BackGround:



Introduction:

Flash is an internet animation creator and viewer. It has gone from the mind of one man onto the computers of millions. From the humble beginnings of one Jonathan Gay, Flash’s eventual creator, to an internet revolution, Flash’s journey is one of interest. Flash has become one of the most widely used and distributed pieces of software on the internet. It has several advantages over both animated GIFs and Java Applets. Although a plug-in is needed to view Flash, bundled with some major software, almost 100% of internet users can view Flash right away.

BackGround:

Flash was the brain child of Jonathan Gay. Mr. Gay had an interest in designing ever since he was a small boy. When he was very young he enjoyed playing with LEGOs. Not the crazy space stations and aliens and castles and all the new age LEGOs we have today, but just the rectangle blocks and a few basic wheels. While playing with LEGOs, he began to understand the basics of engineering design. His favorite thing to build was ship that could carry all of his toy cars. He would build ramps on his boat so that he could drive his toy cars on and off the boat. Once he was done on the ramps he would improve his ship however he could. He developed a “LEGO-based design process that is more or less the same process used to develop Flash.” This is his process:

“1.Choose a problem: Build a LEGO ship.

2.Develope a vision: What sort of ship will it be? How big will it be? What will it carry?

3.Build: Build the framework of the ship.

4.Fill in the details: Design and build the details of the ship, ramps, doors, etc.

5.Test: Drive cars around the ship and sail the ship while exploring the house.

6.Refine: Take parts of the ship apart and make them better.

7.Learn: Take what you learned from building this ship and use it to build a better one next time.” (Gay, 1)

Stemmed from his LEGOs obsession, he developed an interest in architecture and began to design houses. With only pencil and paper he quickly became unsatisfied because he could not see his designs come to life. Just about that time Gay got his first computer. Armed with his brand new Apple II, he started to actually see his designs not only come to life, but also be able to respond to him. Using Apple II Basic, he moved from house design to video games. His first game was cloned from space invaders.

Soon he upgraded is language to pascal, and created his own graphics editor. He entered his editor into his high school science fair and did quite well. “If you think Flash is difficult to use,” Gay said, “You should try drawing with a joystick on an Apple II before the concept of undo was invented.” (Gay, 1)

After the fair, Jon’s father bought Jon a Machintosh and began taking Jon to a Machintosh User Group. With his father bragging to the groups organizer, Charlie Jackson, Jon would get his first programming job. Jackson wanted to start a software company and Gay wanted access to Jackson’s $10,000 Lisa computer, so it was an obvious fit.

With access to the Lisa machine, Gay began developing more games. First came Airborne!, then Dark Castle and Beyond Dark Castle. With these games, he was able to put himself through college. From his games, he learned about animation, digitized sound and found that speed is important in software. With some additional graphics editors under his belt, he decided to move out on his own.

A company called Go began creating an operating system for a hot new concept called pen computing. Pen computing was the ability to draw on the computer screen with an electric pen rather than using a keyboard. Seeing this, Gay convinced Jackson to invest some money and FutureWave Software was created.

Their first project was SmartSketch, software that was intended to make drawing on a computer screen easier than drawing on a piece of paper. Just when the finished product was about ready, AT&T bought Go and stopped all of Go’s production. This left FutureWave no market on which to profit from SmartSketch. This being a major setback, Gay decided the only way to salvage SmartSketch was to make it run on Windows and Machintosh.

In 1995, Gay began to add animation to SmartSketch due to feedback from people and the growing popularity of the internet. By adding Java, they created a simple but slow animation player. With Netscape releasing their plug-in API, Gay was able to speed up the ancestor of the Macromedia Flash Player.

Before they shipped this new software, they changed the name to FutureSplash Animator to make the focus of the software more in its animation capabilities. After some unsuccessful pitches to Adobe and Fractal Design, FutureSplash Animator was shipped out in May of 1996.

On the way to becoming the Flash that we know today, a major step to FutureSplash’s success was the interest from Microsoft. In August of 1996, Microsoft adopted the FutureSplash technology to use in the new MSN. Another big interest was from Disney Online. They were using FutureSplash for their Disney Daily Blast and were also currently working with Macromedia Shockwave. Macromedia became very interested in FutureSplash through this relationship through Disney. Macromedia approached Gay about his software. In December of 1996, Macromedia bought FutureWave Software and FutureSplash Animator became Macromedia Shockwave.

Today, Flash has gone through five versions at Macromedia but still contains much of its original code meant for pen computing. Flash has now become synonymous with internet animation and is possibly the most widely distributed piece of software on the internet.

Main Body:

With its extensive background, Flash has been tweeked and changed to become one of the best internet animators on the market. Although it is not a simple to create a Flash animation as it is to say create a web page using HTML, Flash has many advantages over other animations. Two major things, that Flash has advantages over, are animated GIFs and Java Applets.

An animated GIF is a series of still pictures saved in one, the same concept as a flip book. Flipping through the pages quickly gives the picture an animated look to it. This creates an incredibly long load time. “When the animated GIF is loaded into a webpage, the browser simply loops the images. This means, if you make an animation of a clown that moves his hand up and down in 25 small movements, then the animated area of the image is saved 25 times. So it doesn’t take a lot of animation to create a GIF image that’s remarkably bigger than a regular clown image.” (, 1) Flash loads much faster than animated GIFs. Another advantage Flash has is that animated GIFs do not support interactivity, they are just looped animation. With Flash, you can make the animation wait for some input from the user before continuing. Another advantage is GIFs only use a 256 color palette, while Flash can use many more colors than just 256.

Another type of animator used on the internet is Java Applets. One down fall to applets is that they require programming skills to use and manipulate. Therefore, you would not be able to just sit down at a computer and create your own applet without prior Java training. Flash is similar to applets as far as they are both programs embedded into a webpage. The difference is Flash animation can be created without prior programming skills. Applets also have a tendency use all the resources on a computer, effectively freezing the browser. We already discussed that Flash did not take much space, so another advantage of Flash over Java Applets is the space needed to run them. Obviously with Java being as extensive as it is, Applets do have advantages over Flash.

In order to create Flash animations, you do need to buy a Flash program. The latest version is Flash Mx by Macromedia. The Flash program is only necessary to those looking to develop animation. Those only looking to view it simply needs a free plug-in, Active-X, installed on their computer. This plug-in is now being bundled with other software, like Netscape browsers and Windows 98 operating system. That mean anyone running Netscape or Windows 98 can view Flash animations.

A study done by NPD Research, the parent company of MediaMetrix, showed that in 1998, less then 40% of all web users were able to view Flash animation without a download. In 2000, that number became 96.4%, 96 out of a 100 people could view Flash movies without having to download the plug-in. Today, Flash is the top of the line method for vector graphics, which means that the graphics can be scaled to any size without losing clarity or quality, on the web.

Summary:

Flash is the new wave of animation on the web. From the mind of Jonathan Gay, and young man who’s creativity was sparked by a colored piece of plastic, to the six person company who created its ancestor, Flash has become the largest animation viewer on the web. With advantages over animated GIFs and Java Applets, Flash was destined to be a huge internet revolution. With nearly 100% of internet user able to view Flash without even having to download a plug-in, Flash has no where to go but up.

Bibliography:

Flash Tutorial, , Oct 15, 2004.

Flash Tutorial, flash/default.asp, Oct 15, 2004.

The History of Flash, Jonathan Gay,

macromedia/events/john_gay, Oct 15, 2004.

The Flash History, html/413.htm, Oct 15, 2004.

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