Editor: Ranjithkumar

Let his flowing Vel protect me all the sections of the night,
Let his craft Vel protect me from delays,
Let the golden Vel protect and protect,
Let it be seen quickly and quickly,
Let it strike and strike and remove all my problems.

paarka paarka paavam podipada
billi soonyam perumpahai ahala
valla bootham valaashtihap peihal
allal paduthum adangaa muniyum
pillaihal thinnum puzhakadai muniyum (110)
kollivaayp peihalum kuralaip peihalum
penkalai thodarum bramaraa chatharum
adiyanaik kandaal alari kalangida.

Please see and see that my sins are powdered,
Let the black magic and great enmity go away,
Let great devils and those who shake their tails,
Let the uncontrollable Muni, which creates problems,
Let the backyard Muni which eats babies,
Let the ghosts with fire in their mouth,
Let the ghosts which steal my speech,
And let the Brahma Rakshasas which follow ladies,
Run away screaming when they see me.
(Muni is an evil spirit in Tamil Nadu. It also indicates a sage in a different context.)

irisi kaatteri ithunba senaiyum
yellilum iruttilum yethirpadum mannarum (115)
kana pusai kollum kaaliyodu anaivarum
vittaan gaararum migu pala peihalum
thandiyak kaararum sandaalar halum
yen peyar sollavum idi vizhunthodida.

Let the Irusi Katteri and Idumba sena,
Let Mannar who is seen everywhere in the night
Let Kali and all others, who kill us on meeting,
Let Vittan Karar and other ghosts and devils,
Let Thandai Karar and debased humans,
As soon as they hear my name,
Run away as if struck by thunder.

aanai adiyinil arum paavaihalum (120)
poonai mayirum pillaihal enpum
nahamum mayirum neenmudi mandaiyum
paavaihal udane pala kalasathudan
manaiyil puthaitha vanjanai thanaiyum
ottiya paavaiyum ottiya serukkum (125)
kaasum panamum kaavudan sorum
othu manjanamum oruvazhi pokum
adiyanaik kandaal alainthu kulainthida
maatran vanjahar vanthu vanangida
kaala thoothaal yenai kandaal kalangida (130)

Dolls with spells, placed in our home,
Hairs of cat, bones of babies,
Claws, hairs, skulls with long hairs,
Dolls placed in several pots,
Buried in different parts of the house,
Dolls pierced, pierced shapes,
Coins and money, cooked rice, with vegetables
Spell cast yellow-black balms, which travel in one direction
Let all these get confused and be afraid on seeing me,
Please make them shiver on seeing me always,
And make strangers and bad men salute me.

anji nadungida arandu purandida
vaay vittalari mathi kettoda
padiyinil mutta paasak kayitraal
kattudan angam katharida kattu
katti uruttu kaal kai muriya (135)

Make all of them afraid of me,
Make them roll in the floor out of fear,
May them shout loudly and get mad,
Let them dash their head on my doorsteps,
Tie them with your Pasa rope,
Tie them tight,
Roll them after tying,
And break their hands and legs.

kattu kattu katharida kattu
muttu muttu muzhihal pithungida
sekku sekku sethil sethilaaha
sokku sokku soorpahai sokku
kuthu kuthu koorvadi velaal (140)
patru patru pahalavan thanaleri
thanaleri thanaleri thanalathuvaaha
viduvidu velai verundathu oda.

Tie and tie them, till they loudly cry out,
Dash and dash them till the joints split,
Step on them, step on them, till they break in the mud,
Pierce and pierce them with your Vel.
Catch and catch the fire of the Sun,
Set fire, set fire till they wilt in the fire,
Throw and throw your Vel till they scare and run.

puliyum nariyum punnari naayum
yeliyum karadiyum inithodarnthu oda (145)
thelum paambum seyyaan pooraan
kadivida vishangal kadithuyar angam
yeriya vishangal yelithudan iranga

Let the tiger, fox, wolf, rat and bear,
Continue to run away from me,
Let the poisons of scorpion, snake, millipede,
Which has entered in and will stay in my body
After being bitten by them,
Come out of my body with great speed.

polippum sulukkum oruthalai noyum
vaatham sayithiyam valippu pitham (150)
soolai sayam kunmam sokku sirangu
kudaichal silanthi kudalvip purithi
pakka pilavai padarthodai vaazhai
kaduvan paduvan kaithaal silanthi
parkuthu aranai paru arai yaakkum (155)
yellap piniyum yendranaik kandaal
nillaa thoda nee yenak arulvaay
puliyum nariyum punnari naayum
yeliyum karadiyum inithodarnthu oda (145)

Let wounds, sprains, one sided headache,
Arthritis, cold fever, fits and bile,
Piles , fistula, carbuncles, strains,
Diseases of intestines, itching of the skin,
Partial paralysis, ring worm, skin ailments,
Biting of cat, dog and spider,
Toothache and all the diseases and attacks,
Vanish and run away, as soon as they see me,
Please, Lord, bless me always so that,
All these do not tarry and run away from me.

eerezhula hamum yenak uravaaha
aanum pennum anaivarum yenakkaa
mannaal arasarum mahizhnthura vaahavum (160)

Let the seven worlds be my friends,
Let gents and ladies, and kings who rule,
Become my relations with pleasure and happiness.

unnai thuthikka un thirunaamam
saravana bavane sailoli bavanee
thirupura bavane thigazholi bavane
paripura bavane pavamozhi bavane
arithiru maruhaa amaraa pathiyai (165)
kaathu thevarkal kadum sirai viduthaay
kanthaa guhane kathir velavane
kaarthihai mainthaa kadambaa kadambanai
idumbanai yendra iniyavel muruhaa

Let me praise your holy names,
He who originated from Saravana,
He who originated from flashing light,
He who was born to Tripura,
He who originated from holy sound,
He whose feet is adorned with anklets,
He who severs the cords of attachment,
He who is the nephew of Vishnu and Lakshmi,
He who protected the army of devas,
He who released them from prison,
He who is called Skanda and Guha,
He who holds the resplendent Vel,
He who is the son of Karthika maidens,
He who lives in Kadamba forest,
He who is Muruga with the sweet Vel,
Who defeated Idumba and Kadamba asuras.

thanihaa salane sangaran puthalvaa (170)
katirkaa mathurai kathirvel muruhaa
pazhani pathivaazh baala kumaaraa
aavinan kudivaazh azhahiya vela
senthil maamalai yuryum sengalva raayaa
samaraa purivaazh shanmuha tharase (175)

Hey lord who lives on Thiruthani mountains,
Hey lord who is the son of Lord Shiva,
Hey Lord Muruga, with shining Vel,
Hey Lord, who lives in Kathirgamam,
Hey young Kumara who lives in the city of Pazhani,
Hey pretty Vela, who lives in Thiruvavingudi,
Hey, Sengalvaraya who lives on Senthil mountains,
Hey king, Shanmuga who lives in Samarapuri,

kaarar kuzhalaal kalaimahal nandraay
yennaa irukka yaan unai paada
yenai thodarnthu irukkum yenthai muruhanai
padinen aadinen paravasa maaha
aadinen naadinen aavinan poothiyey (180)

When the Goddess of knowledge,
With her dark black tresses,
Placed herself on my tongue,
I did sing about you,
And I sang about my father Murugan,
Then danced, went into ecstasy,
And sought the company,
Of the great Lord of Thiruvavinkudi.

nesamudan yaan netriyil aniya
paasa vinaihal patrathu neengi
unpatham perave unnarulaaha
anbudan rakshi annamum sonnamum
metha methaaha velaayu thanaar (185)
sithi petradiyen sirappudan vazhga.

