I did a little poking around today, and found a couple of posts from [url=http://www.moock.org/blog/archives/000146.html]Colin Moock[/url](thanks Colin – one day too I will have to get to the Actionscript bootcamp – if I ever stop getting sick on the dates that is…), [url=http://www.macromedia.com/software/flashplayer/maelstrom/]Macromedia[/url] and [url=http://www.joshdura.com/article/369/sneak-peeks-video-flash-8-authoring-preview-and-more]Josh Dura[/url].
Okay so here’s the deal. Maelstrom is the new Flash Player due for release, and 8Ball is the Flash Authoring tool. I watched the 2 videos of the features and sneak peeks, and it’s unbelievable! I absolutely cannot wait!
[list]
[*] Dynamic drop shadows, completely controllable with AS
[*] New text rendering, which from what I could tell beats MS clear type
[*] New Bitmap rendering effects, and apparently a new engine for animating bitmaps quite fast.
[*] better object rendering for shapes, and enhanced corner option – thank God they finally did something about the damn rounded edges on lines.
[*] new video effects including alpha channels and layering of video over other objects; dynamically – including live feeds
[/list]
I was also checking out the new version Flex and it is just as amazing with new features for 2 that will blow a ton of competition straight to hell. I’ve been playing with Central, and Flew (with 1.5) can right now integrate applications from Flex right in the Central Application interface, so the possibilities of Flash on the Desktop are growing exponentially. With Flex it only gets better.
I am much more optimistic about the Adobe/Macromedia merger and hopefully they will be able to slam Microsoft and their venture into vector based animations ([url=http://www.microsoft.com/products/expression/]Acrylic[/url]) right into the mud. I don’t want Microsoft to kill another good product. Leave it be Bill!