About a year ago, I posted some information about a technology that I saw presented at Adobe MAX in Chicago. The technology was a future product called Thermo. At this past year's Adobe MAX conference, Adobe provided an update on the progress of this application, and also introduced the new official name of the product: Adobe Flash Catalyst. I've had a chance to play with a preview version of the application, and have written about my experiences and opinions on the application over at my MOGO Media blog. Take a look at let me know what you think!
Showing posts with label flash. Show all posts
Showing posts with label flash. Show all posts
ASK MORDY: Limitations between Flash and Illustrator
As they are both lumped together in the category of "vector" applications, one can easily assume that objects can be moved freely between Illustrator and Flash. Unfortunately, that is not the case.
Today's question comes in from Elisabeth:
I work for scientists and make presentations for them in Flash. I create the storyboards to go with them in Illustrator. In doing this I often have to copy and paste text from Flash to Illustrator and instead of text I get vector objects. Is there any way to get around this?
The reality is that when it comes to integration between these two powerhouse applications, there's a big fat "one way" sign, and the arrow points from Illustrator and leads to Flash. Try going from Flash to Illustrator and you're faced with a huge "Do Not Enter" sign instead.
Actually, go back a few versions and you couldn't even find a reliable way to go from Illustrator into Flash. While Illustrator and Flash are indeed both vector-based applications, their graphic engines and the way they export those vectors aren't the same. In fact, if you think about it, Flash was built to display artwork in one place, and one place only -- the Flash Player. Even as recently as Flash 8, importing Illustrator artwork into Flash resulted in some pretty ugly paths. In the CS3 release, Flash actually implemented Illustrator's vector graphics engine under the hood, which finally allowed Flash to interpret and maintain the integrity of each anchor point and respective control handle.
To understand the significance of this, take into account the screenshot that appears above. I drew a circle in Illustrator and copied and pasted it into Flash. The circle on the left is how the circle appears when pasted into Flash CS3. The circle on the right is how the same circle appears when pasted in Flash 8. Sweet, eh? In fact, Flash CS3 is pretty intelligent when it comes to pasting content from Illustrator -- live drop shadows from Illustrator become live editable drop shadows in Flash, gradients come in as gradients instead of bitmaps, clipping masks come in correctly, text become editable -- the list goes on.
Here's the thing though -- the code for bringing artwork into Flash was updated, allowing art to move from Illustrator into Flash, but the code for exporting artwork FROM Flash hasn't changed at all. Meaning that while there's a way to get awesome graphics INTO Flash, there's no way to go the other way around. Hence, if you try drawing a circle in Flash and then copy and paste it into Illustrator, you'll get the same result as you see in the circle on the right, in the above image. Likewise, text is also lost when going the "wrong way".
As I mentioned in a previous post, Fireworks CS4 now shares the same text engine as Illustrator does, making it now possible to move text easily between FW and AI -- but sadly, that isn't the case for Flash.
Looking forward, Flash Player 10 (recently released) does have support for something called FTE (Flash Text Engine -- formerly known by its codename, "vellum"), although support for this isn't available within the Flash application itself just yet. I would guess the hope would be that at some point, the FTE technology and the ATE technology (Adobe Text Engine) found in Illustrator, Fireworks, Photoshop, After Effects, etc, would be able to communicate with each other to allow text to move freely between all of these applications.
To wrap up, my understanding is that MOST people need to bring content from Illustrator into Flash, and so that workflow has a higher priority, and those pain points were addressed first. Workflows where designers need to bring content from Flash into Illustrator aren't nearly as common (although I'll admit I've been hearing more people ask for this lately). But since this workflow isn't as mainstream, it doesn't get a high priority at Adobe. If you're a designer and you feel differently, let Adobe know. Either comment here, or contact Adobe directly with your requests (yes, Adobe actually does listen).
Today's question comes in from Elisabeth:
I work for scientists and make presentations for them in Flash. I create the storyboards to go with them in Illustrator. In doing this I often have to copy and paste text from Flash to Illustrator and instead of text I get vector objects. Is there any way to get around this?
