Re: FLASH: Any reason NOT to use Flash?

[Robert Koberg]

It depends.  Do you need tracking?  Is this for some kind of certification?

Are the interactions complicated or simple? Are you simulating something -

showing good and bad mechanical concepts and/or actual machines?  Can this

be done without bitmapped graphics?


The overall guiding factor, for me, would be how complicated (what kind of

logic and media assets are necessary to pull off "the experience") it would

be.  If it is complicated then I would use Director (web and CDROM and/or

hybrid) or Authorware(CDROM only).  These tools provide the best routes to

solutions that you have to work around in Flash or can't even do.  However

the learning curve might be a little more than you have time for...


With Flash 4 you have a lot more control but nothing like the control of

Director or Authorware.  By the way, you can use any flash content inside of

Dir or AW and control it thru their respective scripting languages.  Even

more so, Director makes use of Flash's rendering engine and gives you much

more control over vector graphics created in Director.  With Lingo, you can

control the handles on Control Points of the vector drawiing if you need to.


If you have to use many Raster Graphics (Bitmap, tiff, jpeg, png,gif, ...)

then you would be better server by Director or Authorware.  Also if you want

to be able to pull graphics from a server on the fly.


on another note,  the audience you have to present to might be put off by a

game, expecially if it is too simple.  You could be insulting their

intelligence.  I would bet many of these (techinical, you know) people are

on the internet (for porn if nothing else) and are quite savvy.  They spend

their days tracking down bugs and fixing them.



> I have the opportunity to bid on a BIG job -- training tens of thousands

of

> mechanics nationwide.  Details on content remains a mystery, but the plan

is

> downloadable modules that the individuals can run off the hard drive.

Let's

> assume that the topic is -- Troubleshooting the Electrical System of the

1999

> Widgetmobile.  My theory is that we want to use Flash to echo a gaming

> environment, which is the only computer experience that many of these

high-school

> educated older workers MIGHT have.  (Have to be compliant with MSIE and NN

4.0 or

> justify a plug-in.)  They are nervous about animation because of

bandwidth -- to

> me another reason to use Flash.  Any reason not to use Flash?  (I will be

back

> asking for subcontractors if I get the bid.)  Any other Flashes of

brilliance

> about how to make this the best bid?




------------------------------------------------------------------------

To UNSUBSCRIBE send: unsubscribe flasher in the body of an

email to

list-managershocker [dot] com

.  Problems to:

ownershocker [dot] com

N.B. Email address must be the same as the one you used to subscribe.

For info on digest mode send: info flasher to

list-managershocker [dot] com