not only to Flash's internal import utility, but the standalone Flash Video Encoder as well. And if the included skins aren't enough for you, the improved Component architecture extends to individual video player widgets as well. Lastly, let me give yet another shout out to the QuickTime export feature, which finally gives those who are looking to use Flash to generate content a viable avenue to get their stuff out of Flash with greater fidelity. The bottom line is that a much needed dose of simplicity and flexibility has been added to Flash CS3 in terms of video features, making it a much more complete product for folks looking to publish video.
What drawbacks there are
I tried to mention the parts I didn't like inline with the various breakdowns, but for the sake of completeness, here's a handy bullet list of my current complaints:
- The learning curve is still (perhaps unnecessarily) steep, especially with ActionScript 3 throwing a change-up at some user types
- You can't animate primitives without Shape Tweening
- Several advanced features require ActionScript 3
- QuickTime export may take some fiddling for truly accurate results
As for the one issue I didn't get to, Flash CS3 still does not contain a freestanding way of viewing FLV clips. We're collectively forced to wait for the appearance of the Adobe Media Player for official FLV playback, and that solution isn't the simple and easy player many folks have been asking for. For now, however, you do have some options. First, Adobe's own Bridge will preview FLV clips, but that program isn't exactly the "double-click to view" simplicity I wanted. The VLC Player is a nice option; it will handle even the latest FLV clips with ease, so I recommend it for Windows and Mac users alike. Finally, the Mac-only Perian components for QuickTime will allow you to view FLV files right in the QuickTime Player (or any other QT-aware application), so that's a nice solution as well.
Overall, however, the problems I had with Flash CS3 are relatively minor, which is a nice thing to be able to say for two consecutive revs.
The bottom line
Nits aside, I'm actually pleasantly surprised with what Flash CS3 brings to the table. Flash 8 was, if not a home run, at least a ground-rule double, and there were plenty of places for Adobe to mess what would become Flash CS3 up during the multiple simultaneous transitions (Macromedia to Adobe, PowerPC to Intel, XP to Vista). But they didn't mess it up, and the result is a remarkably robust upgrade—about what I would have expected from what would have been Flash 9 if the Adobe acquisition had never happened. As both a new product and an upgrade, Flash CS3 Professional earns a Strong Buy recommendation. And as part of the various CS3 suites Flash is currently bundled with, Flash CS3 should be considered a strong attraction and a definite plus to any of the bundles.
Flash CS3 Professional is available now directly from Adobe (both as a downloadable and a packaged product), as well as the usual plethora of online resellers. Pricing breaks down as follows:
Standalone version:
$699 new, $199 upgrade from Flash MX or later
Design Premium bundle:
$1799 new, $599 upgrade from Macromedia Studio MX or later, $1599 upgrade from Flash MX or later
Web Premium bundle:
$1599 new, $499 upgrade from Macromedia Studio MX or later, $1399 upgrade from Flash MX or later
Web Standard bundle:
$999 new, $399 upgrade from Macromedia Studio MX or later, $799 upgrade from Flash MX or later
Master Collection bundle (available later this year):
$2499 new, $1999 upgrade from Macromedia Studio MX or later
Got Feedback? to send an email. I'll do my best to answer. Really.