Ser Loisse R.

Mortel
IV – St. Dominic

An Internet-Based Treasure Hunt on Flash

Instructions | The Questions | The Internet Resources | The Big Question

1. What is flash?

Flash, a popular authoring software developed by Macromedia, is used to create

vector graphics-based animation programs with full-screen navigation interfaces,
graphic illustrations, and simple interactivity in an antialiased, resizable file
format that is small enough to stream across a normal modem connection. The
software is ubiquitous on the Web, both because of its speed (vector-based
animations, which can adapt to different display sizes and resolutions, play as
they download) and for the smooth way it renders graphics. Flash files, unlike
animated but rasterized GIF and JPEG, are compact, efficient, and designed for
optimized delivery.

Known as a do-it-yourself animation package, Flash 4 gives Web designers the

ability to import artwork using whatever bitmap or illustration tool they prefer,
and to create animation and special effects, and add sound and interactivity. The
content is then saved as file with a .SWF file name extension. (The letters SWF
stand for 'Shockwave Flash.')

Web users with Intel Pentium or Power Macintosh processors can download Flash
Player to view Flash content, which performs across multiple browsers and
platforms. Flash is lauded for being one of the Web's most accessible plug-in.
According to an independent study cited by Macromedia, 89.9 percent of Web
users already have Flash Player installed.

2. Trace the history of flash

Flash began as Jonathan Gay's dream of being an architect. While designing

sketches of houses, Gay came to the sad realization that there was not a lot of
opportunity for him to actually see his designs in final form. It was when an Apple
II entered his life that Gay began to program, and soon discovered that with
writing programs, you can design something, build it and then see it work and
respond to the user. His designs would now reach final form - however, his bits of
Apple II Basic were not as impressive as building houses.
His first full program was a game, written in Basic, that was a copy of Space
Invaders. From Basic he graduated to writing in Pascal; the language used to
write his first graphics editor (SuperPaint) which he won an award for at his
high school's science fair.

"If you ever think Flash is difficult to use, you should try drawing with a
joystick on an Apple II before the concept of undo was invented. That will
test your patience." Jonathan Gay, Creator of Flash

Jonathan Gay got his break in professional programming while still in high
school. When his Apple II was replaced with a Macintosh, Gay and his father
began attending early Macintosh Users Group meetings, where his father
bragged to the organizer of the group about his science fair project. As it
turned out, the organizer was Charlie Jackson who was planning to launch a
Macintosh software company under the name Silicon Beach Software.

Although at the time Charlie did not have a lot of funding for the project, he
purchased a $10,000 Lisa for Gay to program on. It was on this computer
that Gay wrote Airborne!, the first Macintosh game that used digital sound
and smooth (for its era) animation. For a time, it was a big seller.

From games to drawing

When work began on a second game, a professional artist was hired and
Dark Castle was born. Dark Castle was a big hit and paid Gay's way through
college. After Dark Castle, came Beyond Dark Castle. Writing games became
an important part of Gay's programming education by challenging him to
combine animation with digital sound and synchronize the two elements.
Most importantly, the concept of fast and responsive software became Gay's
first priority.
After Beyond Dark Castle, Gay began working on SuperPaint II (the follow up
to his science fair project) in which he implemented PostScript style drawing.
After SuperPaint II and graduating from college, Gay went to work for Silicon
Beach Software full time and began to develop technology for creating a new
generation of graphics software. It would be written in C++, and would use
an object-oriented framework to make development easy and to enable it to
run on the Macintosh and Windows.

This technology became a drawing program called Intellidraw that would

enable Silicon Beach to compete with Adobe Illustrator and Aldus Freehand
(Freehand was later acquired by Macromedia) in the Postscript drawing
market. The unique aspect of Intellidraw was that not only did it draw
pictures, it allowed you to add behavior to your drawings so you could create
lines that stayed connected to objects and you could draw a bar chart that
would change as the user entered numbers into a text object. As it turned
out the first computer drawing product, called SketchPad, had this ability but
people had forgotten about it. A company called Visio was able to take this
idea and create a very successful product from it, while that feature of
Intellidraw never drew a substantial market. When it was realized that
Intellidraw was destined to be a modest success, Gay decided it was time to
find a new challenge. He had made as much money working part time as he
had working full time on Intellidraw so it was decided that he would try and
place himself in a position where he could create a successful product and
benefit from it's success - so he started his own company.