The reality is that when it comes to integration between these two powerhouse applications, there's a big fat "one way" sign, and the arrow points from Illustrator and leads to Flash. Try going from Flash to Illustrator and you're faced with a huge "Do Not Enter" sign instead.
Actually, go back a few versions and you couldn't even find a reliable way to go from Illustrator into Flash. While Illustrator and Flash are indeed both vector-based applications, their graphic engines and the way they export those vectors aren't the same. In fact, if you think about it, Flash was built to display artwork in one place, and one place only -- the Flash Player. Even as recently as Flash 8, importing Illustrator artwork into Flash resulted in some pretty ugly paths. In the CS3 release, Flash actually implemented Illustrator's vector graphics engine under the hood, which finally allowed Flash to interpret and maintain the integrity of each anchor point and respective control handle.
To understand the significance of this, take into account the screenshot that appears above. I drew a circle in Illustrator and copied and pasted it into Flash. The circle on the left is how the circle appears when pasted into Flash CS3. The circle on the right is how the same circle appears when pasted in Flash 8. Sweet, eh? In fact, Flash CS3 is pretty intelligent when it comes to pasting content from Illustrator -- live drop shadows from Illustrator become live editable drop shadows in Flash, gradients come in as gradients instead of bitmaps, clipping masks come in correctly, text become editable -- the list goes on.
Here's the thing though -- the code for bringing artwork into Flash was updated, allowing art to move from Illustrator into Flash, but the code for exporting artwork FROM Flash hasn't changed at all. Meaning that while there's a way to get awesome graphics INTO Flash, there's no way to go the other way around. Hence, if you try drawing a circle in Flash and then copy and paste it into Illustrator, you'll get the same result as you see in the circle on the right, in the above image. Likewise, text is also lost when going the "wrong way".
As I mentioned in a previous post, Fireworks CS4 now shares the same text engine as Illustrator does, making it now possible to move text easily between FW and AI -- but sadly, that isn't the case for Flash.
Looking forward, Flash Player 10 (recently released) does have support for something called FTE (Flash Text Engine -- formerly known by its codename, "vellum"), although support for this isn't available within the Flash application itself just yet. I would guess the hope would be that at some point, the FTE technology and the ATE technology (Adobe Text Engine) found in Illustrator, Fireworks, Photoshop, After Effects, etc, would be able to communicate with each other to allow text to move freely between all of these applications.
To wrap up, my understanding is that MOST people need to bring content from Illustrator into Flash, and so that workflow has a higher priority, and those pain points were addressed first. Workflows where designers need to bring content from Flash into Illustrator aren't nearly as common (although I'll admit I've been hearing more people ask for this lately). But since this workflow isn't as mainstream, it doesn't get a high priority at Adobe. If you're a designer and you feel differently, let Adobe know. Either comment here, or contact Adobe directly with your requests (yes, Adobe actually does listen).
Video clips of Adobe's keynote session in Miami
In case you weren't able to attend the recent InDesign and Vector Conference in Miami, here are two video clips from the keynote Address where Michael Ninness of Adobe demonstrated a "technology preview" of some stuff that might appear in a future version of Adobe software. The stuff that you see in the videos involves InDesign and Flash.
Michael starts off by talking about creating interactive buttons in InDesign. The implementation is actually pretty sweet and I only wish Illustrator would be able to do that someday. Michael then proceeds to create a SWF slide presentation from InDesign, with some pretty cool page transitions.
In the second video clip, Myke continues by taking an entire magazine publication from InDesign and bringing it right into Flash (all the pages come in as movie clip symbols as individual frames on the timeline, which alone is pretty cool). Then he attaches an ActionScript and turns the whole thing into a fabulous SWF version of the publication.
Would love to hear your thoughts on what you think of this stuff...
Michael starts off by talking about creating interactive buttons in InDesign. The implementation is actually pretty sweet and I only wish Illustrator would be able to do that someday. Michael then proceeds to create a SWF slide presentation from InDesign, with some pretty cool page transitions.
In the second video clip, Myke continues by taking an entire magazine publication from InDesign and bringing it right into Flash (all the pages come in as movie clip symbols as individual frames on the timeline, which alone is pretty cool). Then he attaches an ActionScript and turns the whole thing into a fabulous SWF version of the publication.
