In 1996, FutureWave Software created FutureSplash Animator, a new and revolutionary piece of software that could create interactive animations for the Internet. By the end of the year, FutureSplash was bought by Macromedia, who shortened the name to simply ‘Flash’. Flash grew in popularity throughout the 90s, becoming a widely-used Web development and animation tool. It was bought and further developed by Adobe in 2005. Flash-based websites were everywhere in the 90s and 2000s, many that would soon experience massive growth getting their start this way. One notable example was YouTube, which originally used Flash as a means to play compressed videos. In 2016, 20 years after its creation, Flash was rebranded once more as Adobe Animate. This reflected the push to move to animation as the focal point of the software, with its built-in language, ActionScript, depreciating. At the end of 2020, Flash Player was removed from all major Web browsers, though small teams of independent developers continue to utilize ActionScript for their projects, creating workarounds so that the games, websites, and animations of yesterday aren’t completely lost to time. I have personally used both Flash and Animate, and have enjoyed working with them. Both versions of the software are very similar, only differing in Animate’s updated features and lack of ActionScript. In terms of animation capabilities, both are almost identical to the casual user. Artists can create both frame-by-frame and puppet-based animation, which uses rigged characters that only have to be drawn once, similar to the rigged characters used in 3D software. Animate is intuitive and very easy to learn, even for those who have never created a cartoon before. The consistency across different versions also means that many tutorials created well over a decade ago can still be used with modern versions of the software. In spite of the program’s friendliness to new users, however, the pricing is anything but accessible. With plans currently starting at $22.99 per month, artists can expect to pay over $275 in one year on Animate alone. There are also a few tools that have been consistently neglected over the years-in particular, the bone tool is known to be effectively useless by the majority of animators. Overall, Adobe Animate is a great piece of software that has been a staple of animation ever since its creation, though its extremely high price and assortment of issues unfortunately prevent it from being a viable option for the majority of independent artists.
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