Welcome Adobe Animate CC, a new era for Flash Professional

[Preran]

To more accurately represent its position as the premier animation tool for the web and beyond, Flash Professional will be renamed Adobe Animate CC, starting with the next release in early 2016.

For more information, see this blog post Welcome Adobe Animate CC, a new era for Flash Professional | Adobe Flash Professional Team Blog by Rich Lee, Senior product marketing manager.

Also see

Flash, HTML5 and Open Web Standards

Update about Edge Tools and Services | Creative Cloud blog by Adobe

Thanks,

Preran

[ddhayles]

I’ve been developing flash ads for about 15 years and like most people I have recently moved over to creating HTML ads.

At the moment Flash Pro canvas is not a great solution for the creation of HTML based ads which is why a lot of people I know have moved over to Adobe Edge Animate. It looks like Edge is now becoming the standard for the creation of HTML ads but since Adobe has now canned it, will Adobe Animate CC be better than the current Flash Pro version at creating HTML ads?

If it feels like the HTML Canvas export is just an add-on, an after thought to give Flash Pro some relevance and to me it seems like madness not to develop Edge Animate separately as a dedicated HTML AD production tool.

I could be wrong, Adobe Animate may have been redesigned and creating ads will be as simple as it currently is in Edge, we will just have to wait and see.

[_keyframer]

Excited for this rebranding!

[ClayUUID]

This seems like a spectacularly dumb course of action.

[_keyframer]

Curious Clay as to why you see this is a dumb course of action. For years me and my colleagues who have been using Flash for years have always thought that rebranding Flash would be a smart idea and Adobe is finally doing so. I'm seriously asking and not trolling. I'm trying to see the flip side of the coin.

[ClayUUID]

Your colleagues must be marketing people (y'know, the sort of people who say things like "Excited for this rebranding!" unironically). This is a ham-fisted, facile attempt to ditch the "Flash" stigmata by just calling it something else. But it's still Flash. Everyone will know it's still Flash. The legions of Flash developers and Flash animators will not start calling themselves Animate developers and Animate animators who make Animate-animated animations.

And that's another thing-- Flash is every bit as much a programming tool as an animation tool, yet the name "Animate" rejects that entirely. "Yeah, I programmed this in Animate" sounds ridiculous. The new name itself is bland, utterly lacking in character. It reeks of a room full of suits who couldn't think of anything good, so they just threw up their hands and declared, "People use it to animate, so eff it, call it that!" If these people were in charge of rebranding Acrobat, they'd call it "Read". Premiere would end up as "Edit".

So anyway yes this is dumb and terrible.

[gperry91]

Clay, why would you say you programmed it in "Flash" in the first place? If you programmed it using ActionScript, say that. JavaScript? Say that. You did some animations or layouts in Animate CC and programmed it using your language of choice. That's it. I agree that the name could have been something that fits both Animation and Development, but moving away from Flash is a good move.

[nezarov]

Moving away from Flash is a good move but I think that "Animate" is not better than "Flash" as it's not an attractive name 😕

[ClayUUID]

Why would I say I programmed something in Flash? Are you for real? Because for the overwhelming majority of its existence, Flash and ActionScript have been synonymous. JavaScript only became available with the bolted-on ability to do HTML projects. But even with JS, Flash is still the IDE, so it's perfectly valid to say the programming was done in Flash.

[gperry91]

Clay, we are constantly reassuring clients that our work done in Flash will run on iOS, or Android. This solves that problem for us. The Flash brand has been tarnished by a plugin and Adobe is saving their tools. Simple as that.

[Asymetrical]

No his colleagues are animators and for once in Flash's history it's name actually makes sense.. So you're hating the name Animate refers to that someone would think coding with a program called "Animate' stupid, but they've been doing it under the name Flash for quite some time which doesn't correlate at all. What the hell is a Flash? For most clients it makes no sense and is in no way descriptive. Animate is, and what do MOST programmers DO with the assets in Flash? They ANIMATE them!

I'm personally happy they've actually chosen to give at least part of their user base a nod if in name only. Programmers have gotten the better end of the stick repeatedly when it comes to Flash, so don't be so damn butt hurt over one tiny name change. YES it's still Flash, and for many of us that's a GOOD thing considering many even on this forum have claimed it dead and buried! If anything they'll actually give us animators some of the tools we've been clamoring for for the last 15 years!

