jonnymac blog » Flash 10 / CS4 / “Diesel” Sneak Peek

Flash 10 / CS4 / “Diesel” Sneak Peek

October 22, 2007 at 9:53 pm · Filed under Adobe, FITC, Flash

Today at FITC Hollywood Richard Galvan, Adobe Flash Product Manager, gave a sneak peek at an upcoming feature in Flash 10 / CS4 / "Diesel". I am really surprised that I haven't read about this new feature anywhere else, so I thought I would post for those who couldn't make it to the conference.

That said, I was by no means expecting anything big to come from Adobe at FITC, mainly because they just held MAX where they previewed dozens of new applications and technologies. But, we were blessed with one new sneak:

The next version of the Flash IDE, Flash 10 "Diesel", will feature a brand new timeline animation model. What's the difference? There will no longer be a need for keyframes. Yes, it sounds drastic, but based on the demo, this is going to make timeline animations _much_ easier to work with and make Flash much easier for beginners.

In short you will be able to select an object on the stage, right-click and choose "Add Motion/Shape Tween", and the timeline layer with the object will turn red to signify that it now contains a tween. Then you move the object (if you want to animate its motion) to create the end state. Want to extend the length of the tween? Just drag the timeline layer out over additional frames. Basically, this model completely fixes broken tweens -- you can no longer have a tween that is "broken" because it is missing a keyframe because tweens are no longer tied to keyframes.

An additional cool feature with this is that when you move the object to the end state, a dotted line shows up along the path of the tween, showing you exactly where the object is going to move to. Want to change the path? Just move the object and the line automatically updates. Not good enough? Adjust the line just like any other curved line in Flash/Illustrator making it more rounded, or increase the length by adjusting the end point to your liking. You can also choose the Transform tool and use it to squish/expand or otherwise transform your tween path.

Maybe I missed something and this had been announced at MAX as well, but if not, I am really surprised that I haven't seen this up on MXNA yet!

Permalink

jonnymac blog » FITC Hollywood / Day 1 / Sessions said,

October 22, 2007 @ 10:15 pm

[...] The next version of the Flash IDE, Flash 10 “Diesel”, will feature a brand new timeline animation model. What’s the difference? There will no longer be a need for keyframes. Yes, it sounds drastic, but based on the demo, this is going to make timeline animations _much_ easier to work with and make Flash much easier for beginners. I blogged more details about this sneak peek here. [...]

Gaspy said,

October 22, 2007 @ 11:32 pm

Very interesting. The way you describe it, it seems to be just like the timeline model used by After Effects.

Peter said,

October 23, 2007 @ 12:56 am

They definitely showed the new animation feature for the next version of Flash at MAX. Nice to hear they also did that demo at FITC Hollywood.

http://www.peterelst.com/blog/2007/10/03/adobe-max-chicago-sneak-peeks/

Ian said,

October 23, 2007 @ 5:02 am

Actually this was covered at MAX, and there’s even been a video online to demonstrate it. Watch the “Flash ‘Next’” video to see it in action:

http://www.peterelst.com/blog/2007/10/03/adobe-max-chicago-sneak-peeks/

Jon MacDonald said,

October 23, 2007 @ 7:39 am

Peter - I’m not really sure how I missed this in your videos, as I watched every one like a little kid in a toy store. But, thanks for letting me know it was also previewed at MAX — that would certainly explain why no one else had this up at MXNA after the keynote yesterday!

GRZ said,

October 24, 2007 @ 7:04 am

really hope it coming soon ,cos I’ve been suffering by Flash CS3’s poor action editing panel which could arise an unintelligible Memory Overflow Error when you do too much mouse-drag-text action…in addition, its library is very inconvenient to manage, during the development,sometimes ,the IDE compiler made a silent failure, I finally find out it was an library bug…it is so frustrate…

aw said,

October 24, 2007 @ 8:35 pm

So … seems that :
Flash CS4 is totally for designers and developers should pay more and more attention to Flex series.

