A message to Adobe: I'm sorry

I read your document as well. A couple of comments in regard to the assertions you make in it:

- Alan Becker uses Flash CS6 according to his tutorial here:

https://youtu.be/kHOQkooK0qY?si=faS6Y2Zv5gvMqOud&t=30

@n. tilcheffwill agree with me that CS6 is arguably the 'best' version of either Flash or Animate CC. Most stable, most performant.

So you might want to use CS6 instead of CS5.5 😉

Adobe Flash CS5.5 has some features that other programs don’t have. I’ll list them below:

* Keyframes

All animation software works with keyframes. Not only Flash. That said, two basic approaches are used by animators:

1] frame-by-frame animation. Each frame of an animation is individually drawn or held.

Most animation software offers frame-by-frame animation. Not just Flash.

 

* Tweening

2] tweening

Tweening is also an integral part of most animation software. But not all animation software supports both. Krita, for example, mostly supports frame-by-frame.

Toonboom, OpenToonz, Moho, CelAction2d, Blender, and others... all support both. Just like Flash/Animate CC.

It is not a uniquely Flash-only thing! Quite the opposite. And some animation software decouples keyframes from keyframe content, which is super useful (but too advanced to get into right now).

 

* [Flash CS5.5] works on older computers

True, since it was released a long time ago. Old software generally works better on older or less powerful computers. 😄

OpenToonz works really well on less capable hardware too: Windows 7, 4GB RAM, an Intel Core i series or AMD equivalent.

Granted though: Flash CS5.5 works with 2GB and XP 😛

But Flash is not even in the same league as OpenToonz in term of features. So not a fair comparison. Same holds true for other modern animation software.

I do agree that Animate CC runs S.L.O.W. compared to its commercial and non-commercial brethren. Performance degraded substantially since Flash CS6.

Vector animation

Toonboom, CelAction2D, Moho, and OpenToonz also all animate with vectors. Flash is not the only one in town here! Toonboom, Moho, and OpenToonz also feature good vector drawing tools for animation. Those actually offer better drawing tools than Flash (which is expected of modern software, naturally: Flash is old OLD software...).

Ideally good animation software allows the animator to work with both vector AND bitmap based drawing and painting tools in the same animation. Toonboom and OpenToonz support this. Flash/Animate CC does not, and it can be a bit of a pain at times. Certain animated effects are easily achieved with modern bitmap digital painting tools (such as a puff of dust following a footstep or warm breath blowing out into cold air). Puffy clouds. Quick painted backgrounds. And so on. Not having bitmap drawing tools to animate with can be frustrating and requires another application to deal with certain situations.

At the very least often backgrounds are painted with bitmap tools. That is impossible in Flash.

PS OpenToonz also converts scanned drawings or bitmap based drawings to be converted to vector ones. Flash cannot do this, and this step requires external software. (Heck, you can use your webcam to import frames directly into the timeline in OpenToonz.)

Studio Ghibli makes extensive use of this option in their traditional paper-based animation workflow: scan in the paper drawings, convert to vector, colour the drawings, etc.

Export .SWF [and] Flash player benefits

Here I agree with you. SWF was a pretty useful format since it rendered to vector. No need to convert to a movie file format.

SVG is not quite a replacement.

But SWF is no longer supported anywhere (but outlier cases such as GameMaker). It is a dead format, and the player is no longer easy to install for the average user. Nor should they: SWF is a legacy format.

And yes: it is a shame nothing similar exists anymore. It was a unique file format.

Anway; aside from the SWF preference, modern animation software offers everything you assert that only Flash is capable of, and more features on top of those.

The good news is: OpenToonz is a free and open source modern powerful alternative:

https://opentoonz.github.io/e/

Works on older machines, way more features than Flash CS6, vector AND bitmap animation, a special effect compositor to finalize your animation, and used on major feature length traditional animation films as well as animation series.

All completely free and legal! No reason to install illegal and outdated software.

And animation principles are the same no matter what software you use. The things Alan Becker teaches can be just as easily accomplished in other animation software that I have mentioned above.

In any case, Flash CS5.5/6 are no longer officially supported or available. Animate CC is expensive for a teenager who is starting out in animation. You either have to run an illegally acquired copy of Flash, or use a free legal (and more powerful) option such as OpenToonz.

Either way: have fun animating!