Pros and Cons of Flash

Problem 1: Presentation medium

• Flash Animation
• Pros
• Can create simple, vector based diagrams
• Ve ry small file sizes
• Can be encoded into video format through software
• Cartoon style creates a more vibrant presentation
• Software can “smooth out” drawings
• “Tweening” makes animation simpler
• Allows for integration with Adobe Suite of products
• Can easily export in a number of movie and image formats
• Fast rendering times
• Cons
• Cartoon style look may turn off some viewers
• No realistic look to drawings
• For the most part, limited to two dimensional drawings
• Quality of video conversion may be sub par
• Coding in the software can become quite technical and tedious
• Requires user to draw most objects – imported images do not behave as well as objects drawn within the software
• May require a tablet to create best drawings (instead of mouse)

Adobe Flash uses "key frames "in order to animate. Objects are set at certain positions at certain frames; motion paths are automatically created to get from point A in frame A to point B in frame B. The image to the left shows the drawing interface, and at the top is the time line that shows frame positions. Flash documents can be easily saved as shockwave files (.swf, a regular flash file for a web browser), animated gifs, movie files, or individual images. None of these exporting methods requires third party software. To the left is an example of an exported animation of a ship, similar to the one created in PowerPoint in the previous brainstorming section (click the gif to see the animation in action). Lines can be drawn with a mouse, or more popularly, with a third-party tablet attached the computer via USB interface. Also, there are tools to create ovals, rectangles, and straight lines. Objects can be separated to different layers; these layers can be locked or made invisible to make an easier drawing environment to work with. Also, each layer has its own time line for frames, which makes it easy to animate only within a certain layer while keeping a background layer still. Ironically, Adobe Flash is a complicated program used to make more simple animation.