Flash: The Writing on the Wall part II
Posted: Wed May 16, 2012 8:52 pm
I should have known Adobe had a trick or two up their sleeve. Adobe has released the Creative Suite 6, and Flash has seemed, to me at least, to solidify its place on the web. This is through several different methods; one of which I thought would be happening (Flash to HTML5 converter) and a couple that I didn't (Unity to Flash and Stage3D). Here is the full list of goodies as I see it, some of which were started in CS5.5, but not fully realized or capitalized on until CS6:
1. Flash to HTML5: Flash Pro IDE can now export Flash animations (and supposedly, even games) to HTML5 format using the "Toolkit for CreateJS". CreateJS is an advanced library suite for Javascript that gives HTML5 more Flash-like capabilities, and Adobe is exploiting that now to convert directly to HTML5.
2. Stage3D: Stage3D is Adobe's new API/rendering methods that allow the developer to use GPU acceleration for 2D and 3D. It can definitely make 2D run better and look nicer, but everyone's attention is on the 3D capabilities. It is allowing pretty nice looking 3D engines like Flare3D to exist on Flash. There is even a small demo MMORPG made with Flare3D called "Sherwood Dungeon" that looks extremely impressive for being Flash content!
3. Better mobile apps: This really started with CS5, but there have always been complaints about the performance and Apple kicking their apps out. From what I am understanding, these complaints are largely over now that Adobe has remade pack-in versions of AIR designed and optimized specifically for popular mobile platforms and Apple seems to have mostly given in. Just like converted HTML5 apps, these will likely never compete with the performance of native apps, but most smaller games on mobile don't use anywhere near the full system resources anyway.
4. Unity3D support: This one was quite shocking to me, mostly because Unity basically has a competing browser plugin. But this is the best of both worlds for developers: the top-tier tools and traditional game development workflow of Unity and the plugin ubiquity of Flash. Obviously made possible by Stage3D, this publishing option (which is in a preview state right now), could take developers from an environment with a minuscule plugin adoption rate to an almost 100% adoption rate. Obviously I am assuming not everything done by Unity can be converted to Flash content since Unity is capable of creating next-gen games, but there are signs that a majority of Unity games coming out of the community could take advantage of it.
I mostly made this post to be fair to Flash, after my last post on the topic. I was seeing developer after developer jump ship from Flash, fearing being left behind. But now it looks like many developers are coming back, and it is even attracting new kinds of developers with the 3D capabilities. It definitely appears Flash has at least caught up with Shockwave 3D if not surpassed it, which may see the latter fade away into obscurity.
Very interesting and exciting stuff. Without the pressure of HTML5, I am sure CS6 would have just gotten another brush or two, and maybe a new shape lol.
1. Flash to HTML5: Flash Pro IDE can now export Flash animations (and supposedly, even games) to HTML5 format using the "Toolkit for CreateJS". CreateJS is an advanced library suite for Javascript that gives HTML5 more Flash-like capabilities, and Adobe is exploiting that now to convert directly to HTML5.
2. Stage3D: Stage3D is Adobe's new API/rendering methods that allow the developer to use GPU acceleration for 2D and 3D. It can definitely make 2D run better and look nicer, but everyone's attention is on the 3D capabilities. It is allowing pretty nice looking 3D engines like Flare3D to exist on Flash. There is even a small demo MMORPG made with Flare3D called "Sherwood Dungeon" that looks extremely impressive for being Flash content!
3. Better mobile apps: This really started with CS5, but there have always been complaints about the performance and Apple kicking their apps out. From what I am understanding, these complaints are largely over now that Adobe has remade pack-in versions of AIR designed and optimized specifically for popular mobile platforms and Apple seems to have mostly given in. Just like converted HTML5 apps, these will likely never compete with the performance of native apps, but most smaller games on mobile don't use anywhere near the full system resources anyway.
4. Unity3D support: This one was quite shocking to me, mostly because Unity basically has a competing browser plugin. But this is the best of both worlds for developers: the top-tier tools and traditional game development workflow of Unity and the plugin ubiquity of Flash. Obviously made possible by Stage3D, this publishing option (which is in a preview state right now), could take developers from an environment with a minuscule plugin adoption rate to an almost 100% adoption rate. Obviously I am assuming not everything done by Unity can be converted to Flash content since Unity is capable of creating next-gen games, but there are signs that a majority of Unity games coming out of the community could take advantage of it.
I mostly made this post to be fair to Flash, after my last post on the topic. I was seeing developer after developer jump ship from Flash, fearing being left behind. But now it looks like many developers are coming back, and it is even attracting new kinds of developers with the 3D capabilities. It definitely appears Flash has at least caught up with Shockwave 3D if not surpassed it, which may see the latter fade away into obscurity.
Very interesting and exciting stuff. Without the pressure of HTML5, I am sure CS6 would have just gotten another brush or two, and maybe a new shape lol.