Flash animation
This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these template messages)
|
Adobe Flash animation (formerly Macromedia Flash animation and FutureSplash animation) is an animation that is created with the Adobe Animate (formerly Flash Professional[1]) platform or similar animation software and often distributed in the SWF file format. The term Adobe Flash animation refers to both the file format and the medium in which the animation is produced. Adobe Flash animation has enjoyed mainstream popularity since the mid-2000s, with many Adobe Flash-animated television series, television commercials, and award-winning online shorts being produced since then.
In the late 1990s, when bandwidth was still at 56 kbit/s for most Internet users, many Adobe Flash animation artists employed limited animation or cutout animation when creating projects intended for web distribution. This allowed artists to release shorts and interactive experiences well under 1 MB, which could stream both audio and high-end animation.
Adobe Flash is able to integrate bitmaps and other raster-based art, as well as video, though most Adobe Flash films are created using only
Adobe Flash animations are typically distributed by way of the
History
The first prominent use of the Adobe Flash animation format was by
On February 26, 1999, in a major milestone for Adobe Flash animation, the popular web series
About the same time, Joe Cartoon launched the interactive animation "Frog in a Blender" to become one of the first true "viral hits" on the Internet,[citation needed] gaining more than 90 million views since its release in 1999.
The Von Ghouls went live in November 1999, featuring the first music group with cartoon episodes online including original songs, in the vein of Saturday morning cartoons of the 1970s. A number of popular portal sites featured Adobe Flash animation during the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, including MondoMedia, Icebox, CampChaos, MediaTrip, Bogbeast and AtomFilms. Stan Lee, the late founder of Marvel Comics, launched an animated comics site.
The Internet also saw the proliferation of many websites devoted entirely to Flash cartoons. Some of the shows from that period made the transition to traditional media, including
In 2000, another major milestone occurred in the world of animation when the first broadcast-quality Adobe Flash animation aired on television. Dice Raw's music video "Thin Line between Raw and Jiggy" appeared on the big screen at Resfest 2000, on television via BET, and the Web on sites such as Sputnik7.com, Shockwave.com, Heavy.com and was also included with the CD. Its creation became one of media history's first convergent entertainment productions.[9] Todd Wahnish, who would later go on to create Marvel Entertainment's "All Winners Squad", pioneered the early conversion of traditional hand-drawn techniques into vector-based animation seen in the video. The video triggered a flood of Adobe Flash-based television animation.[citation needed]
Several recording companies experimented with releasing animated music videos to promote their artists' releases online, including
Several popular online series were produced in Adobe Flash Professional, such as the
Many
Other TV shows, such as Home Movies, Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, and Ballmastrz: 9009 broadcast on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim programming block, switched to Adobe Flash Professional from other animation technology and on Disney XD with Kick Buttowski: Suburban Daredevil.
Many animation film festivals responded to the popularity of Adobe Flash animation by adding separate categories in competition for "web cartoons" or "Internet cartoons". Additionally, several exclusively web-based Adobe Flash competitions have been established[
Adobe Flash Professional was renamed to Adobe Animate in 2016 to both more accurately reflect its market position then, since over a third of all content created in Animate uses HTML5, and prevent confusion between Adobe Flash Professional and Adobe Flash Player since they are completely different products. Adobe will continue to support Adobe Animate even after Flash Player's end-of-life deadline by 2020, hence all animations produced in Animate will survive Flash Player's death. The only change is that after 2020, animators will instead share their animations in either video, HTML5, or WebGL format. On June 16, 2020, as part of Adobe's 'Evolving Brand Identity', Adobe Animate unveiled a complete redesign of its logo in which for the first time in almost 20 years, the main color was changed from Red to Purple, ending any association of Flash entirely.
Distribution
While the creation of animation using Adobe Animate can be much easier and less expensive than traditional animation techniques, the amount of time, money, and skill required to produce a project using the software depends on the chosen content and style.
Professional studios
Adobe Flash animation production is enjoying considerable popularity in major animation studios around the world, as animators take advantage of the software's ability to organize a large number of assets (such as characters, scenes, movements, and props) for later re-use. Because Adobe Animate files are in vector file format, they can be used to transfer animation to 35 mm film without any compromise in image quality. In 2003, Big Idea Entertainment used Animate (back when it was called Flash) to make Larryboy: The Cartoon Adventures. This feature is used by several independent animators worldwide, including Phil Nibbelink, who saw his 77-minute feature film Romeo & Juliet: Sealed with a Kiss released in theaters in 2006, and Nina Paley, who released Sita Sings the Blues in 2008. For Disneyland's 50 Magical Years film featuring Live action Steve Martin interacting with Donald Duck, the hand drawn animation of Donald Duck was cleaned up and colored in Flash. The Drawn Together Movie: The Movie!, a straight-to-DVD feature of the animated series Drawn Together, produced by Comedy Central and released in April 2010, discarded the series' traditional animation and used Flash animation instead.
Creating Flash animations using other software
There are a number of other software packages available that can create output in the .swf format.
See also
- CSS Animations
- SVG animation
- list of animated Internet series
- List of Adobe Flash animated television series
- List of Adobe Flash animated films
Notes
- ^ Renamed Hub Network in 2013, and later Discovery Family from October 13, 2014, onward.
References
- ^ "Adobe Flash Professional". Adobe. Retrieved June 24, 2019.
- ^ Simpson 2007.
- ^ Amid 1999.
- ^ Dannacher 2000.
- ^ Brandweek - 3/15/1999
- ^ Adweek - 7/13/1998
- ^ Broadcasting & Cable - 9/3/2000
- ^ Animation World Network - 8/8/1999 Archived April 30, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Prix Ars Electronica - 2001". Archived from the original on May 1, 2014. Retrieved August 20, 2012.
- ^ Carrera 2011, p. 17.
Other sources
- Amid, Amid (February 3, 1999). ""WhirlGirl" is a new animated series on the 'net". Animation World Network. Retrieved April 15, 2016.
- Carrera, Philip (2011). Adobe Flash Animation: Creative Storytelling for Web and TV. Jones & Barlett Learning LLC. ISBN 978-0-7637-8415-7.
- Dannacher, Lee (January 1, 2000). "Quenching The New Millennnium's Thirst For Animated Fare". Animation World Network. Retrieved April 15, 2016.
- Simpson, Aaron (April 23, 2007). "John K's Guide to Surviving the End of Television". ColdHardFlash. Retrieved April 23, 2007.
External links
- Flash animation at Curlie