When I adorned with love, my forehead with your sacred ash,
The ropes attaching me to the fate were untied,
And I reached your feet to attain your grace.
So please protect me with love, give me food and wealth,
Oh Velayudha slowly and gracefully.
Bless me with your grace,
And let me live in a great manner.

vaazhga vaazhga mayilon vaazhga
vaazhga vaazhga vadivel vaazhga
vaazhga vaazhga malai guru vaazhga
vaazhga vaazhga malai kura mahaludan (190)
vaazhga vaazhga vaarana thuvasam
vaazhga vaazhga yen varumaihal neenga

Long live, long live, the rider of peacock,
Long live, long live, the holder of Vel,
Long live, long live, the god of mountains,
Long live, long live, he with the mountain girl, Valli.
Long live, long live, he with the flag of a cock,
Long live, long live,
Let my poverty be driven out,

yethanai kuraihal yethanai pizhaihal
yethanai adiyen yethanai seiyinum
petravan neeguru poruppathu unkadan (195)
petraval kuramahal petravalaame
pillai yendranbaay piriya malithu
mainthan yenmeethu unmanam mahizhntharuli
thanjam yendradiyaar thazhaithida arulsey
kanthar sashti kavasam virumbiya (200)

You are my father and teacher,
Goddess Valli is my mother,
And it is your duty to pardon,
Any number of errors that I make,
Any number of mistakes that I make,
Without parting away from this your child,
With happiness love this son of yours,
And give protection to all devotees, who seek,
And love this Skanda Sashti Kavacham.

baalan theva raayan paharn thathai
kaalaiyil maalaiyil karuthudan naalum
aasaa rathudan angam thulakki
nesamudan oru ninaivathu vaahi
kanthar sashti kavasam ithanai (205)
sindhai kalangaathu thiyaani pavarhal
orunaal muppathaa ruru kondu
othiyeh jebithu uhanthu neeraniya
ashta thikkullor adangalum vasamaay
thisai mannar yenmar seyalathu (sernthangu) arulvar (210)

maatrala rellaam vanthu vananguvar
navakol mahizhnthu nanmai alithidum
navamatha nenavum nallezhil peruvar
enthanaalum eerettaay vaazhvar
kantharkai velaam kavasa thadiyai (215)

Daily in the morning and evening,
All those who clean themselves,
With religious fervour and read,
Thirty six times a day
This Skanda Sashti Kavasam,
Which has been composed,
By the young Deva Rayan,
And meditate on that god with concentration,
And wear the sacred ash,
Will get the great blessings,
Of all the devas from all eight directions,
And the guardians of the eight directions.

All strangers would come and salute them,
The nine planets will become happy,
And shower their blessings,
They would shine in prettiness.
They would happily live on all days,
If they recite this Kavasam,
Which is equivalent to a Vel.

vazhiyaay kaana meiyaay vilangum
vizhiyaal kaana verundidum peigal
pollathavarai podi podi yaakkum
nallor ninaivil nadanam puriyum
sarva sathuru sankaa rathadi (220)

If seen as a way, this Kavasam would show the truth,
If seen of ghosts by their eyes, they will get scared,
It would powder bad people,
And the good people would dance with joy,
And all their enemies will be exterminated

arintha yenathullaam ashta letchmihalil
veera letchmikku virun thunavaaha
soora bathmaavaith thunithagai yathanaal
iruba thezhvarkku uvan thamuthalitha
gurubaran pazhani kundrinil irukkum (225)
chinna kuzhanthai sevadi potri

Oh Lord, Let my mind that has understood you,
Pray Veera Lakshmi among the Ashta Lakshmis
My salutations to the feet of small baby of Pazhani,
Whose hands killed Soora Padman,
Who gave deathless nectar for the twenty-seven,
And who is my teacher on the Pazhani Mountain

yenai thadu thaatkola yendrana thullum
meviya vadivurum velava potri
thevargal senaa pathiye potri
kuramahal manamahizh kove potri (230)

Salutations to the Skanda with the Vel
Who has occupied my mind,
So that I am always His,
Salutations to commander of the devas
Salutations to the darling of Valli,
Who is the daughter of a mountain tribe.

He whose form is strong and dazzling, Praise be to Thee!
He who conquered Idumba, Praise be to Thee!

thiramihu thivya thehaa potri
idumbaa yuthane idumbaa potri
kadambaa potri kanthaa potri
vetchi punaiyum veleh potri
uyargiri kanaha sabaikor arase (235)

Salutations to the ablest of Gods ,
Who has a very holy form,
Salutation to him, who conquered Idumba,
Salutations to him who wears Kadamba flowers
Salutations to him who is Kanda,
Salutations to the Vel which wears Vetchi flowers,
Salutations to the king of the golden hall of the mountain.

mayilnada miduvoy malaradi saranam
saranam saranam saravanabava Om
saranam saranam shanmuhaa saranam
saranam saranam shanmuhaa saranam (239)

I surrender to flowery feet of my Lord,
Who travels on the peacock,
I surrender, surrender and surrender to the Saravanabhava,
I surrender, surrender and surrender to the Shanmuga.

Sundaravalli and Amirtavalli pray to their father Visnu for the boon of marrying Lord Murugan.

Lord Murugan promises to Sundaravalli and Amirtavalli that in their next life they will both marry him.

Lord Muruga woos Valli in a series of disguises, starting as a handsome young Vedar.

Finally Lord Muruga has to enlist the aid of his brother Ganesa to trick Valli into agreeing to marry Him.

Editor : Ranjithkumar

A limited version sold as Sound Forge Audio Studio provides an inexpensive entry-level digital audio editor; it was formerly known as Sonic Foundry’s Sound Forge LE.

Version 9 features include:

• Real-time sample level wave editor
• Stereo and Multichannel Recording
• High resolution audio support: 24-Bit, 32-Bit, 64-bit (IEEE float) 192 kHz
• Video support including AVI, WMV, and MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 (both PAL and NTSC) for use in frame by frame synchronisation of audio and video
• Support for a wide variety of file formats
• DirectX and VST plugin support. Version 9 includes a vinyl restoration plug-in and Mastering Effects Bundle, powered by IZotope.
• CD Architect 5.2 software which allows Disk-At-Once (DAO) CD burning.
• Batch conversion functionality
• Spectrum analysis tools
• White, pink, brown and filtered noise generators
• DTMF/MF tone synthesis
• External monitor support for DV and FireWire (IEEE 1394) devices

Formats supported:

• HD video 720p and 1080i
• Macromedia Flash (SWF) format open only
• RealMedia 9 (RealAudio and RealVideo) – export only
• Windows Media 9 Series (WMA and WMV) (i)
• Microsoft Video for Windows (AVI) (i)
• AIFF (AIFF, AIF, SND)
• MPEG-1 and MPEG-2
• MPEG-1 Layer 3 (MP3)
• Ogg Vorbis (OGG)
• Macintosh AIFF
• NeXT/Sun (AU)
• Sound Designer (DIG)
• Intervoice (IVC)
• Sony Perfect Clarity Audio (PCA)
• Sony Media Wave 64 (W64) (i)
• Sound Forge Project Files (FRG)
• Dialogic (VOX)
• Microsoft Wave (WAV)
• ATRAC Audio (AA3,OMA) (i)
• CD Audio (CDA)
• Dolby® Digital AC-3 studio – save only (i)
• Raw Audio (RAW) (i)
• Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC)

(i) Supported multichannel format.

External links

• Sony Creative Software – Sound Forge Product Family
• Sony Creative Software – Sound Forge 9
• [1] Sony Acid Pro – Sony Media Software website.
• Sonic Foundry website

Early history & Releases

Further information: 3D Studio release history

The original 3D Studio product was created for the DOS platform by the Yost Group and published by Autodesk. After 3D Studio Release 4, the product was rewritten for the Windows NT platform, and originally named “3D Studio MAX.” This version was also originally created by the Yost Group. It was released by Kinetix, which was at that time Autodesk’s division of media and entertainment. Autodesk purchased the product at the second release mark of the 3D Studio MAX version and internalized development entirely over the next two releases. Later, the product name was changed to “3ds max” (all lower case) to better comply with the naming conventions of Discreet, a Montreal-based software company which Autodesk had purchased. At release 8, the product was again branded with the Autodesk logo, and the name was again changed to “3ds Max” (upper and lower case).

