Flash has a good set of export options, but I think they’re marred by bad menu design choices and some confusing variations across versions and platforms. Publishing a SWF is straightforward enough, but if you’re exporting to video formats, there are some potential pitfalls to avoid.<\/p>\n
Question 1.<\/b> Are you working with non-interactive animation only<\/b>—no Movie Clip symbols or ActionScript? Then export to a PNG image sequence<\/b>. Sure, it may be tempting to skip the hassle of reassembling the resulting folder full of images in a program like After Effects or Final Cut. But this is the only way you’ll be guaranteed perfect frame accuracy<\/b> (one image file for each frame on your timeline) and a working alpha channel, no matter what Flash version you’re using. In my experience, all versions, Windows and Mac alike, behave identically with this option.<\/p>\n
However, if you do use Movie Clip symbols or ActionScript in your project, then your options depend on which Flash version you have. <\/p>\n
Question 2.<\/b> Do you use Flash 8 or earlier?<\/b> Older versions have no built-in way of recording real-time events to video, which means Movie Clip symbols won’t display properly and ActionScript will be ignored. So you’ll need to publish to a SWF<\/b>, then run the SWF and find a way to record the results<\/b>. The simplest aproach is to use a screen-capture program like Snapz<\/a> (USD $70, OS X) or Fraps<\/a> ($40, Win). <\/p>\n You could also record out over analog video to a DV camera or similar device, but unless you have a specific reason to prefer this option, I wouldn’t recommend it—it’s a hassle to set up, and there are a lot more variables to contend with that could potentially affect image quality. A third alternative, also impractical for most purposes, is to set up a video camera on a tripod and record straight off your LCD monitor. (With a good camera and an experienced operator, this can be quite nice.) None of these methods, unfortunately, will preserve an alpha channel.<\/p>\n Question 3.<\/b> Do you have Flash CS3 or later?<\/b> In more recent versions, Adobe added a built-in screen capture option<\/b> for recording realtime output, alpha channel included. Unfortunately, they made the terrible decision of hiding this important feature in the menu File \/ Export \/ Export Movie \/ Quicktime<\/b>. In most other programs, a menu option like that will give you a frame-accurate copy of your project, and this is emphatically not the case here—remember, it’s a record of a real-time performance, not a rendering of each frame in your timeline. Why couldn’t they have just named it something else?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Flash has a good set of export options, but I think they’re marred by bad menu design choices and some confusing variations across versions and platforms. Publishing a SWF is straightforward enough, but if you’re exporting to video formats, there are some potential pitfalls to avoid. Question 1. Are you working with non-interactive animation only—no […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fox-gieg.com\/tutorials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fox-gieg.com\/tutorials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fox-gieg.com\/tutorials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fox-gieg.com\/tutorials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fox-gieg.com\/tutorials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/fox-gieg.com\/tutorials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":127,"href":"https:\/\/fox-gieg.com\/tutorials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40\/revisions\/127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fox-gieg.com\/tutorials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fox-gieg.com\/tutorials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fox-gieg.com\/tutorials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}