Macromedia Flash Pro 8 (Win/Mac) [OLD VERSION]

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Macromedia Flash Pro 8 (Win/Mac) [OLD VERSION]

FLASH PRO 8 MLP RET CD 1U

Macromedia Flash Pro 8 is the industry's most advanced authoring environment for creating interactive web sites, digital experiences, and mobile content. With Flash Professional 8, creative professionals can design and author interactive content rich with video, graphics, and animation for truly unique, engaging web sites, presentations or mobile content.

Flash Player 8 adds a new, far more advanced video codec, On2 VP6. This codec provides superior video quality that is competitive with today's best video codecs at a much smaller file size. View larger.

Build content once and test it on a wide variety of devices using preset profiles for every mobile device that supports Flash Lite. View larger.

Script Assist provides a visual user interface for editing scripts that includes automatic syntax completion as well as descriptions for the parameters of any given action. View larger.

A revolutionary new font rendering engine that provides clear, highest-quality font rendering, FlashType makes small fonts look amazingly clear and greatly improves readability. View larger.

A major product release for Macromedia, Flash Professional 8 has many brand new features including: amazing graphic effects, integrated and stand-alone video encoding complete with support for alpha transparency, high-quality text rendering with advanced anti-aliasing control, improved text tools, and a new video plug-in to export Flash Video (FLV) files from professional video products.

Get Full Creative Control
Great ideas deserve great tools. Flash provides full design control to maximize creativity, resulting in a consistent end-user experience across a variety of platforms. Flash Pro 8 gives you the creative and technical tools you need to unleash applications to the web, Windows, Macintosh, Unix, PDAs, and even cell phones. With Flash Pro 8, you can reach the widest possible audience via the free and widely distributed Flash Player, installed on 98 percent of desktops globally.

Flash Professional 8 includes a major focus on usability enhancements so developers can work more efficiently without the application getting in the way. Script Assist, formerly Normal Mode, is back, and it's better than ever. Script Assist provides a visual user interface for editing scripts that includes automatic syntax completion as well as descriptions for the parameters of any given action. With multiple files open, each open files is consolidated into a single panel that acts like all other panels in Flash -- it stays where it's put. This way you can navigate between open libraries more easily using the new drop-down list.

Improved panel management optimizes the workspace as you require. You can group panels together in tabbed-panel sets, ala Dreamweaver and Fireworks, thereby reducing on-screen clutter by grouping most commonly-used panels together. For projects that require large graphics that extend far beyond the size of the stage in Flash, Flash Professional 8 lets you view objects much further off-stage. To expand the size of the pasteboard, simply drag an object close to the edge and the pasteboard will automatically grow to fit.

Rich Animation, Video, and Mobile Capability
Flash Pro 8 gives you the tools to create compelling 2D animations. By taking advantage of the most widely deployed video platform on the Internet, you can take video where it has never gone before.

Flash Professional 8 offers continued momentum to the rapidly expanding Flash video platform and new functionality for mobile content developers. Build content once and test it on a wide variety of devices using preset profiles for every mobile device that supports Flash Lite. Configure the testing profile to include multiple devices and filter the supported device list by target content type to easily determine which handsets support screen savers, wallpapers, in-browser content, stand-alone player, and so on. This will greatly reduce development time and simplify your planning for delivery.

Flash Player 8 includes a new, advanced video codec that provides superior video quality that's competitive with today's best video codecs at a much smaller file size. It also offers support for a real alpha channel at run-time. This revolutionary new capability provides the unique ability to overlay video composited with a transparent or semi-transparent alpha channel over other Flash content. This allows you to create dynamic presentations such as splashing water, smoke and fire effects, and more.

Enhancing The Image
Flash Pro 8 lets you create more compelling designs with built-in filter effects like drop shadow, blur, glow, bevel, gradient bevel, and color adjust. Filters are visual effects applied to MovieClips and text fields and are natively supported and rendered in real time by Flash Player. Going well beyond what other design tools offer, Flash Professional 8 offers run-time control over blend modes, allowing graphical effects to be composited for fully dynamic user interactivity.

Other enhancements include FlashType, a revolutionary new font rendering engine that provides clear, highest-quality font rendering. FlashType makes small fonts look amazingly clear and greatly improves readability. You can choose from several options for font rendering, each optimized for different use cases, as well as resize a text field using new, improved text handles.

You can also easily, intuitively, and precisely control the velocity of animated objects through an intuitive graph that provides independent control of position, rotation, scale, color, and filters. In addition to enhanced stroke functionality that allow you to select from a variety of cap and join types, you can apply a gradient to a stroke as well as a fill, and render stroke intersections better with stroke hinting.

Macromedia Flash Pro 8 (Win/Mac) [OLD VERSION] Accessories

Macromedia Dreamweaver 8 Win/Mac [OLD VERSION]
Macromedia Flash 8 Bible
Flash 8 ActionScript Bible
Adobe Photoshop CS2 [OLD VERSION]
Sams Teach Yourself Macromedia Flash 8 in 24 Hours (Sams Teach Yourself)
Macromedia Flash Professional 8 Hands-On Training
Macromedia Flash 8 for Windows & Macintosh (Visual QuickStart Guide)
Macromedia Flash 8 @work: Projects and Techniques to Get the Job Done (@Work)
Foundation ActionScript Animation: Making Things Move! (Foundation)
Adobe Photoshop CS3 [OLD VERSION]

Macromedia Flash Pro 8 (Win/Mac) [OLD VERSION] Reviews

Most of the products are fairly intuitive to use - except for Flash. I began by going through the "Getting Started with Flash 8" tutorial provided under Flash's HELP tab - and soon ran into MAJOR problems. But Adobe has no such customer satisfaction intentions or problem escalation policy. Disgusted, this prompted me to ask for a manager. I finally got a solution to one undocumented problem that was a show-stopper.