Overview

3ds Max is one of the most widely-used off the shelf 3D animation programs by content creation professionals. It has strong modeling capabilities, a flexible plugin architecture and a long heritage on the Microsoft Windows platform. It is mostly used by video game developers, TV commercial studios and architectural visualisation studios. It is also used for movie effects and movie previsualisation.

In addition to its modeling and animation tools, the latest version of 3ds Max also features advanced shaders (such as ambient occlusion and subsurface scattering), dynamic simulation, particle systems, radiosity, normal map creation and rendering, global illumination, an intuitive and fully-customizable user interface, its own scripting language and much more^{[citation needed]}. There is also a plethora of specialized renderer plugins that can be bought separately, such as V-Ray, Brazil r/s , Maxwell Render, FryRender and finalRender.

Modeling

3ds max living room render rendered with V-Ray

Polygon modeling

Main article: Polygon modeling

Polygon modeling is more common with game design than any other modeling technique as the very specific control over individual polygons allows for extreme optimization. Also, it is relatively faster to calculate in realtime. Usually, the modeller begins with one of the 3ds max primitives, and using such tools as bevel, extrude, and polygon cut, adds detail to and refines the model. Versions 4 and up feature the Editable Polygon object, which simplifies most mesh editing operations, and provides subdivision smoothing at customizable levels.

Version 7 introduced the edit poly modifier, which allows the use of the tools available in the editable polygon object to be used higher in the modifier stack (i.e. on top of other modifications).

3ds Max is also supported by advanced 3rd party modeling tools, such as Orionflame, which allows for more freedom and ease by introducing new tools to the base package.

NURBS or Nonuniform rational B-Spline

A more advanced alternative to polygons, it gives a smoothed out surface that eliminates the straight edges of a polygon model. NURBS is a mathematically exact representation of freeform surfaces like those used for car bodies and ship hulls, which can be exactly reproduced at any resolution whenever technically needed.

The non-uniform property of NURBS brings up an important point. Because they are generated mathematically, NURBS objects have a parameter space in addition to the 3D geometric space in which they are displayed. Specifically, an array of values called knots specifies the extent of influence of each control vertex (CV) on the curve or surface. Knots are invisible in 3D space and you can’t manipulate them directly, but occasionally their behavior affects the visible appearance of the NURBS object. This topic mentions those situations. Parameter space is one-dimensional for curves, which have only a single U dimension topologically, even though they exist geometrically in 3D space. Surfaces have two dimensions in parameter space, called U and V.

NURBS curves and surfaces have the important properties of not changing under the standard geometric affine transformations (Transforms), or under perspective projections. The CVs have local control of the object: moving a CV or changing its weight does not affect any part of the object beyond the neighboring CVs. (You can override this property by using the Soft Selection controls.) Also, the control lattice that connects CVs surrounds the surface. This is known as the convex hull property.

Surface tool/Editable patch object

Surface tool was originally a 3rd party plugin, but Kinetix acquired and included this feature since version 3.0. The surface tool is for creating common 3ds max’s splines, and then applying a modifier called “surface.” This modifier makes a surface from every 3 or 4 vertices in a grid. This is often seen as an alternative to ‘Mesh’ or ‘Nurbs’ modeling, as it enables a user to interpolate curved sections with straight geometry (for example a hole through a box shape). Although the surface tool is a useful way to generate parametrically accurate geometry, it lacks the ‘surface properties’ found in the similar Edit Patch modifier, which enables a user to maintain the original parametric geometry whilst being able to adjust “smoothing groups” between faces.

Predefined Primitives

This is a basic method, in which one models something using only boxes, spheres, cones, cylinders and other predefined objects from the list of Predefined Standard Primitives or a list of Predefined Extended Primitives. One may also apply boolean operations, including subtract, cut and connect. For example, one can make two spheres which will work as blobs that will connect with each other. This is called blob-mesh modeling, or metaballs.

3ds max cube primitive

3ds max hedron primitive

Predefined Standard Primitives List

• Box- Box produces the simplest of the primitives. Cube is the only variation of Box. However, you can vary the scale and proportion to make many different kinds of rectangular objects, from large, flat panels and slabs to tall columns and small blocks.
• Cylinder- Cylinder produces a cylinder, which you can “slice” around its major axis.
• Torus- Torus produces a torus, or a ring with a circular cross section, sometimes referred to as a doughnut. You can combine three smoothing options with rotation and twist settings to create complex variations.
• Utah Teapot- Teapot produces a teapot. You can choose to make the whole teapot at once (the default), or any of its parts. Since the Teapot is a parametric object, you can choose which parts of the teapot to display after creation.
• Cone-The Cone button on the Creation command panel lets you produce round cones, either upright or inverted.
• Sphere- Sphere produces a full sphere, or a hemisphere or other portion of a sphere. You can also “slice” a sphere about its vertical axis.
• Tube- Tube produces both round and prismatic tubes. The tube is similar to the cylinder with a hole in it.
• Pyramid- The Pyramid primitive has a square or rectangular base and triangular sides.
• Plane- The Plane object is a special type of flat polygon mesh that can be enlarged by any amount at render time. You can specify factors to magnify the size or number of segments, or both. Use the Plane object for creating a large-scale ground plane that doesn’t get in the way when working in a viewport. You can apply any type of modifier to the plane object, such as Displace to simulate a hilly terrain.
• GeoSphere- Use GeoSphere to make spheres and hemispheres based on three classes of regular polyhedrons

Predefined Extended Primitives List

• Hedra- Produces objects from several families of polyhedra.
• ChamferBox- Creates a box with beveled or rounded edges.
• OilTank- Creates a cylinder with convex caps.
• Spindle- Creates a cylinder with conical caps.
• Gengon- Creates an extruded, regular-sided polygon with optionally filleted side edges.
• Prism- Creates a three-sided prism with independently segmented sides.
• Torus knot- Creates a complex or knotted torus by drawing 2D curves in the normal planes around a 3D curve. The 3D curve (called the Base Curve) can be either a circle or a torus knot. It can be converted from a torus knot object to a NURBS surface.
• ChamferCyl- Creates a cylinder with beveled or rounded cap edges.
• Capsule- Creates a cylinder with hemispherical caps.
• L-Ext- Creates an extruded L-shaped object.
• C-Ext- Creates an extruded C-shaped object.

Dynamics

3ds Max has traditionally come with several basic particle emitters. As of version 8, there are 6 basic particle emitters (not including Particle Flow) exhibiting specific behaviors. Particle View is the primary interface for building and modifying Particle Flow systems. The first event in the system is always a global event, whose contents affect all particles in the system. It has the same name as the Particle Flow source icon. By default, the global event contains a single Render operator that specifies rendering properties for all particles in the system. You can add other operators here to have them act globally, such as Material, Display, and Speed. When you use an operator globally, be sure not to use the same operator locally (that is, in any other events in the system) to avoid potential conflicts.

The global event also serves as the Particle View representation of the particle system. You can create a new system by duplicating this event, or by adding an Empty Flow or Standard Flow. Conversely, if you clone the Particle Flow icon in a viewport, or add a new PF Source, the new system appears in Particle View as well.

The second event is called the birth event, because it must contain a Birth operator. The Birth operator should exist at the top of the birth event, and in no other place. The default birth event also contains a number of operators that act locally to specify properties of particles while in that event. The default particle system provides a basic global event and birth event that serve as a useful starting point for creating your own system. If you like, you can instead start with an empty system that lets you build a particle system from scratch.