[_keyframer]

My colleagues are all as far from marketing peeps as it gets. And as for your other points, I get what you mean but they are about as correct as your take on my colleagues. But I have a feeling you simply hate the name and the application and that's your valid opinion. The name is the name and it's what we make with it that counts. You seem caught up in the nomenclature of how people might talk when they describe their use of the tool. I'm not sure I understand that train of thought nor do I think it really matters. It would seem you've seen or tested the version to be released in 2016? You might be correct if you are just assuming and if you are, I'm going to guess you're the type of person who is generally hard to please. Either way - I'm looking forward to what's coming and think it's a very smart move on Adobe's part.

[rosebudd]

The people who are the most upset about this are on the Edge Animate forum. None of the people disappointed by the Edge Animate news, (discontinued) were comfortable with Flash. They claimed they tried it and did not like it, which means they never got it.

The Flash gurus applauding the move were pointing out how lame Edge Animate is, and I actually used Chris Georgenes, "Lucy Takes Her Medicine" as a rebuttal to the Edgers who think they can get Adobe to change their mind. Flash is a fantastic animation tool. Edge can create rectangles, fake lines, and fake circles. Keyframes that allow content to exist or not exist on a timeline, only when it is needed, and only publishing that which is used means a much more user friendly UI.

Coming from Flash, I hated Edge, since last week I have been using Flash CC Canvas, and breaking apart text does solve the vexing font issues. There are hundreds of thousands of people with  Flash animation skills.

Adobe this is a smart move.

[_keyframer]

Thanks rosebud!

My thinking is that anyone who is now walking around saying "Adobe finally killed of Flash" and/or saying that "Flash is really dead" is winning whatever battle they want to fight - but the winner of the war will soon reveal itself as Adobe continues to update and develop "Flash" as Animate CC and life will continue to move forward as will each and every Animate CC user both old and new.

I heard someone say "Adobe killed off Flash" just this week here in the office - it was from a fellow designer and I had to append his claim by clarifying to the him and the team that the only thing that was changing was the name - and the name doesn't really matter. For me, it's the tool and what we create with it - and for that, I'm happy to move forward in my career as an artist and animator knowing that one of my favorite tools is here to stay for a long time. Thanks Adobe.

[rosebudd]

Well the Edge Animate gurus are very upset, and the part where it is still Flash and you can begin using it now is not clear to some, as they think they are waiting for new hybrid software.

Maybe a tutorial aimed at the Edge people to help them make a transition to Flash Canvas would help. They are harping on the canvas part. But Flash is writing all the canvas code for us.

[ClayUUID]

It's almost as if changing the name of a product from the one it's had for 20 years to a name that's similar to a different, discontinued product by the same company is turning out to be a really bad idea.

[Colin Holgate]

Funnily, it's had the name for 19 years, after the last time it was renamed. Maybe it should have been renamed back to FutureSplash Animator.

[gperry91]

Despite some of the haters, this is a good move by Adobe. The subscriptions for Animate CC will increase over time, and Adobe can finally move on from the "Flash is dead" bullshit (pardon me).

[keithleyson]

Our company has just started producing iOS and Android Apps using Flash Pro CC. We stopped developing using native tools like Xcode and Eclipse so that we have more creative control in making our eLearning modules with a lot of interactivity and animations that was otherwise impossible, time consuming, or difficult to achieve using those native tools. Now with this upcoming rebranding of Flash Pro CC, what will happen to developers who are using Flash Pro CC for the sole purpose of developing mobile apps? Can we still expect updates to it to support future iOS and Android versions? I would sincerely want to know what to expect so that there is still time for us to stop what we are doing and not waste any more money if Flash Pro CC will reach end of life very soon.

[gperry91]

Adobe Animate CC will function EXACTLY THE SAME as Flash Pro CC. It's a new name with some new features. You will not lose ANY functionality with the update.

[Colin Holgate]

It's worth reading the blog post and watch the video. there are some good improvements coming along.

[keithleyson]

I did watch the video and read the post. Seeing it with a timeline similar to Edge Animate instead of the frame by frame timeline from Flash is a BIG concern.

[Mohanaraj]

Hi Keith,

There will not be any change to Timeline appearance/functionality and it will remain as is. For that matter, there will not be any change in the existing functionalities as well but it will only get better going forward.

Thanks!

Mohan

[keithleyson]

Thanks for the clarifications.

[pjgfi]

Hi Mohanaraj,

So we could call Animate CC "Flash Pro CC 2016", right?

I will be able to open any CC Fla file?

Nothing has been removed (AS3, Motion Editor...) to ensure full compatibility with HTML5 output?

Thanks.