Why it's GOOD that Adobe Flash is becoming Adobe Animate

You probably already know by now that Adobe has decided to rebrand "Flash CC" as "Animate CC." This took pretty much everybody by surprise but heavy users, like myself, were hoping for a move just like this and I'll tell you why. But first, here's what I know so far about Adobe Animate CC:

The most important point:

If you have the Creative Cloud desktop application, Animate CC will be listed in January 2016. Previous version of Flash Pro will continue to be available (just as they are now).

Basically, it is my belief that Adobe sees the "Flash is Dead" meme taking on a little more traction than they would like and are trying to distance themselves from the name so that the SWF version of the Flash brand can die on its own and the program itself (the thing that I've been using to make animation for many years and have rarely exported to SWF anyway) can live on.

I say this because from the features list it doesn't look like Adobe Animate CC is much more than a name change and a slightly more animation-focused upgrade to the existing Flash CC 2014 - and that's a good thing! I want "Flash" to keep updating and improving... I don't really care what they call it (aside from the fact that my book coming out in March was written with "Flash" in the title, but you let me worry about that... an exciting change might be in order!). Now to those updates I mentioned a moment ago...

Here are 8 welcomed animation-specific updates coming to "Adobe Animate CC"

• We're getting a new brush to play with in the form of a vector art brush system. Like in Illustrator, You can make custom brushes and can modify the path of a stroke after its drawn... you can even ANIMATE the path of a brush stroke (so says the release video). If this means easier handwriting animation... that'll make explainer videos a bit easier, won't it
• They're implementing a colored onion skinning system (like Toon Boom)
• Adobe Stock is continuing its CC implementation across all program updates meaning you can browse its vector art library and pick one to drag and drop on the stage without ever leaving the program
• They're focusing their video output to HTML5 and 4K video support... although they'll still support SWF and AIR (they're Adobe, afterall)
• We're getting the bone-tool back! I mean, I only used it once but some people love it
• You'll be able to rotate the canvas just like other drawing apps
• Drop H.264 videos right onto your Timeline to use as a guide layer.
• Updated Motion Editor gives you granular control over motion tween properties like color effects, transformations and many more

So all in all, the changes are definitely more focused on animation this time around as in years passed it seemed like most of the effort had been going to web design. I know that there are a lot of people already onto Toon Boom products and that's fine... but for heavy Flash users like myself this is a welcomed change! Any time a program as versatile as Flash has been it's going to have its fair share of bugs. I can't say for sure yet, but I believe that by focusing down to an animation-specific audience the build can get more stable and streamlined. There's a reason that Flash has been in the lead for so many years and its because that compared to other programs you can use for animation, it's not as daunting to pick up. And as you can see from the various TV shows, commercials, animated shorts, and even films (!)... it is powerful enough to let you create amazing things as you grow as an artist!

It's about the "Brand" and the "Focus"

Again, I believe that changing the name of Flash CC to Animate CC, is a branding decision... one to distance themselves from the name "Flash" which in Adobe's view might have become too toxic.

Really, whenever people talk about Flash who aren't in the animation industry they're usually talking about Flash players and SWFs in internet browsers... there's been reports on that type of playback being a resource hog and having security threats. But for us... for animators... Flash has been distant from that in our minds for a loooooong time now. It's a tool that lets us create the moving illustrations we have in our minds as a form of expression. If anything, it makes more sense to me to open a program called Animate in order to Animate, so why not change the name?

And yes, I actually have Toon Boom Animate... Pro 2 actually... and it's a fine program. But even Toon Boom decided that they were going to do away with that after only a couple iterations and pare back to the Harmony pipeline. I'm not questioning either company's decision here, just pointing out that this stuff happens all the time and what matters is "what's under the hood."

I'm going to get my hands on Adobe Animate CC as soon as I can and take it for a daily test drive and report back with first-hand knowledge, but as for right now... it looks like the only thing that's changing is the name. Long live Adobe Animate CC!

This segment was used in episode #109 of the RubberOnion Animation Podcast (click to listen to the entire episode)