The traditional particle emitters are:

• Spray
• Snow
• Blizzard
• PArray
• PCloud
• Super Spray

Particle Flow is a sophisticated non-linear, event-driven particle system developed by Oleg Bayborodin as one of MAX’s seven particle emitters. Unlike most particle systems available in today’s 3D packages, Particle Flow allows the user to design the behavior of a particle based on a series of user-defined Events (Procedures) in a streamlined and intuitive GUI.

3ds Max includes a physics engine, called reactor, originally created by Havok. Reactor can simulate rigid bodies, soft bodies, cloth, gravity, and other forces. Like many physics engines, reactor uses a simplified convex hull, but can be customized to use all vertices, at a cost in processing time.

Rendering

Concept car rendered with mental ray

Scanline rendering

The default rendering method in 3DS Max is scanline rendering. Several advanced features have been added to the scanliner over the years, such as global illumination, radiosity, and ray tracing.

mental ray

mental ray is a production quality renderer developed by Mental Images. mental ray is integrated into the later versions of MAX, and is a powerful rendering tool, with bucket rendering (similar to Maya’s Satellite Rendering), a technique that distributes the rendering burden between several computers efficiently. The 3ds Max version of mental ray also comes with a set of tools that allow a myriad of effects to be created with relative ease.

RenderMan

A third party connection tool to RenderMan pipelines is also available for those that need to integrate Max into Renderman render farms.

V-Ray

A widely used rendering engine, frequently substituting the standard and mental ray renderers which are included bundled with 3ds Max. V-Ray continues to be compatible with older versions of 3ds Max.

Brazil R/S

A high-quality photorealistic rendering system created by SplutterFish, LLC capable of fast ray tracing and global illumination.

Features

MAXScript

MAXScript is a built-in scripting language, and can be used to automate repetitive tasks, combine existing functionality in new ways, develop new tools and user interfaces and much more. Plugin modules can be created entirely in MAXscript.

Character Studio

Character Studio was a plugin which since version 4 of Max is now integrated in 3D Studio Max helping user to animate virtual characters. The system works using a character rig or “Biped” which is pre-made and allows the user to adjust the rig to fit the character they will be animating. Dedicated curve editors and motion capture data import tools make Character Studio ideal for character animation. “Biped” objects have other useful features that automated the production of walk cycles and movement paths, as well as secondary motion.

Scene Explorer

Scene Explorer, a tool that provides a hierarchical view of scene data and analysis, facilitates working with more complex scenes. Scene Explorer has the ability to sort, filter, and search a scene by any object type or property (including metadata). Added in 3ds Max 2008, it was the first component to facilitate DotNet managed code in 3ds Max outside of MAXScript.

DWG Import

3ds Max supports both import and linking of DWG files. Improved memory management in 3ds Max 2008 enables larger scenes to be imported with multiple objects.

Texture Assignment/Editing

3ds Max offers operations for creative texture and planar mapping, including tiling, mirroring, decals, angle, rotate, blur, UV stretching, and relaxation; Remove Distortion; Preserve UV; and UV template image export. The texture workflow includes the ability to combine an unlimited number of textures, a material/map browser with support for drag-and-drop assignment, and hierarchies with thumbnails. UV workflow features include Pelt mapping, which defines custom seams and enables users to unfold UVs according to those seams; copy/paste materials, maps and colors; and access to quick mapping types (box, cylindrical, spherical).

General Keyframing

Two keying modes—set key and auto key—offer support for different keyframing workflows.

Fast and intuitive controls for keyframing—including cut, copy, and paste—let the user create animations with ease. Animation trajectories may be viewed and edited directly in the viewport.

Constrained Animation

Objects can be animated along curves with controls for alignment, banking, velocity, smoothness, and looping, and along surfaces with controls for alignment. Weight path-controlled animation between multiple curves, and animate the weight. Objects can be constrained to animate with other objects in many ways—including look at, orientation in different coordinate spaces, and linking at different points in time. These constraints also support animated weighting between more than one target.

All resulting constrained animation can be collapsed into standard keyframes for further editing.

Skinning

Either the Skin or Physique modifier may be used to achieve precise control of skeletal deformation, so the character deforms smoothly as joints are moved, even in the most challenging areas, such as shoulders. Skin deformation can be controlled using direct vertex weights, volumes of vertices defined by envelopes, or both.

Capabilities such as weight tables, paintable weights, and saving and loading of weights offer easy editing and proximity-based transfer between models, providing the accuracy and flexibility needed for complicated characters.

The rigid bind skinning option is useful for animating low-polygon models or as a diagnostic tool for regular skeleton animation.

Additional modifiers, such as Skin Wrap and Skin Morph, can be used to drive meshes with other meshes and make targeted weighting adjustments in tricky areas.

Skeletons and Inverse Kinematics (IK)

Characters can be rigged with custom skeletons using 3ds Max bones, IK solvers, and rigging tools.

All animation tools—including expressions, scripts, list controllers, and wiring—can be used along with a set of utilities specific to bones to build rigs of any structure and with custom controls, so animators see only the UI necessary to get their characters animated.

Four plug-in IK solvers ship with 3ds Max: history-independent solver, history-dependent solver, limb solver, and spline IK solver. These powerful solvers reduce the time it takes to create high-quality character animation. The history-independent solver delivers smooth blending between IK and FK animation and uses preferred angles to give animators more control over the positioning of affected bones.

The history-dependent solver can solve within joint limits and is used for machine-like animation. IK limb is a lightweight two-bone solver, optimized for real-time interactivity, ideal for working with a character arm or leg. Spline IK solver provides a flexible animation system with nodes that can be moved anywhere in 3D space. It allows for efficient animation of skeletal chains, such as a character’s spine or tail, and includes easy-to-use twist and roll controls.

Integrated Cloth Solver

In addition to reactor’s cloth modifier, 3ds Max software has an integrated cloth-simulation engine that enables the user to turn almost any 3D object into clothing, or build garments from scratch. Collision solving is fast and accurate even in complex simulations.

Local simulation lets artists drape cloth in real time to set up an initial clothing state before setting animation keys.

Cloth simulations can be used in conjunction with other 3ds Max dynamic forces, such as Space Warps. Multiple independent cloth systems can be animated with their own objects and forces. Cloth deformation data can be cached to the hard drive to allow for nondestructive iterations and to improve playback performance.

Integration with Autodesk Vault

Autodesk Vault plug-in, which ships with 3ds Max, consolidates users’ 3ds Max assets in a single location, enabling them to automatically track files and manage work in progress. Users can easily and safely share, find, and reuse 3ds Max (and design) assets in a large-scale production or visualization environment.

Licensing

Earlier versions (until 3D Studio MAX R3) required a special copy prevention device (a dongle) to be plugged into the parallel port while the program was run, but later a software copy prevention method was implemented instead. Registration involving personal information such as name, address and e-mail address is now required.

See also

• 3D Studio release history
• List of Companies Using 3DS Max
• List of Movies made with help of 3DS Max
• List of computer games developed with help of 3DS Max

External links

• 3ds max Official site
• Unofficial 3ds max plugin resource site
• Unofficial 3ds max scripting resource site
• 3D Studio Max at the Open Directory Project
• TrueBones motions for 3DMax users
• Free Tutorials for 3DMax users

Dreamweaver is available for both Mac and Windows operating systems. Recent versions have incorporated support for web technologies such as CSS, JavaScript, and various server-side scripting languages and frameworks including ASP.NET, ColdFusion, JavaServer Pages, and PHP.