Would love to hear your thoughts on what you think of this stuff...
Have you seen Thermo?
I have seen the future, and its name is THERMO.
I was at Adobe's MAX conference in Chicago last week and had the opportunity to see what I can only describe as probably one of the most exciting pieces of technology I've seen in the past five years. It is something that will change the way I do my own work and will probably do the same for many others as well. It is called Thermo.
Adobe gave a little sneak peek of Thermo -- which is an application that Adobe is working on (they have made no formal announcement as to when it would ship). The name Thermo is also a codename -- no word on what the final application may be called.
Before I can accurately describe what Thermo is, I have to paint the picture of where things are today.
As my loyal readers, you are familiar with kuler -- which is what Adobe refers to as an RIA (or a Rich Internet Application). That's because while it uses the internet, it doesn't necessarily have to live in a browser. You may also be familiar with AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime), which enables RIAs to simply run on your desktop -- no browser needed. Besides kuler, Adobe also recently took the wraps off AMP, or the Adobe Media Player -- which is a player (much like the Real Player or the QuickTime player), but which naturally supports FLV playback amongst many other things. AMP is an RIA that runs on AIR as well.
But how does one build such applications? Well, it usually requires both a designer and a developer to work together. The designer creates comps using applications like Illustrator, Photoshop, and even Flash. These designs may look nice, but they just sit there -- they aren't functional. A developer then has to write the code to make the application function as intended, using tools like Flash and Flex Builder.
Thermo is an application built for designers that allows you to design in Illustrator or Photoshop, and then easily convert design elements into functional code that works. Meaning, you can DRAW a picture of a button or a slider and then simply click on it and tell Thermo you want the picture or design element to be a button. In the background, THERMO WRITES ALL OF THE FLEX CODE FOR YOU. It also means that at the same time, a designer can tweak the LOOK of the app while a developer plugs in code to hook up your app to a back-end server, etc. It's all the same code.
It's unreal, and you really can't fully grasp the potential of this until you actually see it. And what do you know -- you can watch a video of the entire Thermo sneak peek right here... ENJOY.
Would love to hear comments on what others think about this...
I was at Adobe's MAX conference in Chicago last week and had the opportunity to see what I can only describe as probably one of the most exciting pieces of technology I've seen in the past five years. It is something that will change the way I do my own work and will probably do the same for many others as well. It is called Thermo.
Adobe gave a little sneak peek of Thermo -- which is an application that Adobe is working on (they have made no formal announcement as to when it would ship). The name Thermo is also a codename -- no word on what the final application may be called.
Before I can accurately describe what Thermo is, I have to paint the picture of where things are today.
As my loyal readers, you are familiar with kuler -- which is what Adobe refers to as an RIA (or a Rich Internet Application). That's because while it uses the internet, it doesn't necessarily have to live in a browser. You may also be familiar with AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime), which enables RIAs to simply run on your desktop -- no browser needed. Besides kuler, Adobe also recently took the wraps off AMP, or the Adobe Media Player -- which is a player (much like the Real Player or the QuickTime player), but which naturally supports FLV playback amongst many other things. AMP is an RIA that runs on AIR as well.
But how does one build such applications? Well, it usually requires both a designer and a developer to work together. The designer creates comps using applications like Illustrator, Photoshop, and even Flash. These designs may look nice, but they just sit there -- they aren't functional. A developer then has to write the code to make the application function as intended, using tools like Flash and Flex Builder.
Thermo is an application built for designers that allows you to design in Illustrator or Photoshop, and then easily convert design elements into functional code that works. Meaning, you can DRAW a picture of a button or a slider and then simply click on it and tell Thermo you want the picture or design element to be a button. In the background, THERMO WRITES ALL OF THE FLEX CODE FOR YOU. It also means that at the same time, a designer can tweak the LOOK of the app while a developer plugs in code to hook up your app to a back-end server, etc. It's all the same code.
It's unreal, and you really can't fully grasp the potential of this until you actually see it. And what do you know -- you can watch a video of the entire Thermo sneak peek right here... ENJOY.
Would love to hear comments on what others think about this...
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