Re: FLASH: Fireworks to Flash (SOME THOUGHTS)

[John Dowdell]

At 10:36 PM 3/19/0, Sean Renet wrote:

> if I make a swf in fireworks, how do I open it as a FLA in flash?


Sorry, no. SWF is a delivery file format, optimized for streaming. FLAs

contain much more editing information for the Flash authoring application.


It's sort of like the relationship between a Photoshop PSD file and a TIFF:

the PSD contains additional editing structures which add to the filesize

beyond the common TIFF exchange format.


When you import a SWF into the Macromedia Flash authoring application

you'll get the raw artwork, but it won't reconstruct any FLA editing info

that may have been used to produce that delivery SWF.


But try it: Make an animation in Fireworks, export it to SWF, and import it

to Flash. If you choose "Maintain Appearance" at export you'll have all

those painterly brushstrokes as fixed-res bitmaps. If you choose "Maintain

Editability" you'll then be able to morph the vector shapes. You won't have

access to the layers in the original Fireworks file, though, because these

don't exist in the delivery SWF.




At 9:25 PM 3/19/0, unique wrote:

> Has MM any interest in making FW "more of" a Flash-Movie-

> Development platform?


I haven't seen this regarded as a priority, Ken, at least compared to other

tasks. Fireworks' main duty is in producing graphics and code for webpages.

The ability to export SWF and AI was driven more by the occasional need to

get artwork out of Fireworks than by the desire to produce a longform

eyecandy SWF tool.


One of the philosophies that seems to drive tool development here in the

shop is that we look at the entire task a group of people need to do, and

try to enable that in the most efficient way possible. That philosophy

heavily drove the initial development of Fireworks -- instead of using one

tool for editable layout, and another tool for coloring, and a third tool

for animation and compression, you can get a better workflow with one tool

that integrates the whole web-design process.





At 11:37 PM 3/19/0, Michael@BTW wrote:

>IMHO, Macromedia needs to vastly improve the animation capbilities of FLash

>rather than create yet another way to make overlarge swfs. Its actually,

>again IMHO, not the ability to create mixed bitmap/vector files that makes

>LM so important, but rather the more nearly mature tools for creating

>complex animations. I'm talking about tools that nearly every other

>'animation' package that bills itself as such has: parent-child

>relationships and the ability to edit childed object parameters directly in

>the main timeline. Adopting these standard tools would make Flash a whole

>lot more accessible to aritists using advanced animation packages (and I

>don't mean just the one made by Adobe;-) than trying to match LM where LM is

>confused about its purpose, IMHO.


Interesting points... I'd like to request again that if there are changes

that would make a difference to your daily work, then sending the specifics

to

wish-flashmacromedia [dot] com

 would get it right into the eyballs of the

range of people who make the tool. (Some of them lurk here, but not all

ready every message, so sending these requests to the wishlist really

helps, thanks.)


I've used various linking styles and parameter-based timelines in 3D tools

(MacroMind Three-D introduced these concepts to the shrinkwrap market), but

I haven't seen as much demand in the 2D field, particularly for shortform

web delivery. If your work would benefit from this, though, then I'd

definitely want the project planners to know this, thanks.


btw, check out the shockwave.com makeover released today... the interface

is great, but for longer-form work take a look at the Beck tune "Nicotine &

Gravy"... this is straightahead Flash work, very nice stuff. More info on

the design team is at http://www.fullerene.com/ .


jd








John Dowdell, Macromedia Tech Support, San Francisco CA US

Search technotes: http://www.macromedia.com/support/search/

Offlist email risks capture by the spam filters. I may not see your

email if it's not on the list. Private one-on-one email options are

available via Priority Access: http://www.macromedia.com/support/




flasher is generously supported by...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

     flashforward2000 and The Flash Film Festival

  "The World�s Premier Flash Solutions Conference and Expo"

 March 27-29, Nob Hill Masonic Center, San Francisco, California


-Register before Feb 25 and save $200!!-- www.flashforward2000.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To unsubscribe or change your list settings go to

http://www.chinwag.com/flasher or email

helpchinwag [dot] com