Features

As a WYSIWYG Presto-based editor, Dreamweaver can hide the details of pages’ HTML code from the user, making it possible for non-coders to create web pages and sites. A professional criticism of this approach is that it produces HTML pages whose file size and amount of HTML code is much larger than they should be, which can cause web browsers to perform poorly. This can be particularly true because the application makes it very easy to create table-based layouts. In addition, some web site developers have criticized Dreamweaver in the past for producing code that often does not comply with W3C standards, though this has improved considerably in recent versions. Dreamweaver 8.0 (the version prior to the recently released 9.0 within CS3) performed poorly on the Acid2 Test, developed by the Web Standards Project. However, Macromedia has increased the support for CSS and other ways to lay out a page without tables in later versions of the application, with the ability to convert tables to layers and vice versa.

Adobe Dreamweaver CS3

Dreamweaver allows users to preview websites in many browsers, provided that they are installed on their computer. It also has some site management tools, such as the ability to find and replace lines of text or code by whatever parameters specified across the entire site, and a templatization feature for creating multiple pages with similar structures. The behaviors panel also enables use of basic JavaScript without any coding knowledge.

Dreamweaver can use “Extensions” – small programs, which any web developer can write (usually in HTML and JavaScript). Extensions provide added functionality to the software for whoever wants to download and install them. Dreamweaver is supported by a large community of extension developers who make extensions available (both commercial and free) for most web development tasks from simple rollover effects to full-featured shopping carts.

Like other HTML editors, Dreamweaver edits files locally, then uploads all edited files to the remote web server using FTP, SFTP, or WebDAV^{[citation needed]}.

The easiest way to build a professional website using Dreamweaver software is by using the Layout functions, it is very easy to organize the web page just using the Layout option provided by Dreamweaver.

Syntax highlighting

Dreamweaver MX 2004 running on Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger

As of version 6, Dreamweaver supports syntax highlighting for the following languages out of the box:

• ActionScript
• Active Server Pages (ASP)
• ASP.NET
• C#
• Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
• ColdFusion
• EDML
• Extensible HyperText Markup Language (XHTML)
• Extensible Markup Language (XML)
• Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations (XSLT)
• Java
• JavaScript
• JavaServer Pages (JSP)
• PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP)
• Visual Basic (VB)
• Visual Basic Script Edition (VBScript)
• Wireless Markup Language (WML)

It is also possible to add your own language syntax highlighting to its repertoire.

In addition, code completion is available for many of these languages.

Versions

Dreamweaver CS3 running on Microsoft Windows Vista

• Dreamweaver 1.0 (Released December 1997; Dreamweaver 1.2 followed in March 1998)
• Dreamweaver 2.0 (Released December 1998)
• Dreamweaver 3.0 (Released December 1999)
• Dreamweaver UltraDev 1.0 (Released June 2000)
• Dreamweaver 4.0 (Released December 2000)
• Dreamweaver UltraDev 4.0 (Released December 2000)
• Dreamweaver MX [Internal version number: 6.0] (Released May 29, 2002)
• Dreamweaver MX 2004 (Released September 10, 2003)
• Dreamweaver 7
• Dreamweaver 8 (Released September 13, 2005)
• Dreamweaver CS3 (Released April 16, 2007)

See also

• List of HTML editors
• Comparison of WYSIWYG HTML editors
• Macromedia HomeSite
• Web application
• Web design

References

This article does not cite any references or sources. (November 2007) Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.

External links

• Dreamweaver official site
• Macromedia Dreamweaver Extensions
• AdobeDreamweaver.com

Since its introduction in 1996, Flash technology has become a popular method for adding animation and interactivity to web pages; several software products, systems, and devices are able to create or display Flash. Flash is commonly used to create animation, advertisements, various web page components, to integrate video into web pages, and more recently, to develop rich Internet applications.

The Flash files, traditionally called “Flash movies” or “Flash games”, have a .swf file extension and may be an object of a web page, strictly “played” in a standalone Flash Player, or incorporated into a Projector, a self-executing Flash movie with the .exe extension in Windows. Flash Video files have a .flv file extension and are utilized from within .swf files.

History

Flash grew out of a chain of thought that started in the 1980s with some ideas Jonathan Gay had at school, then at college and later while working for Silicon Beach Software and its successors.^{[2] [3]}

In January 1993, Charlie Jackson, Jonathan Gay, and Michelle Welsh started a small software company called FutureWave Software and created their first product, SmartSketch. A drawing application, SmartSketch was designed to make creating computer graphics as simple as drawing on paper. Although SmartSketch was an innovative drawing application, it didn’t gain enough of a foothold in its market. As the Internet began to thrive, FutureWave began to realize the potential for a vector-based web animation tool that might easily challenge Macromedia’s often slow-to-download Shockwave technology. In 1995, FutureWave modified SmartSketch by adding frame-by-frame animation features and re-released it as FutureSplash Animator on Macintosh and PC. By that time, the company had added a second programmer Robert Tatsumi, artist Adam Grofcsik, and PR specialist Ralph Mittman. The product was offered to Adobe and used by Microsoft in its early (MSN) work with the Internet. In December 1996, Macromedia acquired the vector-based animation software and later released it as Flash 1.0.

Player

• Macromedia Flash 2 (1997) Features: Support of stereo sound, enhanced bitmap integration, buttons, the Library, and the capability to tween color changes.
• Macromedia Flash 3 (1998) Features: Brought improvements to animation, playback, and publishing, as well as the introduction of simple script commands for interactivity. Macromedia ships its 100,000th Flash product this year, as well.
• Macromedia Flash 4 (1999) Features: Achieved 100 million installations of the Flash Player, thanks in part to its inclusion with Microsoft Internet Explorer 5. Flash 4 saw the introduction of streaming MP3s and the Motion Tween. Initially, the Flash Player plug-in was not bundled with popular web browsers and users had to visit Macromedia website to download it, but as of year 2000, the Flash Player was already being distributed with all AOL, Netscape and Internet Explorer browsers. Two years later it shipped with all releases of Windows XP. The install-base of the Flash Player reached 92% of all Internet users.
• Macromedia Flash 5 (2001) Features: Flash 5 was a major leap forward in capability, with the evolution of Flash’s scripting capabilities as released as ActionScript. Flash 5 also saw the ability to customize the authoring environment’s interface.
• Macromedia Generator was the first initiative from Macromedia to separate design from content in Flash files. Generator 2.0 was released in April 2001 and featured real-time server-side generation of Flash content in its Enterprise Edition. Generator was discontinued in 2002 in favor of new technologies such as Flash Remoting, which allows for seamless transmission of data between the server and the client, and ColdFusion Server.
• In October 2000, usability guru Jakob Nielsen wrote a polemic article regarding usability of Flash content entitled “Flash 99% Bad“. (Macromedia later hired Nielsen to help them improve Flash usability.)
• In September 2001, a survey made for Macromedia by Media Metrix showed that out of the 10 biggest websites in the United States, 7 were making use of Flash content.^{[citation needed]}
• Macromedia Flash MX was released on March 15, 2002, with the new Macromedia Flash Player 6 with support for video, application components, shared libraries, and accessibility.
• Macromedia Flash Communication Server MX, also released in 2002, allowed video to be streamed to Flash Player 6 (otherwise the video could be embedded into the Flash movie).
• Macromedia Flash MX 2004 was released in September 2003, with features such as faster runtime performance up to 8 times with the enhanced compiler and the new Macromedia Flash Player 7, ability to create charts, graphs and additional text effects with the new support for extensions (sold separately), high fidelity import of PDF and Adobe Illustrator 10 files, mobile and device development and a forms-based development environment. ActionScript 2.0 was also introduced, giving developers a formal Object-Oriented approach to ActionScript. V2 Components replaced Flash MX’s components, being rewritten from the ground up to take advantage of ActionScript 2.0 and Object-Oriented principles. Flash MX 2004 was the first release of Flash to be segmented into “Basic” and “Professional” versions. The Basic version was targeted at traditional Flash animators while the Professional version brought more advanced capabilities that developers would use, for example the data components.
• In 2004, the “Flash Platform” was introduced. This expanded Flash to more than the Flash authoring tool. Flex 1.0 and Breeze 1.0 were released, both of which utilized the Flash Player as a delivery method but relied on tools other than the Flash authoring program to create Flash applications and presentations. Flash Lite 1.1 was also released, enabling mobile phones to play Flash content.
• Macromedia Flash 8 (2005) is touted by Macromedia as the most significant upgrade to Flash since Flash 5. New features included filter effects and blending modes, bitmap caching, a new video codec called On2 VP6, an enhanced type rendering engine called FlashType, an emulator for mobile devices, and several enhancements to the ActionScript 2.0 spec, such as the BitmapData class, several geometric classes, and the ConvolutionFilter and DisplacmentMapFilter classes.
• Macromedia Flash Lite 2 was also released in 2005, which brought its capabilities in line with Flash Player 7.
• On December 3, 2005, Adobe Systems acquired Macromedia and its product portfolio (including Flash).^[4]
• Adobe Flash Player 9 was released for Windows and Mac OS in 2006, which marked the first time a Flash Player major release occurred without a simultaneous Flash authoring program major release. Flex 2.0 was released in conjunction with Flash Player 9, and the player will be continued when Flash Authoring 9 is released in 2007. For the first time in the history of Flash, the Flash Player will have had an opportunity to become widely installed before the release of the equivalent Flash program.
• Adobe Flash Player 9 was released for Linux in January 2007.^[5]
• Adobe Flash 9 Public Alpha was released in 2006, and was a preview of ActionScript 3.0.
• Adobe Flash CS3 in 2007, originated from Flash 9 Public Alpha with several updates for integrating into other Adobe products, is released as a bundled software of the Adobe Creative Suite 3. This currently-newest version also brings ActionScript 3.0 and a new xml engine to the Flash authoring tool. Also has an improved and optimized GUI like the rest of the CS3 suite.

