Flash at Experiencepoint

As the lead Flash developer at Experiencepoint I wanted to write a general introduction about what Flash is and how it has changed over the years.  I’ve simplified a few technical concepts in this posting to keep things from getting too bogged down.  I hope you will find this post to be a useful and informative read.

What is Flash?

Flash is a graphics computer program originally written by Macromedia and now owned by Adobe Systems.  The Flash program is primarily used to create animation and interactive web pages for the internet.  Experiencepoint uses Flash to create its newest line of simulations among which include;

• ExperienceChange: Globaltech
• TD Maplehill
• Soon to be released LakeView

A brief history of Flash.

In 1993 a company called FutureWave Software created an application called SmartSketch.  It provided an easy way for people to draw graphics directly on a computer screen using a pen touch system.  The software was written for a operating system called Go – which was still being built at the time.  AT&T bought the operating system and in 1994 pulled the plug on it just before it shipped leaving SmartSketch without platform to run on.

In an attempt to keep the product alive FutureWave re-wrote SmartSketch for the Macintosh and Windows platform.  Unfortunately by the time the re-write was complete other major drawing applications were well established in the market place making for a tough sell.

In 1995 FutureWave explored the possibility of turning SmartSketch into an animation program.  Around this time the internet was starting to attract a lot of attention and FutureWave gambled that people would want to use the Web as a way to display graphics and animations.  They took the plunge and developed SmartSketch into an animation program and renamed it FutureSplash Animator.

1996 was a big year for FutureWave as Microsoft and Disney took an bought into the idea of providing animation over the web and started using the program.  This in turn caught the attention of Macromedia who bought the software and renamed it Flash 1.0 in December of 1996.  The name Flash was derived from the name FutureSplash by dropping six of its letters (‘utures’).  Flash still has many of the tools and behaviours that SmartSketch did when it was first written in 1994.

What Does Flash Do?

At its core what Flash did 1996 and what it still does now, is play animations over the internet.  It does this very well for two reason:  the first reason is vector graphics.  Standard animation use bitmap graphics (which are like photographs) that require large files and a quick internet connection to look good.  Vector animations are small and travel over the internet quickly.  The second reason Flash become the standard way to show animations on the internet was its ability to stream.  When you play a Flash animation you don’t need to download the whole file before you start watching it.  These two abilities made the internet in 1996 seem a whole lot more fun and engaging.

The Split Personality

As Flash continued to grow over the years it started to develop a split personality.  Flash was a program created for artists – one that allows a user to quickly and intuitively draw and create animations for the Web.  There was however something else starting to grow and demand attention.  Flash has always allowed its users to add bits of interactivity to their animations.  The allowable interactions were very basic at first.  Users could add buttons to give viewers control over the animation.  With every version of the program the complexity of the allowable interactions increased.  Flash had created its own programming language (ActionScript) and with it a new kind of user.

ActionScript allows the artist to control their animation in a way that would not be possible with traditional animation.  It allows for the graphics to respond to input from the user, like pressing a button, typing a sentence or playing music.  With this added degree of control came an added degree of complexity.  Adobe knew that it users wanted these features but implementing them had to be easy to understand.  Flash’s primary user base were artist that had little to no programming experience.  This problem was initially solved by allowing the artist to use wizards and friendly point and click style building blocks to build the interactivity.

In 2003 Adobe introduced ActionScript 2 with its newest release of Flash (MX 2004).  This version of the language was far more complex and offered many new powerful feature.  Many of these new features could not be managed by the traditional point and click building blocks.  Adobe included a text editor inside Flash to write the new ActionScript code to allow its users to leverage these features.   If a client wanted to have a cutting edge Flash animation, authors were going to have to learn how to program or find someone that would do it for them.

This created different types of Flash users, on one side you had those that animate/illustrate/design in Flash, on the other were those that wrote the code to control graphics.  In between you had people that did varying degrees of both tasks.  For the sake of simplicity I am going to refer to the first group as Artist and the later group as Programmers.  In reality however I find that most professionals in this field have a healthy mixture of both of these labels.

You can’t make everyone happy.

As Adobe grew Flash into a more complex application these user types started to complain.  Artist didn’t like all the complexity that was shoehorned into an animation program and programmers hated how Adobe dumbed down the development process.  Pulling these two processes apart and creating a environment that allows programmers and artists to work together in a comfortable and proficient way continues to be major goal of Adobe to this day.  Two examples of Adobe seeking to answer this goal are ActionScrirt 3 and the latest releases of the Flash (CS4).

ActionScript 3 is a complete re-write of the scripting engine that controls Flash animations.  ActionScript 3 can be written in a simple text file and compiled using a command line compiler.  This allows a programmer to work outside of the Flash program and to use a high quality language build for developers.

Flash CS4 is the latest release from Adobe and they have stopped adding developer related tools inside of the application.  The Flash program has shifted it focus back to it original roots.  It is once again a program that is primarily to be used by artist to create animation/graphics/design.