Alternative to Adobe Flash CS3 ?

Hello !

I just dived (Hey ??? “To dive, dived, dived” ? or “to dive, dove diven” or “to dive, deft, deft” …)

Anyway i just started (last month) learning XHTML, CSS, PHP to do a website for my brother’s recording studio (Animations and visual done with Blender) and i thought i could try and get a flavour of Flash.

But $600 is much for just a taste…

So… Do you guys know of an alternative to Flash CS3 ?
Is there some open-source contestant ?

try adobe flex sdk. it is free. If you want an IDE, flex builder standardcost $249.

for animation you could try toon boom studio or the standard version of Anime studio which cost only $49

I would try http://www.microsoft.com/SILVERLIGHT/ this is M$ attempt at a flash killer. Although you need Microsoft Expression Studio http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/resources/tools.aspx

SFWTools?http://swftools.org/

Anime Studio rocks, it is worth spending the money even on the pro version.
2d Camera & Armatures,
Flash that.

Hm, but… do you really need Flash for this website?

(from the one who can’t have Flash installed on her computer, and who don’t even what to :evilgrin: )

Excellent ! So much possibilities in fact…

I knew SWF tools more or less: i’ve got it on my HD but haven’t really tried and completely forgot about it !

@ Rore: What’s wrong with Flash ? No i don’t really need it: it is just that i’d like to know more about it…
I’ll have a look at all your suggestions :i didn’t know there were so many things really !

Open Lazlo. That’s a pretty complicated app, tho… if you just want to add some movies or whatever to the site, then it’s probably overkill. It’s Open Source, tho… a bonus for all the OSS geeks here :smiley:

Well… i don’t really know what i am looking for…
So far I’ve been able to create my animations with blender, convert them to SWF and place them in the HTML code… So that is simple enough.
I was thinking of more… interactive stuff.
This Open Lazlo seems quite a powerfull toy. Thanks for the link !

Uhm. from experience Openlaszlo’s problem is that it is really slow. And the language is a bit unpolished compared to Flex. Flex also produces a leaner swf than Openlaszlo and executes faster.

Take it from someone who tried used Openlaszlo many times.

About the question if you really need Flash in your computer. We’ll Flash is the standard web delivery right now for videos and 2d animation.

You wont get to see Youtube, or Vimeo if you do not have a Flash Player. You won’t get to see all those wonderful Blender Short Films unless you download them.

And then If you want desktop like application you can develop it so much faster using Flash/Flex than say an AJAX Solution. Flash/Flex is also more powerful and flexible than AJAX.

And like Meta said if you are going to do 2D character animation. You should definitely check Anime Studio. Best tool for that purpose in my opinion.:cool:

You’re getting mixed answers here because Flash can do a lot of things…

If you want to make 2-D animation, there are lots of alternatives, such as Synfig, Ktoon, or Anime Studio. You can do great work with these, but they won’t be easily deliverable as SWFs. Outputting to video will be fine, though. That’s a more flexible route anyway.

If you want make interesting UI elements, menus, and other website embellishments… don’t use flash! Using Ajax is better, more preferable method, and in addition to that, it’s free.

Vector graphics on the web can be done with SVG, although that format is only really half-way ready. If you’re on IE, it’s not ready at all. Inkscape is the primary SVG editor.

If you want to make good, streaming video with consistent embeddeding, Flash’s FLV format is a good choice, but you don’t need Flash to encode that. ffmpeg can do it, and so can several other programs. H264 is now supported, too. I reccomend the JW FLV Player, which is free.

And using Microsoft Silverlight should not be encouraged. It’s just a lame “me too” from Microsoft because they couldn’t stand the idea of a dominant web format that they can’t control.

Then you can’t go to homestarrunner.com and view StrongBad emails, trust me that site is awesome:eyebrowlift2:

There’s some linux versions available, but not for amd64, and not for PPC either. Ok, the number of people running a 64b linux is very low, but still :stuck_out_tongue: (it seems that it might work if I install a shitload of 32b libs, I say it might because I’ve heard several people complains it doesn’t :))
The other reasons may not concern you, like the fact that flash is not “accessible” for people with a handicap (more specificaly, blind people, but if it’s for a visual animation studio, I guess they are not the main public)

@Cyborg Dragon: You can’t even imagine how much I don’t care about that. Not to mention that if they use only flash with no replacement solution, they’re not worth reading :wink:

Excellent answers: very very nice to get such a broad panel of viewpoints !

@ Rore: that makes sense. Thanks for explaining why you didn’t support it.
I wasn’t aware of this Linux compatibility at all.
I haven’t thought about the accsessibility problem with flash: in fact there might be blind people: it’s a recording studio, so 95% of the output will be pure music. I shall try to make my site accessible to them as well.

@ Knellotron:

If you want to make 2-D animation, there are lots of alternatives, such as Synfig, Ktoon, or Anime Studio. You can do great work with these, but they won’t be easily deliverable as SWFs. Outputting to video will be fine, though. That’s a more flexible route anyway.

That’s not the main goal. I guess i would try synfig for that.

If you want make interesting UI elements, menus, and other website embellishments… don’t use flash! Using Ajax is better, more preferable method, and in addition to that, it’s free.

Mhhh that seems in opposition to what Temujin said… I feel AJAX would be easier for me to learn though… Do you kow about a great Javascript book or website ?

Vector graphics on the web can be done with SVG, although that format is only really half-way ready. If you’re on IE, it’s not ready at all. Inkscape is the primary SVG editor.

Ah I LOVE Inkscape. One of my favourite Apps !

I feel a bit lost with all these acronyms and technologies (AJAX, XUL, DOM, RoR, XML etc…): i feel like i am at the foot of a mountain and a hundred paths start here and lead to the top. Which one is shorter ? Which one offers you the best panoramic views of the surroundings ? Which one is a deadend ?

Thanks for your answers so far !

Synfig looks like a great alternative, but it crashes if I try to do anything faster than a snail. I would recommend trying it though, as it seems to work for other people.