NxtGen Media - The Freeman View

Flash3D - Coming Soon - Sigh…

After reading that Flash will now be moving into the realm of 3D, my response was a heavy sigh, and then a, “Really? Ya Think?”

Considering that this has been the wish of many a Flash developer, plus hardware acceleration, I can’t help but think that this move is a bit late to the party. I love Flash and still use it, but I have been pissed at Adobe for a while with its less than satisfying Flash releases. They could have owned this space a long time ago.  It is one of the many reasons I have embraced Unity3D.

Now I am hearing that this move is the one that will herald the Flash player that will kill Unity. I for one simply can’t see it, at least not yet. First of all, the next version of Unity is coming next month with an array of features that will be hard to match. Forgive me if I am wrong, but isn’t this the first time that Flash 3D is really being taken seriously by Adobe? Unless Adobe has  a super top secret engine in development for the last four years, I can’t see how they will come close to the IDE and performance of Unity. There is a whole lot of catch up to do.

I would love to leverage my AS3 knowledge in a Flash 2D/3D environment, with a player that is hardware accelerated, can do applications as well as games, and work on a multitude of devices, including the iDevices, but now I have Unity. GUI dev is not all that wonderful in Unity, but it certainly is no show stopper. It will not be hard for the Unity to create better GUI creation tools, and thus move into the realm of RIA. It will be a hard and long time for Adobe to produce a 3D engine from scratch and dev environment as slick and powerful as Unity.

We don’t know if Flash will become a 3D interface like Unity, or will it provide the base functions so that you can build your own engine as Ben Garney has suggested in the past, but either way it’s going to be a lot of work.

Adobe: Flash to take 3D graphics plunge

Flash and 3D, here we go again

-DCF

Work, work, work

Too much to report these days. Been so busy just have not had time to post. Got two projects going; one in Unity, and one in Flash. The Flash project is mostly conversion in which we are converting an older project from Director to Flash. Not very exciting, and time consuming, but it pays the bills.

On the Unity side, we’re working on changing our development work flow. In the past, all of our learning modules were done in Flash. Now, we are moving to Unity. It is more than a notion as there is so much to understand. This is not a bad thing, just really different.

What is really interesting (and annoying) is that the expectations for quick turn around have not changed. The powers that be act as if Unity3d is as trivial as Flash, (which is far from trivial), and should take the same amount of time to develop in. They are used to our long lived Flash development process and experience, and don’t get that we are still pretty green when it comes to 3d. Not surprising.

Despite the minor frustration of being driven like cattle, I am still loving Unity and am very excited about the next version. Working in Unity still feels like the early days of Flash to me, and if all goes well I am hoping that the same thing will happen to Unity that happened to Flash back in the day. Very exciting times indeed.

Freaking Choice!

Wow! What an amazing few weeks it has been. Just a little while ago, my company was all excited about developing for the iPad. We even purchased 3 for testing. Our tools of choice were going to be Unity3D and Flash. We even pre-ordered CS5. Just a little before, the release of CS5, Apple announces its new ToS which basically excludes Flash developed apps from the app store and possibly Unity Apps. Now we are left floundering for a new plan. Google comes along and essentially pulls a coupe by addressing so many issues that it is not even funny. A Google Chrome based tablet will make Apple rethink a lot of stuff.

Granted, all of the things announced at Google I/O have yet to be instated, but if all goes well their platform will empower a whole lot of people and make it so that you can develop with whatever you like, and for Pete’s sake even make money! That is truly awesome! There is a lot to think about, and a lot of change coming, and freaking choice! What a concept. As many have said, ‘it is a real good time to be a web developer’.

DCF

Apple Email - The all-new Adobe Creative Suite 5. Get yours today

Got an email from Apple last Friday regarding CS5.

Maybe it’s just me, but for some reason, this just seems odd…

DCF

Change and Choice

The past few months have been a roller coaster ride for Flash devs. The events have felt like an action movie complete with cliff hangers and crazy plot twist. Adobe has this new campaign regarding “Freedom of Choice“. I think it is a great move on their part, but I can’t help but think that this whole Apple thing has been a warning shot over their bow. The writing is now on the wall, the coffee is burning, and it is obvious that ‘someone is trying to eat Adobe’s lunch’.

