Adobe Animate 2020 is unreliable

[andycahill85]

I am finishing up a three minute animated music video in Adobe Animate 2020, and as soon as I'm done with this project I will never use this program again. I've experinced so many strange glitches, I feel like the program itself is trying to drive me crazy. I had a camera layer, but when I tried to add a camera movement at the end of the project, it created phantom camera bumps in other scenes, where there were no keyframs so I couldn't fix it. I decided the camera tool was unusable, and settled on exporting the project and recreating the camera in After Effects. In order to do this I expanded my document size, which caused the program to freeze up every time. Finally I was able to get the document expanded by increasing it in increments of 100 pixels at a time over and over again. Took 20 minutes. Then I turned off "advanced layers" so I could export it as an SWF archive, and lo and behold, the program has somehow deleted random pieces of drawings all throughout the project, with no seeming rhyme or reason. Earlier in the project I had done a bunch of animation, saved the project, opened it the next day and found some of the work I had done somehow hadn't been saved. What is going on here? This program is so unreliable, I would say it's not useable to create animated films. It's hard enough to do this without the program undermining you at every step. 

[ClayUUID]

This is why I recommend that everyone hold on to their old Animate 2018 installers.

[n. tilcheff]

For serious animation work to this day I recommend using Flash Pro CS6 + Flanimate Power Tools.

I have personally created countless high-quality 5 min episodes of various shows as single files in CS6. FLAs with audio and bitmaps often exceed 500-600 MB and CS6 has no difficulty handling them at all.

Here is an example of the type of animation I'm talking about:  https://youtu.be/hcy9lAlDbbU

To simulate a bullet-proof camera all that one needs to do in any version of Flash is to work one level deep as explained here:  http://flash-powertools.com/workflow/#c06

Every time a new version of Animate comes out I test it thoroughly to see if it can meet my standards for professional production. None of them have managed to qualify yet - glitchy, slow performing and unreliable.

[andycahill85]

Thanks. I thought I was just doing something wrong for the first few glitches, but now it's clear to me this is not a serious program. I used Flash back in 2006 on a couple of adult swim shows and the studio seemed to have a solid workflow, but I couldn't imagine using this version of animate in any kind of professional capacity... it's sad, because the rest of the adobe suite is great. 

[n. tilcheff]

Yeah, I find it even beyond sad.

I can only hope that the more people speak about the issues, the more pressure on Adobe to up the game and improve the performance and stability.

I'm active in this community and also in the pre-release and for two years at least I have been saying that we need to slow down on the new features and focus on stability and performance releases first and foremost.

If one looks at other forums it becomes very apparent that Animate leaks professional users like never before.

[S Hopkins]

I thought it was me. I too am disappointed especially with the 20.01 version. In their effort to "dumb down" the application they have ruined what made this a world class application in the first place. I have had so many crashes that I am tired of documenting what I was doing when it crashed.

[andycahill85]

At least I understand crashes. When resizing the document causes random pieces or your drawings to be deleted, and some of the work you do isn't saved when you save, I don't even know which way is up anymore. At this point I'm constantly scrubbing through my project making sure it's all still there, because I don't trust the program at all. 

[Nicktendo28]

Are you using the latest updated version of 2020? 20.02? A lot of issues were resolved in this update.

[andycahill85]

Hmm, no I guess I'm using 20.0.1. Maybe that explains why the program is essentially unusable. 

[Sterphy]

I just abandoned a project I've been working on for a while. I'm starting again in After Effects and I'll do all the animation work in there. Adobe Animate is a disgrace of a programme. Every software has its problems, but non so much as this - the developers should be ashamed. So many basic functionality problems that I just can't take it any more. I mean you can't even navigate the timline properly. It's horrenndous, outdated, slow, far too stuttery for reliable animation... Adobe really need to come up with a genuine piece of animation software. 

[Princeton5E07]

  This is why I completely ditched Flash/Animate for Toon Boom Harmony the industry standard for 2D animation. While one of my dreams is to work as an internet animator I also have another dream which is to work at Cartoon Network where they don't use Flash/Animate. Toon Boom is mandatory in all the big studios, after I got Toon Boom I tried it out and it blew my mind away it made me felt like I wasted my time using Flash/Animate it also doesn't crash or glitch as much as Flash/Animate. Even a lot of the professionals are telling young animators to stop using Flash/Animate because it's not worth it and you won't be able to succeed with Flash/Animate.

[andycahill85]

After I posted this thread I bought Toon Boom and never looked back. I don't care what studios still use Animate, the program is trash and I'll never touch it again. Toon Boom, while not perfect, is useable, and if you intend to spend a chunk of your life animating, it's worth the extra money and time to learn a real program. 

[Princeton5E07]

  Plus the golden age for Flash animation is long gone and a lot of studios are starting to stop using that glitchy, not responding, and crashing software. If Adobe doesn't fix the major problems in Adobe Animate the program will completely die out like Flash Player. Nowadays Adobe Animate is only popular among hobbyists like Newgrounds and YouTube animators, so Toon Boom is definitely a no-brainer for people who want to go pro. And heck you can get a permanent license option which is a major pro over Animate. Animate is the only Adobe program I won't be using but I will continue to use the other Adobe programs since unlike Animate there aren't any better competitors yet.

[Nicktendo28]

while this is somewhat true. Flash/animate is still used to animate internet and tv shows. Toon boom may have the most shows at this point but I assure its best to know both, for jobs in LA.