At this time in personal computing technology, pen computers (a screen you

could write on with an electronic pen) were the latest 'new thing'. A company
called GO was building an operating system for a new generation of portable
computers that would utilize this technology. The computers would be
smaller and the user could take them virtually anywhere. It was a very
appealing idea and with Silicon Beach Software, it was seen how a new
operating system created the opportunity to build new software companies.

With the investment help of Charlie Jackson, FutureWave Software was

launched in January of 1993, to dominate the market for graphics software
on pen computers.

At this point, it was widely understood that it was

hard for users to learn complex features in a
program and that the real challenge was creating
sophisticated software that is easy to use.
Computer drawing was obviously slower and more
awkward than drawing with a pencil on paper.
Although Apple's mouse had been an improvement
over the joystick, drawing with an electronic pen
directly on a computer screen would be even
easier. With the help of Robert Tatsumi, Jonathan
set out to build software that would make drawing
on the computer as easy drawing on paper.

A change in plans

GO, as it turned out was better at spending money than then it was making
money and were acquired by AT&T. Shortly after, in January of 1994, AT&T
pulled the plug on GO and left FutureWave's software without a market. The
only opportunity for survival was to take the software and rebuild it for
Windows and Macintosh. From there SmartSketch was marketed as a better
way to draw on the computer and had little success in an established market
domineered by Illustrator and Freehand.

In mid-summer of 1995, FutureWave received a lot of feedback from people

saying that they should convert SmartSketch into an animation product.
FutureWave became highly interested in creating animation software, but at
the time the only way at distribute animation was on VHS or CD ROM, and
the market for animation tools was very small.

About this time, a new concept called the Internet (as well as the World Wide
Web) was making its debut into the public eye. In theory, it seemed possible
that the web would become popular enough that user would want to send
and display graphics or animation thus creating a market for FutureWave to
create a profitable two dimensional computer animation product.
With this in mind, work began on SmartSketch to add animation and use Java
to render a web player, which in the beginning was frightfully slow.
FutureWave continued developing and in the fall, Netscape came out with
their plug-in API, which now provided a way to extend from the web browser
with decent performance.

Talks about shipping SmartSketch Animator began until it was realized that
SmartSketch didn't have much brand recognition and should focus less on
drawing and more on animation, so the program was renamed CelAnimator.
For fear of being labeled cartoon creation software, the name was changed
again to FutureSplash Animator.
Almost married to Adobe

Work on the FutureSplash Animator continued, the company became restless

with the idea that they were too small to generate the popularity they were
looking for, so in October of 1995 they tried selling the software technology
to John Warnock at Adobe.

Although he was interested in the SmartSketch drawing software the slow

demo of the FutureSplash animation in Java was not impressive enough,
causing Adobe to decline. (Ed: Remember Bryan Williams and The Beatles?)
In December of 1995, the company was almost sold to Fractal Design but
they too were mostly interested in SmartSketch, and declined on
FutureSplash.

In the summer of 1996, the FutureSplash Animator software was shipped and
began to gain public interest. FutureWave's biggest success was in August of
1996, when Microsoft was working on their web version of MSN and they
wanted to create the most television like experience possible on the Internet,
FutureSplash was their solution. FutureWave's other high profile client
besides Microsoft was Disney Online. Disney was using FutureSplash to
create animation and interface for their subscription based online service
Disney's Daily Blast.

In November of 1996, Macromedia approached FutureWave about working

together. Since FutureWave had been running for 4 years with a total
investment of $500,000 they took the offer and in December of 1996,
Macromedia acquired the company and Future Splash Animator became
Macromedia Flash 1.0.
 Flash is now in its 5th version at Macromedia and has retained a good
amount of code that was written for the GO pen computers. It's now used by
over 500,000 developers and the player is resident on more than 250 million
computers.