Adobe has had many warnings in the past from its devs out in the field to fix and upgrade various aspects of the player. Improvements have been made, but there was no pressing need to move faster, because there really was no competition. Truthfully, HTML5 is not quite ready for prime time and there is time for Adobe to step it up and make Flash really solid, but that time grows short. Steve Jobs may have inadvertently done something that Flash devs could not do, and that is turn up the innovative fire in Adobe’s boiler room.

If all goes well, I am hoping that Flash will become the general choice for the game console, the video player, the RIA platform, the anything media console for any device, web or stand alone. Flash being the closest to the ‘write once, run anywhere’ pipe dream, and with the most penetration, it just seemed logical that it would eventually happen. This whole Apple stir is business. It’s about who’s going to be the player of choice and ultimately the gate keeper. If Flash did not have this kind of potential, this drama would not be happening.

Can’t we all just get along?

Can’t we all just get along? Nope. Too much money to be made. If Flash became the tool it was supposed to be, then it would be the gate keeper for all media which kind of kills the App Store. Flash everywhere, on every platform was and still is the ultimate goal. That potential still exist, and if nothing else Steve may have started a war he is going to live to regret. I don’t 100% agree with Steve Jobs, but I understand his position. It’s business.

Adobe makes money on tools, not the Flash player, so beefing it up and opening it up and making the tools ‘better, stronger, faster’ could be a great thing for them and be the move that tips the scale in this cold war. Hope Adobe gets the point. A superior player, with lower barrier of entry for development, and quality tools will lead to more apps (good and bad). A plethora of killer Apps not available on the iEcosystem could be a tipping factor in time. On the other hand, if Adobe does not step it up, then Steve was right and Flash may go quietly into the night cuz they failed to keep up. With the fire now lit, I am seriously doubting it.

Steve Jobs/Apple: Thoughts on Flash

Adobe CEO’s Response to Steve Jobs

Both Apple & Adobe are extremely full of shit and I’ll tell you why…

Scaleform 3D Interface using Flash

Would love to get this going in Unity.

Proud Dad

My son Zach Freeman performing at The Rendezvous in Miami

Choosing Sides

I am more than a little concerned about this 3.3.1 clause that Apple has added to its Developer Program License Agreement. I have been a Flash developer since version 5.0 and recently started getting into Unity3D since the October indie release. I am a PC guy that has been using Windows and Linux. The last three years has been spent doing Flash and some .Net development. My organization was really excited about the iPad and the prospect of building applications for it using Unity and Flash. It just made sense to leverage what we were already using. We ordered an iPad and most of the doctors on staff are iPhone owners. The excitement was in the air that we were about to start developing apps for a device that could become as popular as the Palm had become for the medical community. Then our hopes were dashed with the 3.3.1 clause.

Will we switch to a total Apple development solution? I don’t think so. In fact, the day the announcement was made, was the day that we started considering other options for phones and tablets. If Unity continues to be allowed on Apple products, then we will most likely stick with our iPad development without Flash. If Unity is not allowed, then we will still use Unity and Flash but we will move to another platform altogether. I think that is a bloody shame because the ‘iPlatform’ has such promise.

The 3.3.1 clause is not set in stone yet, but in the obvious blood lust to kill Flash, I can’t see how it could be rescinded unless some really major negotiations occur. Personally, I think that if it has gone this far, then it is close to impossible to bring it back to something amiable. This is like being in the middle of a really ugly divorce and waiting to see who you are going to live with.

Has Steve Jobs gone mad?

DCF

Flash Hardware Acceleration…Coming

When I used to see articles like this, “Hardware-accelerated Flash almost here“, I would have gotten excited and begun dreaming of all the cool things that I would be able to do with Flash. Now I just shake my head, and wonder why it took so long to address this. The ‘Almost’ in the title of that article, is indicative of what has been going on for years with Flash. Too little, too late.

It’s not like there was no writing on the wall. Folks have been saying (begging) for years what was needed to make Flash a truly unstoppable force on the web. Hardware acceleration has definitely been high on the wish list. The potential for Flash to become the ‘gaming console of the web‘ has been mentioned in the past, but it’s like the point was missed as to the importance of games. If the player performed really well with 2d and 3d games (the most demanding of all apps), then RIAs would benefit as well. Meanwhile, many Flashers are looking at Unity for their game development needs.

I am just glad that a fire has been lit under the proverbial arse of Adobe to beef the player up. If nothing else, Apple has sure stoked that fire. Flash still has a chance to secure its position as it is still early in the game, but that window is closing fast. Almost is still not good enough.

DCF