Flash Animation

Animated conversation like developing decent web animations , have been more like climbing up The Eiger (  a mountain in the Alps ) than taking a walk in the park. However, the latest breed of software which is available , has been built , to capture the designer's imagination , without killing off the muse . Alistair Dabbs , goes through these kinds of motions.

Let's face it , Web is a disappointment. It's that tiny little screen , a narrow bandwidth and the uncertainty  that  it has vast numbers of your audience who might not be able to see , what you want them to see  . Everything  with Web designing  is about downsizing . And if it wasn't bad enough having to make all your static graphics in 72dpi, any attempt at animation involves considerable cramming effort . What does this mean , at least , until large screens and fast Internet connections had  become the norm is you can't yet do much with videos . You can stream QuickTime , but without a leased line connection , it's terrible. Thankfully , you still have a range of choices , when it comes to graphic animation . So, let's take a look at the main techniques and their drawbacks, for getting your site animated today.

In the beginning of the animation world..........

Back in 1994 , the backroom boys in commercial Web development , came up with an extremely basic form of animation , by sending consecutive GIF images , live to the browser . Advertisers had been using this method , to change ad banners , every 30 seconds or so , without waiting for the user to refresh the page . By sending a sequence of frames , on a constant bases , an elementary animation effect was possible . The drawback of course, was that graphic data was constantly being downloaded , over the line , after the page itself had been  loaded . On a 14.4K modem , this meant the browser was always flickering and the hard disk was churning and the frames were usually interspersed with blanks ,  as each subsequent frame was being loaded. Soon after, the animated GIF was born , effectively packing the GIF frame sequence into one file which downloaded once. The animated GIF , has been a staple of ad banners and simple attention-grabbing effects ever since . Even sites , which promote and showcase Flash and Shockwave interfaces , still use animated GIFs because designers know that it's the only  one animation technology , supported in every Web browser , that lets you see graphics at all. The limitations of animated GIFs , are well-known, but let's summarise them anyways . GIFs are bitmap images and they come at a fixed size , regardless of browser window sizes . They can reach quite exciting sizes , if they include more than 10 frames or so, because compression is based on the number of different colours in each image. They also tend to appear in a jerky fashion , during the download, leaving the user , staring at a seemingly inexplicable sequence ,  running at one frame ,  every five seconds ,  the first time round. More recently, designers have been able to produce basic path motions , for static images using DHTML .

Instead of running an animation , in one fixed place, DHTML techniques , let you take a single image and move it around , over the top of your page , as an independent, floating object.

The nicest  thing about this approach is that , the animation, for what it is, starts almost immediately and the movement is perfectly smooth , not being frame-based . The graphics can also have a transparent background , just like any GIF. The biggest drawback ,  is that it doesn't do anything else terribly interesting . As a result , it can come across as just plain , annoying or tacky . And it's not really animation.

All in a Flash

While the World Wide Web Consortium squandered most of the 1990s , considering some proper animation technologies , Macromedia just went for it all . The result was Flash , a system of playing back , self-contained movies,  containing vector-based graphics and text , within a Web page or independently running  a Web browser . The advantages of the Flash approach are considerable, and gets  more compelling ,  as time goes on. In the first instance , the vector nature of Flash movies allows you to include , which includes quite complex graphics and sequences .  To gain confidence ,  they'll compress down to almost unfeasibly small file sizes . Practically every test , from simple rollover type and button effects ,  to complete sequences , you'll find that Flash files are smaller than animated GIFs and load up faster than Java actions . Vectors ,  also mean that  movies can resize themselves automatically , to fit the browser screen, anti-aliasing on the go . Better still , Flash movies can incorporate events and react to user inputs, making it terrific for developing custom Web page interfaces , which HTML couldn't hope to imitate . Not the least , Flash can include embedded audio too . And perhaps the best of all , from an experienced designer's point of view ,  movies can be set to start running as soon as the download commences without waiting for it to complete.