Time for some reflections on Adobe Max 2007 Europe | Giovanni Antico Blog said,

October 30, 2007 @ 9:35 am

[...] Flash 10 / CS4 / “Diesel”* is a double WOW: a brand new timeline animation model. The animators will certainly appreciate this huge improvement, especially the ones already accustomed to After Effects. [...]

Script.it » Flash 10, CS4 - “Diesel” said,

November 8, 2007 @ 4:02 am

[...] Read more! [...]

Danger’s Flash Blog » Flash 10 代号 Diesel said,

February 5, 2008 @ 8:23 am

[...] http://www.jonnymac.com/blog/2007/10/22/flash-10-cs4-diesel-sneak-peek/ [...]

zorro said,

February 6, 2008 @ 10:11 pm

You guys seem to believe these new features in Flash CS4 are amazing… Well this is how Director is working for the past 12 years. Not that Director is frameless but all the other things like the dotted line and the fact you couldn’t get a brocken tweening were always there. Is just Flash that had that weird way to tween. In Director once you insert a sprite on the stage and add keyframes you are able to select them on stage and move them wherever you like along with the dotted line.

Jon MacDonald said,

February 7, 2008 @ 12:37 am

Zorro - I don’t think it is a matter of Director vs Flash, but rather the fact that this is new to Flash. It is nice to see Adobe learning a few things from Director, though.

Gon said,

April 8, 2008 @ 8:14 am

The future is, vector motion graphics, fast production of rich content for the web and digital signage.

Publicity within tft, plasma screens will be usual in a few years, paper is dead, and adobe knows it, adobe flash must be for designers to fill that market faster than anyone.

Current CS3 is a total nightmare for a designer, death to those keyframes!, everyone that works in the motion graphics or digital signage rejects the actual animation philosophy in Flash CS3.

The change must come, and adobe knows it !!! :D happy happy!

Ben said,

April 12, 2008 @ 7:23 am

I’m glad the timeline is being improved. There is not a single advantage to the age old frame-by-frame.

I hope, hope, hope to see some changes in security too, the ID3 tag restriction is absurd, no response headers is another WTF, port ranges limited to 1024, and the fullscreen no keyboard rule… absolutely horrendous. None of these are anything but a hindrance. And what is the deal with cross-domain computeSpectrum?

I usually blame laziness for bad ideas like these, but these had to *be* implemented for them to take effect… deary me…

Real hardware rendering and threads wouldn’t go a miss either, even with real rendering - there is always a rasteriser fallback. And with Flex hosting so many web apps, the only excuse for no threads is… oh, there isn’t one.

I love Adobe, but with Microsoft’s albeit feeble attempt to get a spot in the market with WPF, if they do things properly first - they might just get a hold.

Flash was always pretty, isn’t it time it was useful too?

Yiv said,

April 18, 2008 @ 5:17 am

No keyframes…?
So it’s just an entire tween engine?
What about us Frame by Framers D:

Flash Colombia » Primeras noticias e imagenes de Flash CS4, o Flash 10, o Diesel o como lo quieran llamar. said,

April 24, 2008 @ 7:07 pm

[...] Sin importar el nombre que queramos usar, es supremamente emocionante (yo se, solo a un geek lo podría emocionar saber noticias de una pieza de software) empezar a conocer detalles de cómo será la nueva versión de Flash. [...]

FanarLabs: Flash Game Development said,

July 3, 2008 @ 10:08 pm

it is good to see that feature finally added to Flash. Right now tweening can be a nightmare because of all the broken tweens and the strange way they act sometimes. I like this because I am used to animating in programs such as Swift 3D where it tweens for you.

nish said,

July 22, 2008 @ 6:41 am

who still uses tweens along the timeframe anayway?

coding tween classes is where the fun begins!

samedi said,

August 6, 2008 @ 4:25 am

yes nish… but if you are creating complex character animations you probably want to see what you are doing :D
That IK tool looks nice also!
And yes, real hardware rendering would be extremely cool

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