Authoring tool

• FutureSplash Animator (Spring 10 April 1996) – initial version of Flash with basic editing tools and a timeline
• Macromedia Flash 1 (November 1996) – a Macromedia re-branded version of the FutureSplash Animator
• Macromedia Flash 2 (June 1997) – Released with Flash Player 2, new features included: the object library
• Macromedia Flash 3 (31 May 1998) – Released with Flash Player 3, new features included: the movieclip element, JavaScript plug-in integration, transparency and an external stand alone player
• Macromedia Flash 4 (15 June 1999) – Released with Flash Player 4, new features included: internal variables, an input field, advanced ActionScript, and streaming MP3
• Macromedia Flash 5 (24 August 2000) – Released with Flash Player 5, new features included: ActionScript 1.0 (based on ECMAScript, making it very similar to JavaScript in syntax), XML support, Smartclips (the precursor to components in Flash), HTML text formatting added for dynamic text
• Macromedia Flash MX (ver 6) (15 March 2002) – Released with Flash Player 6, new features included: a video codec (Sorenson Spark), Unicode, v1 UI Components, compression, ActionScript vector drawing API
• Macromedia Flash MX 2004 (ver 7) (9 September 2003) – Released with Flash Player 7, new features included: Actionscript 2.0 (which enabled an object-oriented programming model for Flash), behaviors, extensibility layer (JSAPI), alias text support, timeline effects
• Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 (ver 7) (9 September 2003) – Released with Flash Player 7, new features included all Flash MX 2004 features plus: Screens (forms for non-linear state-based development and slides for organizing content in a linear slide format like PowerPoint), web services integration, video import wizard, Media Playback components (which encapsulate a complete MP3 and/or FLV player in a component that may be placed in a SWF), Data components (DataSet, XMLConnector, WebServicesConnector, XUpdateResolver, etc) and data binding APIs, the Project Panel, v2 UI components, and Transition class libraries.
• Macromedia Flash Basic 8 (released on 13 September 2005) – A less feature-rich version of the Flash authoring tool targeted at new users who only want to do basic drawing, animation and interactivity. Released with Flash Player 8, this version of the product has limited support for video and advanced graphical and animation effects.
• Macromedia Flash Professional 8 (released on 13 September 2005) – Released with the Flash Player 8, Flash Professional 8 added features focused on expressiveness, quality, video, and mobile authoring. New features included Filters and blend modes, easing control for animation, enhanced stroke properties (caps and joins), object-based drawing mode, run-time bitmap caching, FlashType advanced anti-aliasing for text, On2 VP6 advanced video codec, support for alpha transparency in video, a stand-alone encoder and advanced video importer, cue point support in FLV files, an advanced video playback component, and an interactive mobile device emulator.
• Adobe Flash CS3 Professional (as version 9, released on 16 April 2007) – Flash CS3 is the first version of Flash released under the Adobe name. CS3 features full support for ActionScript 3.0, allows tweens to be converted into ActionScript, adds better integration with other Adobe products such as Adobe Photoshop, and also provides better Vector drawing behavior, becoming more similar to Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Fireworks.

Future developments

Adobe Labs (previously Macromedia Labs) is a source for early looks at emerging products and technologies from Adobe-Macromedia, including downloads of the latest software and plugins. Flash 9, Flex 2, and ActionScript 3.0 are discussed on the labs.adobe.com website.

An important new development in Flash (as of 2007) is its increasing use in providing the presentation layer in handheld devices. Adobe is aggressively courting cell phone and PDA vendors, and partnering to deploy Flash Lite as the user interface.

A project currently (Nov 2007) in development at Adobe Labs is the Adobe AIR Project[1] which is a cross-OS runtime that allows developers to reuse their existing web development skills (Flash, Flex, HTML, Ajax) to build and deploy desktop Rich Internet Applications (RIAs).

The next version of Flash will have two additional components designed for large scale implementation. Adobe is adding in the option to require an ad to be played in full before the main video piece is played. This would be most useful for large scale video sites. Also, Adobe has announced plans to add DRM into the new version of Flash. This way Adobe can give companies the option to link an advertisement with content and make sure that both are played and that they are not changed.^[6]

Programming language

Main article: ActionScript

Initially focused on animation, early versions of Flash content offered few interactivity features and thus had very limited scripting capability.

More recent versions include ActionScript, an implementation of the ECMAScript standard which therefore has the same syntax as JavaScript, but in a different programming framework with a different associated set of class libraries. ActionScript is used to create almost all of the interactivity (buttons, text entry fields, pick lists) seen in many Flash applications.

New versions of the Flash Player and authoring tool have strived to improve on scripting capabilities. Flash MX 2004 introduced ActionScript 2.0, a scripting programming language more suited to the development of Flash applications. It is often possible to save a lot of time by scripting something rather than animating it, which usually also retains a higher level of editability.

Of late, the Flash libraries are being used with the XML capabilities of the browser to render rich content in the browser. Since Flash provides more comprehensive support for vector graphics than the browser and because it provides a scripting language geared towards interactive animations, it is being considered a viable addition to the capabilities of a browser. This technology, which is currently in its nascent stage, is known as Asynchronous Flash and XML, much like AJAX.

This technology can be used in players like those on MySpace and YouTube, to provide protection for the content that the Flash calls, like MP3s and videos. The content called is streamed through the Flash files, and provides an untraceable file for most people, though programs like Firebug can trace the XML files.

Content protection

Often, Flash authors will decide that while they desire the advantages that Flash affords them in the areas of animation and interactivity, they do not wish to expose their images and/or code to the world. However, once an .swf file is saved locally, it may then quite easily be decompiled into its source code and assets. Some decompilers are capable of nearly full reconstruction of the original source file, down to the actual code that was used during creation.^{[citation needed]}

In opposition to the decompilers, SWF obfuscators have been introduced to provide a modicum of security, some produced by decompiler authors themselves. The higher-quality obfuscators use traps for the decompilers, making some fail, but none have definitively been shown to protect all content.

