Flash animation What is it, what is it for and what types are there? Is it the end of flash on the web?

The arrival of Flash to the web was without a doubt a great step on the part of its developers. Before his arrival, with the exception of one or another animation, surfing the net felt like reading a book. This functionality greatly revolutionized the Internet experience and enhanced the evolution of many Internet users.

However, as time passes and technology increases, everything that does not adapt and evolve will become obsolete. Giving life to the web is one of the goals of those who frequent it and Flash technology managed to achieve it at the time, allowing create more dynamic pages with sounds, images and animations, thus improving the experience.

Next, we will inform you more about this phenomenon that has been existing for years and how you can make use of it in your teams.

What is Flash animation and what is it for? What are frames?

It is a technology that allows you to create vector graphic animations on web pages, they need little bandwidth and are independent of the browser used, since it will look the same in all of them. This animation is ideal because it is not heavy and occupies few bytes of storage, because it is based on vector graphics and does not allow the image to lose quality when its size is modified.

At first this tool was known as FutureSplash, but in 1997 Macromedia Inc. bought the company that developed it and changed its name, later it was absorbed by Adobe until today.

It could be said that this technology is a tool at the service of the imagination, allows creative people to create multimedia and interactive content, connecting programming with graphical components.

With it you can create games, movies, short films, advertisements, videos, etc. They will surely help improve the experience of browsing the Internet. It can also be applied to the field of online learning and interactive presentations.

In the field of animation, another term to consider is frame, which is each of the still images printed on photographic film. Now, Considering that Flash works as if it were a movie, it means that this is nothing more than a sequence of frames, that is, fixed images in an instant of time, that the more they exist, the longer the film will last.

Impact of Flash animation How did it influence web development?

Like all revolutionary technology, this had its moment of glory since its publication in 1996; causing quite a stir, since managed to unite the world of animation with the web, and provided many developers with a complete set of tools with the ability to create highly graphical systems and virtually unlimited interactions.

However, in the mid-90s, no one imagined that that little program, then called FutureSplash, would become a benchmark for creating Internet applications and multimedia content that we know so much about today. It was considered by many to be one of the most important tools in the web development and graphic design field.

What are the main types of Flash animation that exist?

The method to use will depend on the type of recreation that you want to perform, providing different possibilities to create new content. The following types are the ones that the program treated here includes:

frame by frame

This is the simplest, but likewise, it is the one that takes the most work, since each frame is included in its programming, frame by frame, very similar to animated films. Although it is quite flexible when making changes, it requires a lot of concentration, because if you do the wrong one it could ruin the whole show.

Interpolation of movement

This is easier to do because the work is limited only to establishing the start and end shape of an object, and then the program will take care of automatically drawing those steps between the two, which must differ in aspects such as their position, scale and rotation. We must take into account that the file will only store the initial and final state of the object.

Shape tween

Like the previous one, this one also uses two frames only, but unlike the other one; moving an object from one place to another it also allows you to change its structure.

One shape is first drawn at a specific time in the function, and then another shape is drawn at a different time. Both images may vary from each other not only in position and rotation, but also in shape, and if desired in color. For example: a square can be turned into a circle.

Flash vs Adobe Shockwave Which is better and how are they different?

Both products of the company, Macromedia Inc., have become a standard for web animation, because most browsers include the plugin that supports its execution and that is also installed very easily.

Although similar projects can be carried out with both because they have many similarities, in terms of complexity and quality, Shockwave is much better because with it you can carry out more complex projects and with a greater variety of files.

Nevertheless, Flash beats him not only in economy being less than half the cost of Shockwave, but also in speed. to open files, popularity and accessibility, as the former is an open source format and the latter is not.

Why has this technology been used to design web pages?

Currently it is not going through its best moment, since many vulnerabilities have been found in it and due to these security flaws many Apple devices no longer have compatibility. Adding also that it is not very suitable for touch screens, which is why it puts Flash in a terrible decline, resulting in Adobe is no longer interested in its development.

Considering the rejection of Apple and that the same Adobe Inc. claimed that it would end up killing him eventually, It is increasingly common to find browsers that block it and use more content with HTML5.

The month of August 2016, Google Chrome announced that it would start blocking some content with Flash, Therefore, on many websites, gray boxes with their characteristic puzzle piece and a warning message would appear when trying to play their content.

So, since 70% of users use Chrome as their default browser, if Flash disappears from it, it practically disappears from the network. So it’s only a matter of time before all browsers finally adopt this measure. That is why HTML5 is currently the standard technology of the web.