Animate CC and Flash CS3 compatibility issues

[seanwickett]

For reasons too lengthy to get into, our studio is currently split with Animate and Flash CS3.

When building a .fla, we need to import images, sometimes 4-5 of them. Large PNGs that are around 6-9000 pixels on one side (TV production).

When importing them to the library in CS3, Flash crashes after 2 or 3 imports or if we select more than 3 at a time on a single import.

We'd love to build the files in Animate but backwards compatibility is crucial for production. WE CANNOT UPGRADE THE ENTIRE STUDIO, so forget that response. We use CS3 to put together the .fla so there is max compatibility.

Is there a way, short of installing CS6 and CS5, saving the .fla as CS5 in CS6, then using CS5 to save as CS3 to make it work with Flash CS3 and avoid the crashing issue?

The basic structure of the .fla's that we make hasn't changed since 2006, standard Flash puppets with PNG backgrounds and overlays. So we don't use ANY new functions from Animate that get in the way of compatibility.

Is there a way to output PNGs from Photoshop (some layers contain transparency) that would make them more 'friendly' to CS3?

Any suggestions would be very helpful at this point.

Cheers!

[Colin Holgate · Accepted solution]

I can't find the size limits for Animate, but in Flash Player 10 days (and CS3 was probably FP11), this page shows the sorts of limits there were:

Flash Player 10 size limits for SWF, bitmap files

Does it crash when you import several smaller images? Or just when whatever you're importing includes a larger image?

One thing that is worth trying would be to import the images into Animate and publish a SWF, then import that into CS3. I tested with CS6 and had mixed success. In Animate you can set the player version to 10.3, to give CS3 a better chance.

[seanwickett]

Thanks for that link. I'll see if that helps!

Not sure if smaller images matter. One site I found talked about small jpegs, less than 400px, and the same issue occurred.

I'm not sure if using swf would help. We're just working with .fla files so animators can work with the puppets and assets.

I'll report back if we have success. Thanks again!

[Colin Holgate]

When you import the SWF into CS3 you would then have the bitmaps in the library. Any laying out or animating would have to be redone.

To keep all of the animation you could try a decompiler, that would convert the SWF into a Flash Player 10 compatible FLA. I just tried that and it worked out ok, though I don't have CS3.

[seanwickett]

Thanks again! I'll pass this on to our scene planner!