Competition

Format and plug-in

Compared to other plug-ins such as Java, Acrobat Reader, QuickTime or Windows Media Player, the Flash Player has a small install size, quick download time, and fast initialization time. However, care must be taken to detect and embed the Flash Player in (X)HTML in a W3C compliant way. A simple and widely used workaround is provided below:

<object data="movie.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="500" height="500">
    <param name="movie" value="movie.swf" />
</object>

More Information on how to detect and embed Flash Objects in a W3C compliant way is provided in the xSWF description.

The use of vector graphics combined with program code allows Flash files to be smaller, or streams to use less bandwidth, than the corresponding bitmaps or video clips. For content in a single format (such as just text, video or audio) other alternatives may provide better performance and consume less CPU power than the corresponding Flash movie, for example when using transparency or making large screen updates such as photographic or text fades.

In addition to a vector-rendering engine, the Flash Player includes a virtual machine called the ActionScript Virtual Machine (AVM) for scripting interactivity at run-time, support for video, MP3-based audio, and bitmap graphics. As of Flash Player 8, it offers two video codecs: On2 Technologies VP6 and Sorenson Spark, and run-time support for JPEG, Progressive JPEG, PNG, and GIF. In the next version, Flash is slated to use a just-in-time compiler for the ActionScript engine.

Flash as a format has become very widespread on the desktop market. According to a NPD study, 98% of US Web users have the Flash Player installed,^[7] with 45%–56%^[8] (depending on region) having the latest version. Numbers vary depending on the detection scheme and research demographics.

Flash players exist for a wide variety of different systems and devices. Flash content can run consistently on Microsoft Windows, Mac OS, and Linux (Macromedia has created or licensed players for the following operating systems: Windows, Mac OS 9/X, Solaris, HP-UX, Pocket PC, OS/2, QNX, Symbian, Palm OS, BeOS, and IRIX). See also Macromedia Flash Lite for Flash compatibility on other devices.

Open standard alternatives

A full end-to-end implementation of the W3C SVG and SMIL specifications would offer close competition for most of the features of Flash in an open, standard way. Adobe used to develop and distribute the ‘Adobe SVG Viewer’ client plug-in for MS Internet Explorer, but has recently announced its discontinuation.^[9] It has been noted by industry commentators that this is probably no coincidence at a time when Adobe has moved from competing with Macromedia’s Flash, to owning the technology itself.^{[citation needed]} Meanwhile, Opera has supported SVG since version 8,^[10] and Firefox‘s built-in support for SVG continues to grow.^[11]

libavg is a high-performance open source alternative for media-rich applications that aren’t browser-based.

Third-party implementation

Specifications

In October 1998, Macromedia disclosed the Flash Version 3 Specification to the world on its website. It did this in response to many new and often semi-open formats competing with SWF, such as Xara’s Flare and Sharp’s Extended Vector Animation formats. Several developers quickly created a C library for producing SWF. February 1999 saw the launch of MorphInk 99, the first third party program to create SWF files. Macromedia also hired Middlesoft to create a freely available developers’ kit for the SWF file format versions 3 to 5.

Macromedia made the Flash Files specifications for versions 6 and later available only under a non-disclosure agreement, but it is widely available from various sites.

In April of 2006, the Flash SWF file format specification was released with details on the then newest version format (Flash 8). Although still lacking specific information on the incorporated video compression formats (On2, Sorenson Spark, etc.), this new documentation covered all the new features offered in Flash v8 including new ActionScript commands, expressive filter controls, and so on. The file format specification document is offered only to developers who agree to a license agreement that permits them to use the specifications only to develop programs that can export to the Flash file format. The license forbids the use of the specifications to create programs that can be used for playback of Flash files. The Flash 9 specification was made available under similar restrictions. ^[12]

Playback

Since Flash files do not depend on an open standard such as SVG, this reduces the incentive for non-commercial software to support the format, although there are several third party tools which use and generate the SWF file format. IrfanView is capable of playing SWF files. There is a large and vibrant open source community. Flash Player cannot ship as part of a pure open source, or completely free operating system, as its distribution is bound to the Macromedia Licensing Program and subject to approval.

There is, as of late 2007, no complete free software replacement which offers all the functionality of the latest version of Adobe Flash Player. Gnash, based on GameSWF, is a Flash player replacement that is under development and has the support of the Free Software Foundation, see High Priority Free Software Projects. Gnash supports Flash 7 and below, but not files that require version 8 or 9 features.^[13] Swfdec is another open-source flash player available for Linux and FreeBSD.

Authoring

Open Source projects like Ajax Animator, and UIRA aim to create a flash development environment, complete with a graphical user environment. Alternatively, programs such as swfmill, SWFTools, and MTASC provide tools to create SWF files, but do so by compiling text, actionscript or XML files into Flash animations. It is also possible to create SWF files programmatically using the Ming library, which has interfaces for C, PHP, C++, Perl, Python, and Ruby.

Many shareware developers produced Flash creation tools and sold them for under US$50 between 2000 and 2002. In 2003 competition and the emergence of free Flash creation tools, most notably OpenOffice.org Impress, had driven many third-party Flash-creation tool-makers out of the market, allowing the remaining developers to raise their prices, although many of the products still cost less than US$100 and support ActionScript. As for open source tools, KToon can edit vectors and generate SWF, but its interface is very different from Macromedia’s. Another, more recent example of a Flash creation tool is SWiSH Max made by an ex-employee of Macromedia. Toon Boom Technologies also sells traditional animation tool, based on Flash – Toon-Army. Anime Studio is a 2D animation software specialised for character animation which creates SWF files. Express Animator is similarly aimed specifically at animators.

Users that are not programmers or web designers will also find on line tools that allows to build a full Flash-based web site. One of the oldest services available (1998) is FlashToGo. Such companies provide a wide variety of pre-built models (templates) associated to a Content Management System that empowers users to easily build, edit and publish their web sites.

Adobe wrote a software package called Adobe LiveMotion, designed to create interactive animation content and export it to a variety of formats, including SWF. LiveMotion went through two major releases, but failed to gain any notable user base. Cartoon Man X Studios is one of the studios that uses this software.

In February 2003, Macromedia purchased Presedia, which had developed a Flash authoring tool that automatically converted PowerPoint Files into Flash. Macromedia subsequently released the new product as Breeze, which included many new enhancements. Since that time, Macromedia has seen competing PowerPoint-to-Flash authoring tools from PointeCast (not to be confused with PointCast) and PresentationPro among others. In addition, (as of version 2) Apple‘s Keynote presentation software also allows users to create interactive presentations and export to SWF.

Criticisms

Simple animation in Flash 6.0; a square moving across the screen in a motion tween, one of the basic functions of Flash.

Usability

Many usability concerns regarding Flash are due to the fact that Flash breaks with many of the conventions associated with normal HTML pages. Things like selecting text, scrollbars^[14], form control and right-clicking act in a different way than with a regular HTML webpage, and it is argued that this contributes to a usability issue. The usability expert Jakob Nielsen publish an Alertbox in 2000 entitled, Flash: 99% Bad ^[15] which listed many of these issues. Much of the criticism of Flash in these regards is due to poor implementation. For example, bookmarking and selecting text are something that Flash pages may handle, but is something that is often not implemented due to time, cost or lack of knowledge.

Webpages which make heavy use of Flash can also cause difficulties for some users, such as those using old hardware or who cannot install or use Flash Player. As Flash elements often include a lot of graphics and sound, dial-up internet users are also affected by higher page load times, although there is a more general trend toward larger websites as high-speed internet becomes more common.