3. What can be done with flash?

The Macromedia Flash authoring tool was originally an animation tool, but it
is so much more than that today. From the early days when it was known as
FutureSplash to the Flash 8 version today, Flash has always excelled as a
vector-drawing and animation tool. Even though animation is still a large part
of what Flash does, now it is only a fraction of the Flash toolset.

Here are the broad categories available in Flash 8 authoring:

Vector graphics - Vector drawings are made up of many lines and curves
and fills, each defined by a set of coordinates and the paths along them.
These paths-vectors-are described via mathematical functions. Because
mathematical formulas are used to store and create the image, they are
resolution independent and can be resized arbitrarily smaller or larger with
no loss of quality. Also, images based on calculations are generally smaller in
file size than bitmap images, which is an advantage for bandwidth-limited
Web delivery.

Bitmap graphics - Bitmap (a.k.a. raster) images are made up of a grid of

pixels. Every pixel's color and location in the grid must be stored individually,
which usually (but not always) means larger file sizes than images made of
vector calculations. Although Flash handles bitmap graphics, the program is
not built for direct image manipulation on a pixel level; rather, Flash is
primarily an image handler. Flash can retain JPEG compression of imported
JPEG files, as well as apply lossless or custom lossy compression to imported
bitmap images.

Animation - Flash is an excellent tool for vector animation, given that the
native file format is vector-based. Color and alpha effects can be applied
over time by using Flash's built-in tweening, by using a series of manually
modified keyframes, or by controlling symbols with
ActionScript. Time-based animations can also be streamed so that playback
can begin before the entire Flash movie has downloaded into the Flash
Player.

Multimedia authoring - Flash can import a wide range of media formats in

addition to standard vector and bitmap image formats. For example, Flash is
capable of importing video directly into the authoring environment. Flash can
also import audio files in most common formats at author-time or
dynamically stream MP3 audio at runtime. Both of these can be used to
enhance your productions and animations. You can manipulate these assets
with ActionScript and add interactive functionality to them.
 Dynamic content - Flash can incorporate dynamically loaded information
into your productions. Text, images, and MP3s can be loaded into the movie
at runtime, and information can also be sent from the movie to a server or
database.

Rich Internet Applications - Since the release of Flash MX, Macromedia

has coined the term Rich Internet Applications, or RIAs, to refer to a new
breed of Web applications that use Flash Player technology to access
sophisticated enterprise-level server applications. Several technologies have
been developed by Macromedia, including Flash Remoting and Flash
Communication Server (also known as FlashCom, or FCS), to add enterprise-
level features to Flash content. Flash Remoting is the fastest means of
sending and receiving data from a Flash movie to server-side applications,
whereas Flash Communication Server can enable simultaneous interaction
among several users in real time. FlashCom can also deliver live or
prerecorded audio/video to Flash movies as well. The preceding list is only a
general overview of some of the capabilities of Flash. Don't think that you
have to be limited by that list. Flash can be a great tool for rapid prototyping
of applications, it's often an easy way to build simple utility applications
(data viewers/parsers, slideshow presentations, etc.), and you'll likely find
more unusual ways to use Flash as well.

4. What is the difference between vector graphics and raster

graphics?

Raster Graphics
A bitmap is basically an array of pixels with
values indicating the color. The bitmap sizes
are defined in pixels. BMP, TIF, GIF, JPG, PNG
and most other graphics formats are raster
graphics. Since the sizes are measured in
pixels, the print dimension depends on the
resolution of the printer. BMP records every
pixels in the image, so the size is very big even
for small images. Other formats use
compression algorithm to reduce the file size
without causing great visual degrading, but remember the barcode is read by
machines other than human. Overall, you need to keep the physical size
unchanged otherwise you will run into problems.

