Editor's Note: Macromedia recently brought out Flash version 5

Version 4 is the latest offering from Macromedia for this popular Internet application. With a number of new improvements, this version offers some new features that make it even more valuable to Flash programmers. Currently, Macromedia says there are 130 million Flash users. That in itself is impressive, so I thought a look at this program was needed.

If you're new to Flash, (and many video pros are since they don't have a lot of time to play on the Net), it's a way to make sound and full-screen animations possible on a website. Flash can create interactive "movies," that can play at impressive frame rates over the Internet. Movies load through the user's web browser and start playing after they are mostly loaded. With the ability for users to download the Flash plug-in to their browsers in only a couple of minutes, it makes Flash movies quickly compatible with a variety of browsers and computer setups. This makes animation and interactivity possible for people with modest systems — allowing them to enjoy a greatly enhanced experience on the Web for free.

The interface for Macromedia's Flash 4 emulates Director, but is easier to learn. This 7MB project was compressed to only 255 KB when published.

Flash allows you to animate a combination of vector, bit-mapped graphics, and high-quality stereo sounds with very small files. If you have an eye for video, it will help you with your Flash programming.

Flash's interface is much like Director, in that it uses a timeline-based method of animating, where graphics, fonts, and sound elements can be choreographed. Each event in the timeline is placed in a cell and they can be copied and pasted to create actual single-frame animations or motion graphics where an image moves around the screen. These moves can be accurately synchronized to audio cues — either streaming or event audio cues — to add impact to your movie. Flash also has drawing tools built in so that you can create your own vector-based imagery. This also allows graphics to bend and stretch over time by animating line art and letting Flash fill in the outlines with solid colors or blends.

At first glance, the drawing tools in Flash look like most other drawing programs, until you use them. It's not difficult to draw in Flash, but it will take some getting used to because lines work differently than you might expect. For example, just selecting objects was a different kind of experience, at least for me. Clicking once selects an object, while double clicking can select the object and its stroked outline. Clicking on an outline might only select a small segment of it, while double-clicking an outline selects the entire outline. This takes a little getting used to. I'd recommend going through the tutorials that come with the package. I found them to be very helpful, and it helps to understand Flash's methodology better and why some things are more important.

The advantage to using vector-based drawing paths is that it takes very little storage space and allows an animation to load quickly and play over the Net at comfortable speeds without the latest, greatest computer. Flash defaults to 12frames/s, and with most movies this is not much of a challenge for Flash, even on a computer that's not all that fast. Careful planning of your movies will make them play more smoothly on a variety of computer types. Another advantage to the vector approach is that fonts can be sized and zoomed full-screen without image degradation that would occur if they were brought in as JPG or GIF files. In spite of these benefits, Flash doesn't force you to totally rely on drawing paths. Such images as people, places, and customized graphics need more detail than what a vector-based image can contain. You can intermix bit-mapped images and drawing paths where they will produce the most effective results with the least amount of kilobits so the user doesn't wait for the movie to load. This might mean that you could put in a picture of a person and zoom text around and over it. Using a program like Macro-media's Fireworks or Adobe Systems' ImageReady is helpful in preparing and compressing JPG files before using them in Flash or on a website.

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