Subtitles of the Movie

Let me now review the new features in the CS4 version of Flash. Flash CS4 adopts the new Adobe Creative Suite interface which looks a bit different and has new functionalities such as Panel Docking and Spring Loaded Panel Behaviors that streamline your interactions with tools such as the Library, Property Inspector, the new Project Panel. For example notice that I can now open these Panels including the Properties Inspector here. They're kind of Spring Loaded. Click once to open them, click again to close them. Same goes for the Tool Panel here. I also have a Collapse To icon here. I can collapse these. Notice that each of these Panels has this Expand and Collapse To icon option right here. You can also dock these Panels. I always have a little bit of trouble docking them or undock them. I can make these free floating windows or dock this back to the left side of the Workspace. For example, notice the Tools Panel is more flexible. I can go with a one column Panel, two, three, four, or even more columns in my Panel. Property Inspector you'll notice right away is different. It's now vertically displayed, taking better advantage of wider screens and providing you with more stage real estate. Let's go ahead and open this up and you can see that it's vertical, kind of collapse it out of the way. I can also detach it and resize the Panel, but it has a vertical orientation. Let's go ahead and dock this back, and then collapse it so I can just see it right here. Let's also talk about the new Project Panel. This new Project Panel allows you to work with multiple file projects more easily. Notice that I have my Recent Files, Encoded Files, Media Cache Files, and so on. I can load up an existing project or create a new project, give the project a name. Let's call this Project 1 like so, and let's designate a root folder. Let's go ahead and choose my VTC folder, Create Project, and you can see all of my various projects, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Flash. I open up the Flash CS4, I have my various Flash files that I'm working with. If we go to the QuickStart!! there's a Working Files folder. This is the Working Files folder for this tutorial, and there's all my Flash files. Some of my favorite new features in Flash CS4 involves improvements in the area of animation, something that Flash excelled at even before these latest improvements. Flash CS4 provides better control over individual animation attributes with what it's calling Object-based Animation, which applies Tweens directly to objects instead of to Keyframes which is the way we've been doing it for years. Let me demonstrate. I have an object here. I'm going to right click on the Timeline and choose Create A Motion Tween. Flash with automatically create this, convert this into a symbol since I can't motion Tween non-symbols. Now I'm going to simply move my object. Notice the new Keyframe is created right here and I also have this Motion Path which is new. Flash CS4 Professional now automatically generates these Motion Paths that can be easily modified using familiar Bezier handles, giving me much better control over how my animation path works or where it goes. Notice that I can just move this around. I can also move my object. Notice if I click in between and now I move my object, I get a new Keyframe right there. I no longer need to insert the Keyframes. This is very similar to the way that Adobe Director has always handled Motion Paths which I've always thought was easier than Flash, at least until now. You can see that I can generate quite complex Motion Paths very quickly with this new object-based animation and Motion Paths. Flash now also has a Motion Editor. We can use the new Motion Editor for better control over Keyframe parameters. You're going to do that right here from the Motion Editor tab at the top of the Timeline. Let's open this up. Notice that you can control parameters, basic motion X and Y. Let's move this in a better visible position there. X and Y position, Rotation, Skew, Scale, I have color effects here notice as well. Go ahead and add an Alpha, and now I can animate that more visually here too. There's the alpha setting of 12 percent. The parameters that are now visible in the Motion Editor include Rotation, Size, Scale, Position, Filters, and much, much more. Can also refine easing control with complete graphical displays. If I move this over to here, notice that I have these graphical displays much as you do in Adobe After Effects. Very much more visual environment in which to change your symbol properties to create your animations. Can now also animate 2D objects through 3D space. I have an example here. Let's go back to the Timeline and notice that I'm animating this through 3D space with very exciting new 3D Translation and Rotation tools which allow you to animate along the X, Y, or Z axis and apply Local or Global Transformations to objects with relationships to itself or to the stage. I continue my review of the new features in Adobe Flash CS4 Professional in the next movie.