Oct 24 2004
Kevin Lynch demonstrates next generation Flash Player
Very cool recording by Moock: Kevin Lynch showing the next generation of the Flash Player at a Flash conference in Tokyo. Kevin demonstrated the run-time capability to render bitmap effects like drop shadow, glow, blur, color matrix, and bevel. Apparently there will be full ActionScript control of these effects at run-time, as well as full support in the Flash authoring tool which is code named “8ball”.
He also showed that there will be support for alpha channel in video. Lynch changed the background of a running video in the player and interacted with elements playing behind the video, showing the alpha capabilities. How sweet! Last but not least; he showed better text rendering and huge player performance improvements (up to 10 times faster?).
Let’s hope we get to see more of this and in better quality (sorry Moock, pun not intended ;-)) at MAX in New Orleans!
8 responses so far
Whoa! That’s going to be some powerful stuff. I can hardly wait!
this is really great news. I think i understand better what they were talking about when they mentioned that 8ball would be a designers release.
The link is down, is there any way someone can send me the movie?
The speed improvements look incredible! I’m presuming this enhances the runtime of complex vectors as well as bitamps?
‘bitmaps’ (also fixed link). duh.
Any rough estimate on when we will see this release? Early 2005?
I sense more and more backlash over the flash player because of those nasty “coverall” ads. I wonder if this new version will introduce user preferences as to allow/disallow those much like popups and popup blockers today.
@Matt: macromedia has announced that this release is planned for the second half of 2005.