I asked if there was a ReadME, Release Notes or an Errata file anywhere that I could use to navigate around the errors. I told the rep I wasn't inclined to upgrade until I could get some utility out of my current 6-month old purchase. (American English at least). After spending enormous amounts of money on these two expensive suites of Adobe software (CS2 and Studio 8), I am really disgusted that Adobe has absolutely NO interest in my satisfaction with their products - AFTER the sale.

Shame on you Adobe. He said that several of the Flash 8 tutorials were buggy. My Adobe Support experience is the WORST I've ever had with ANY company. After hanging up and returning to the tutorial I immediately encountered ANOTHER error that, being a Flash newbie, I simply couldn't fix. I thought Dell was bad, but at least with Dell you can escalate an issue to eventual resolution (although it may take weeks). Flash Buyer beware. I spent 6.5 hours on the phone yesterday (8/20/07). They gave me Element K's number.

So back to Adobe Tech Support (yechh). a classic bloatware ripoff company. I was then repeatedly put on hold, usually for 30 minutes or more at a time - only to be recycled BACK to Help Desk (my starting point). Plus, their Tech Support is VERY responsive - all the way from Australia (and their tutorials actually WORK). Very exasperating). A great argument for OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE.

is completely outsourced to India and some of their reps are VERY hard to understand. I made the plunge into Adobe CS2 and Studio 8 in Feb. So I called Adobe Customer Service, and after more than an hour of mostly being on hold, their response was: that tutorial was produced by one of their vendors, Element K - and not Adobe's responsibility. No such files. (NOTE: Adobe's Customer Service Dept. But realizing that Flash REQUIRES learning to program in ActionScript, I tried to prepare for the learning headache.

But as you try to build this project in the tutorial, there are numerous errors that absolutely halt your progress. BTW, I switched to SwishMax, a Flash look-alike that's easier to use, way cheaper, and actually produces a compatible.swf file. Obviously, Adobe never tasked anyone to actually go through the tutorial - not even ONCE. I end up asking them to SPELL the word they're trying to pronounce.

'07. Element K said they didn't develop that tutorial. And NO, I will NOT be upgrading to CS3. So back to Adobe and TWO MORE HOURS on the phone - this time with their Tech Support Dept.

The 'Cafe Townsend' project looked very slick and the completed example worked flawlessly. This time, after 2.5 MORE hours on the phone (mostly on hold), the rep finally told me that the Cafe Townsend tutorial project was "full of holes" and that I should upgrade to Flash CS3. So I asked him which Flash tutorials actually DID work.

I have seen examples on the Web that actually use it to color their comic pages. I myself am not much of a coder. But Action Script is relatively easy compared to other programming languages. But one has buttons and another is an animation. The degree of difficulty can range from drawing a line to programming a game. As mentioned, Flash is a multi-purpose tool and that is true for all skill levels. It does animation, drawing, painting, web pages, games, video encoding, and programming.

Flash is an all purpose, multi-functional graphics program. Not the most impressive examples. I have just used it for simple things like buttons and links, but all you need to do is turn on "script assist" and have a good reference book. The animation also has a low learning curve.

There is a time line that is used to create the animation. I would not let Action Script discourage you from trying Flash. I use the drawing tools to draw math diagrams or touch up AutoCad drawings. As shown you don't need Action Script unless you are designing a game or website, or enhancing the animation. If you do artwork or design Flash is just as important to have in your tool kit as Photoshop is. But if you look in my profile, my site has some of the things that I have created in Flash. I have yet to create an entire Flash site. You can create movie clips, button, or graphics to define your animated entities.

I have not programmed any games. That can get involved. It just shows that even with a basic understanding of Flash, work can still be produced. It was originally intended to be a drawing programming, so the basic tool set is very intuitive and once learned aids in drawing.

Toon Boom Studio (Great but over-priced). Anime Studio (The bone-rigging is awesome). I use this program to create vector-based animations for my site, and for the people that don't know actionscript, turn the script-assist on, it works. More exuses for great programs would be.

I'm in a actionscript class right now and I am starting to believe it. I don't know if the macromedia personell will read this, but every person I've talked to about this program has said that flash was SO much easier BEFORE actionscript came into existence. I hope they get a clue and either make the script easier to use with a translator or something, or take it out completely, cause the current system right now, is failing miserabley.

This is not to say you can't do a significant amount of animation without scripting knowledge. This was a huge problem for me as I am not a programmer. However, I don't have prior Flash experience. For myself, I have chosen to stay with Macromedia Flash 8 since I already have it. For animation-centered uses you would be better off to choose a more specific tool such as those listed below. I did work through the tutorials to familiarize myself with the program. In my limited experience though, the major strength of Flash 8 seems to lie in the **development of interactive web applications** that include animation, and NOT in animation-centered uses such as presentations. As a designer, I was disappointed to find that scripting is typically required to achieve professional results, especially with text effects.

Other programs to consider before you buy Flash 8 would be:. - SwishMax: budget-friendly Flash8 replacement with 230 built-in visual effects. (This can be overcome by purchasing clunky addons which average around $50). Theoretically, attractive text effects can be achieved without scripting, but the time it costs to animate words character by character is prohibitive.

- e frontier's MotionArtist: PowerPoint on steroids, presentation-oriented. Let me qualify the following opinions by saying that I am a professional web designer who daily uses Adobe and Microsoft software, am of course comfortable with XHTML and CSS, and am what is often called a "power user" in computers in general. Please note: This review is not intended for experienced Flash developers. Important: Truly benefiting from your investment requires learning ActionScript on top of learning the Macromedia Flash program itself.

- Toon Boom: all-in-one (and high end) tool of choice for animators.