There are two principal drawbacks to Flash format . Firstly , it requires your audience , to have a plug-in Flash player installed . However, to Macromedia's credit, the Flash plug-in , is relatively small and speedy download at just a couple of hundred kilobytes . You should also be aware that Microsoft 3 , intends dumping most of the plug-ins , it currently ships , with Internet Explorer in the future  , but Flash is the notable exception. The second drawback might not concern you , but it's that Flash , isn't actually a standard , in the same way as HTML , GIF , JPG , PNG or something like Java . Flash is a 100 per cent proprietary format , owned by Macromedia and licensed out to other graphic software developers , on a commercial basis . Practically of course, it doesn't matter  ,that Flash isn't an officially recognised standard , because well over 90 per cent of Internet users, have already got  the plug-in installed : we're talking about hundreds and millions of people , ready to go with your animation content . Fun and sexy as Flash is, it's not a complete multimedia environment though . Originally, Flash arose from a project at Macromedia , to make Shockwave animations , which were already developed for Web playback, which was even more compact and accessible , by people with slow modems . Shockwave , is still very much alive and in many cases , leaves Flash way behind , in terms of visual quality , interactivity and multi functionality. There's even a lively market for cartoons and games , using Shockwave and its offline player Shock Machine.

 Unlike Flash, the Shockwave plug-in , is however  ,  a long download and requires a somewhat ,  fiddly installation process ,  which includes exiting your Web browser , at one point.

The biggest limitation of both Flash and Shockwave ,  from a graphic artist's point of view , is that , the really cleverest  interactive features , depend on scripting . Or to choose another word , programming.

If you're happy about scripting , indeed if you have some JavaScript experience , you'll find Flash reasonably approachable ; if not, you'll be limited , to more conventional animation tasks .

Hot new alternatives

Inevitably , everyone is always on the hunt for a Web animation system , that doesn't expect the audience , to locate and install third-party plug-ins . These exist, but they do so with solutions that are even more proprietary than Flash and are usually protected by their creators , with ridiculously extreme caution . One example of an alternative to Flash that doesn't require a plug-in , is Cyber Spot . To all intents and purposes , a Cyber Spot sequence , looks a bit like , a basic Flash movie with audio,  but it loads up in an instant , without any preliminaries. The problem with it , is that Cyber Spot is marketed , as a bespoke service  ,by the company  ,that developed it itself . You commission them to create a 30-second movie on your behalf, rather than create your own , using standard software packages . As you can imagine, this is of limited use , except as standalone ads.

The hottest technology everyone  is talking about , at the moment , that could rival Flash at some point in the future is ,  Scalable Vector Graphics , or SVG. It began like life , as a concept  , proposed by Adobe ,  to the World Wide Web Consortium and from the start , Adobe proposed SVG ,  as an open standard , in the hope ,  that this will encourage its adoption . The idea behind SVG , is to provide the Web , with vector graphics  standard , in the same way as GIF, JPG and PNG are bitmap standards . But more than this, it supports animation and user interactivity . And further, it is navigable with pan and zoom functions . This means , you could use SVG in a number of different ways , to suit the desired result , whether that be a detailed diagram you can zoom into , without losing definition (a street map is a classic example) . Web page interface elements or an interactive animated movie . SVG supports visual filter effects , applied in real time , rather than just being frames and  it can also include audio . One of the reasons , so many people are getting interested in SVG , is that it is based on XML , which is generally regarded as the next step in Web functionality. XML support , in a dynamic vector graphic or animation , can link it intelligently , to all kinds of data, which in turn could radically alter the way Web content is delivered . As ever, there are drawbacks. One is that SVG, though accepted as an official standard, still requires a plug-in for your browser to display. Although Adobe hopes that one day, SVG support will be built into all browsers, in the immediate future as it involves download of well over 2Mb . Another limitation is that , precious few graphic packages can be exported to SVG other than Adobe Illustrator 9 and Photoshop 6.

All this leads to the biggest drawback : not many people have been using SVG yet and most Web users have never heard of it at all . All this certainly lends credence to Macromedia's claim , that Flash is the real Web animation standard even though it is officially recognised or not. With a widening range of design products , now capable of exporting to Flash , including Illustrator and FreeHand, not to mention Live Motion, Flash is where the action's at , for the next couple of years at least , if not indefinitely.