Accessibility issues

The US Justice Department has stated in regard to the Americans with Disabilites Act:

“Covered entities under the ADA are required to provide effective communication, regardless of whether they generally communicate through print media, audio media, or computerized media such as the Internet. Covered entities that use the Internet for communications regarding their programs, goods, or services must be prepared to offer those communications through accessible means as well.”

Currently, businesses are able to sidestep this mandate to a great degree because the increased cost and complexity associated with providing content to sight-challenged viewers.^{[citation needed]}

Although long since fixed with accessibility functions since Flash Player 6, Internet users who are visually-impaired, and who may rely on a screen reader, braille display, or using larger text sizes and/or high-contrast color schemes may find sites that make extensive use of Flash difficult or impossible to use.^[16]

Using Flash to restrict access to content

Many content producers use Flash as a way to limit user’s access to the media displayed in their browsers, and/or gain clicks by forcing extra steps to display. For example, in Windows, Shockwave/Flash (.swf) files cannot be right-clicked and saved. Famously, YouTube furnishes all video in flash video format (.flv), requiring users to turn to third-party solutions to store the content locally. The usage is now spreading to photo sharing websites such as Webshots. A Flash overlay exists over the initial photo displayed, requiring a second click to retrieve the photo, slowing the experience considerably. However, if Flash is not installed, the image displays normally.

Local Shared Objects

Main article: Local Shared Object

Flash Players from version 6 can store and retrieve persistent data without offering any visible signs to the user—in a manner similar to that of cookies. It is possible to clear the temporary files that Flash stores on your computer either through the Flash website, or by clearing the files manually. The default storage location for LSOs is operating-system dependent. For Windows XP, the location is within each user’s Application Data directory, under Macromedia\Flash Player\#SharedObjects. For Windows Vista it is in each user’s AppData directory under Roaming\Macromedia\Flash Player\#SharedObjects. For Mac OS X the location is in each users Library directory under Preferences/Macromedia/Flash Player/#SharedObjects. On Linux the location is in each users directory: ~/.macromedia/Flash_Player/#SharedObjects.

Security issues

Specially crafted files have been shown to cause Flash applications to malfunction, by allowing the execution of malevolent code. Users who have not updated their Flash Player to the most recent version may be vulnerable to such an attack.

In addition to entries in the Open Source Vulnerability Database, security advisories published in August 2002, December 2002, and November 2005 highlight three examples of reports about various Flash Player versions that allowed remote code execution.

Flash Player on various platforms

The Adobe Flash Player is mainly optimized for the Windows 32 bit platform. 32 bit editions of version 9 are also available for Mac OS X, Linux, and Solaris. Adobe has been criticized^{[attribution needed]} for neglecting to optimize its products on non-Microsoft platforms. This has led to poor web surfing performance on Macintosh and Linux computers with Flash prior to version 9, since many websites use Flash animations for menus and advertisements. Flash Player 7 for Linux was very CPU hungry in fullscreen mode, resulting in low frame rates.

Adobe has rewritten the bitmap drawing routines in Flash Player 8 for Mac, using OpenGL planes via Quartz to draw the surfaces. The new drawing code is reported to be actually faster than its Windows counterpart^{[citation needed]}, where JPEG, TIFF or other bitmap images are composited into the animation.

The Linux version of the Flash Player requires the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (ALSA) to output sound. ALSA was introduced in Linux 2.5 and can only be used with recent sound hardware. Users of the legacy Open Sound System must either compile and install the abstraction layer flashsupport provided by Adobe, run the Windows Flash Player in a Windows browser through WINE, or switch to ALSA, which may involve recompiling or upgrading the kernel and/or installing additional drivers. However, it is questionable how many of the Linux users would be able to identify this problem. On Flash Player 7 for Linux, the sound could lag about a second behind the picture; this issue was resolved in Flash Player 9. Flash Player 8 was never released for Linux, Adobe stated that they would skip that version and instead focus on preparing Flash Player 9. This decision led to disappointment in the Linux community, with some people feeling that Adobe had abandoned the Linux market. Flash Player 9 for Linux was released in January 2007, providing platform parity once again. On Linux, it is generally not possible to scroll a web page while the mouse cursor is held over a flash animation (On some distributions, it is possible by using the arrow keys after a mouse click on the page outside the flash). Long news sites may be troublesome to scroll through, as they often contain flash animations spread out all over, so that one must slalom the cursor around the flash content while scrolling.

Adobe has yet (as of November 2007) to release a Flash Player for the x86-64 architecture on any operating system.^[17] There is to date no Linux Flash Player for non-x86 compatible processors (e.g. x86-64 native, PowerPC, ARM, etc.). Adobe employees have said the Flash implementation is very 32-bit specific and porting to 64-bit systems would require a lot of effort.^[18] Adobe is currently working on a 64-bit version.^[19] Adobe has not yet released any of their development software for any UNIX-like operating system except Mac OS X.

Search engine indexability

Flash files are binary data, and as a result are not as easily indexable as other document formats. Also, due to their dynamic nature, often it’s not possible for a search engine to link to a specific section in an all-Flash site.

Some method have emerged to try deal with this problem. Adobe has a Flash Search Engine SDK, and Flash CS3 creates addition meta information that is indexable by search engines. ^[20] One approach which has become popular is creating a base HTML page with indexable content, and adding an additional flash layer. This method of ‘progressive enhancement’ has become more popular in recent years. ^[21]

Digital rights management

The latest iteration of Flash allows copyright holders to embed ads within videos, as well as control how those videos are used.^[6] With this latest piece of software, companies will be able to quickly remove any video that they feel violates copyright and force advertisements to play prior to the start of the video.

Market share

According to a Millward Brown survey, conducted June 2007, Adobe claims Flash reaches 99.3% of desktop Internet users.^[7] Independent market share data is not available because the several companies who periodically gather browser usage data (see Usage share of web browsers) do not measure Flash penetration.

Video in web pages

Flash is increasingly used as a way to display video clips on web pages, a feature available since Flash Player version 6. The key to this success has been the player’s unrivaled role as a multiplatform browser plugin, notably not its properties as a video format, like very poor generic playability — while there are other video file types that can be played on more platforms, typically ‘out of the box’ on the majority of operating systems, their browser plugins are limited in distribution. In contrast, the Adobe Flash Player is a dedicated browser plugin, but also available as a standalone player. It is available for many popular platforms, including Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. Flash is used as the basis for many popular video sites, including YouTube and Google Video. One major flaw with multimedia embedded through Flash, however, is the considerable performance penalty placed on playback hardware as compared with a proper multimedia playback system. Many files that drop frames and skip audio when embedded within Flash play without any issues using normal multimedia formats on the same hardware.

Flash Video (.flv files) is a container format, meaning that it is not a video format in itself, but can contain other formats. The video in Flash is encoded in H.263, and starting with Flash player 8, it may alternatively be encoded in VP6. The audio is in MP3. The use of VP6 is common in many companies, because of the large adoption rates of Flash Player 8 and Flash Player 9.^[8]

On August 20, 2007, Adobe announced on its blog that with Update 3 of the Flash Player (currently in beta), Flash Video will also support the MPEG-4 international standard. ^[23] Specifically, Flash Player will have support for video compressed in H.264 (MPEG-4 Part 10), audio compressed using AAC (MPEG-4 Part 3), the MP4, M4V, M4A, 3GP and MOV multimedia container formats (MPEG-4 Part 14), 3GPP Timed Text specification (MPEG-4 Part 17) which is a standardized subtitle format and partial parsing support for the ‘ilst’ atom which is the ID3 equivalent iTunes uses to store metadata. Adobe also announced that they will be gradually moving away from the proprietary FLV format to the standard MP4 format owing to functional limits with the FLV structure when streaming H.264. The final release of the Flash Player supporting MPEG-4 is expected to be available in Fall 2007.^[24]

See also

• Flash animation
• OpenLaszlo

References

External links

• Adobe Flash Player