For example, you generate a barcode with 1 inch wide and 0.75 inch tall. The
display device usually has a dpi of 96, which translate 96 pixels per inch. If you
save the image into raster graphics format, you get a bitmap array with 96
pixels wide and 72 pixels in height. When you print from a laser printer at 600
dpi, the image shrink to 1/6 of the original size and becomes un-readable. In
our Barcode Studio and ActiveX control products, you can set the target
resolution. Still when you copy the image form one machine to another, the
same problem may arise again.
 Vector Graphics
A vector graphic contains the drawing
instructions other than the color value in pixels.
In Windows platform WMF is most widely used
vector graphic format that is supported by all
printers. The best feature about WMF is that
the dimension measures are completely device
independent. It can be easily scaled without
losing any characteristics( most likely you will
not use the scale feature). We strongly
recommend that you save your barcode image
in this format. In our Barcode Studio/ActiveX
products copy/paste operation is based on WMF
format which preserves all the information.
Other vector graphics formats include EPS
(Encapsulated PostScript), SVG (Scalable Vector
Graphics) format. To use EPS, you need to have a printer with postscript
enabled. SVG is designed to use with World Wide Web, but they are not
widely accepted. WMF is only supported in Windows platforms.

About Fonts
True type fonts are vector graphics. The font file contains directions
(contours) to draw the character (called glyph in typological term). A contour
can be either a line or a curve. Not all fonts used in Windows are true type
fonts, these raster fonts consisting of bitmap definitions of each glyph can
not be scaled to very large size, but they generally have the bitmaps for
most used point sizes. True type fonts can be used in both Microsoft and
Macintosh platforms. Since a font glyph must be scaled in the same ratio
horizontally and vertically, you should be aware that if you increase the point
size to increase the width, the height is also increased as well. On the other
side, when you move one document from one computer to another, you need
to make sure that the destination computer has the same font installed. This
generally requires another user license. To avoid end user license issue, you
can have the fonts embedded in the document.

Choose the graphics format

Generally speaking we recommend to use WMF format is all your works are
done in Windows platforms. That is actually most of people are doing
nowadays. But you need to be aware that most of applications are designed
to work with raster formats, under this case, we suggest you make sure that
the size is specified in physical measures (like inch) other than pixels. Using
truetype fonts do have an advantage here since fonts are specified in points,
not pixels ( a point is equal to 1/72 inch). If the raster image must be used
( such as to images in the Internet), you can generate two raster images, one
for viewing from the screen, one for printing. They have different resolution
settings. Our ASP/JSP barcode server allows you to specify the target device’s
resolution.

5. What are types of files that can be created in Flash?

 FL Flash file. This is the "master" document file for a flash project, i.e. the source
A file you work with in the Flash authoring program. These files can only be
opened with Flash — not the Flash Player. To create the final product which is
viewed by end users, export the appropriate file (usually SWF) from the FLA file.
FL Flash Video. Supported from version 7, FLV files are the preferred format for
V delivering video clips via Flash.
SW Flash delivery file — the file that end users see. This is a compressed version
F of the FLA file which is optimized for viewing in a web browser, the standalone
Flash Player, or any other program which supports Flash. This file type cannot be
edited in Flash.
SW Flash template. This allows you to edit and replace information in a Flash
T movie file; for example, a Flash button in which you can replace the text, links,
etc.
SW Flash element. These files have customisable parameters which allow you to
C perform various application functions.

6. What are essential parts of Flash’s workspace?

General Flash workflow

The parts above are described here:
Menu bar – a set of menus which allows you to govern all areas of the
program.
Toolbar – the complete set of tools that allow you to edit and complete all
your files within the Flash program.
Timeline – the space where in you can control the timeline of the
animations.
Stage – the primary part of the flash workspace wherein you create, edit,
beautify and finish your files.
Actions panel – allows you to put and edit actions
Property Inspector – contains the properties of the selected elements in the
stage.
Color Mixer – allows you to mix colors.
Components Panel – lists the constituents of elements placed on the stage.
Behaviors Panel – contains the behavior of the file in progress.
Help Panel – shows set of sections that help the beginner progress through
the Flash program.

=======================================

The BIG
If you were a member of the
Question

development team of Flash, what

additional element or tool will
you add to further enhance the
capability of this authoring tool?
Why?
If I were a member of the development team, I would add some Blend
Modes (hard light, soft light, overlay, color dodge, etc.) and some
filters. By adding these elements I can make image editing easier in
Adobe Flash and I would have to put less effort from having to edit
and finalize all my renders or elements in Flash. Doing that also makes
Flash a multi-dimensioned program that does not only animate files,
but also edits the images or elements that are going to be used for
animation.