3 ms·
> I agree with you that it's a little sad that amateur animation fell a bit out of vogue, but the tools are right there for anyone whos interested to pick up.
by fipar 8y ago
> I agree with you that it's a little sad that amateur animation fell a bit out of vogue, but the tools are right there for anyone whos interested to pick up.
I have memories of being wowed by what creative people could do with flash in the 90s and I would not call that amateur animation. I think the problem (1) is we currently seem to be lacking in tools that let people skilled in the visual arts create things without knowledge of the mechanics, so to speak. It's like if in order to write a great song someone would first have to understand how a musical instrument is built. I would not call Amanda Palmer or Lee Ranaldo amateur yet I bet they probably can't build their own instruments.
(1) I must make the disclaimer that for a couple of decades already I've been working only on the backend, so I may surely be missing part of the picture here.
Edit: Fixed footnote mark.
- emodendroket 8y agoTo be fair, there were reasons those things fell out of favor; there was a real tendency for crazy, uneditable code that was way larger than it needed to be. Perhaps some of these things would be less of an issue now (honestly, a bunch of wasteful code is less of an issue now than when most of us were on 56k modems), but they weren't made-up.
- fipar 8y agoAbsolutely, my first link was 2400 so I know exactly what you mean :) And I know there are still issues. Given today's speed, issues are more about security and accessibility. My point was just that the artists using flash to create good content were not amateur animators. Edit: My point was wrong as it was based on a misunderstanding of the use of the word 'amateur' by the person I was replying to.
- bitwize 8y agoThe only good content in Flash was games and animations (like Homestar Runner). If you were using Flash as a Web/application design tool, you weren't making good content. You were making a pain in my ass.
- kevin_thibedeau 8y agoStill waiting here for ADP and weather.gov to get their shit together and enter the 21st century.
- gbear605 8y agoWhat Flash content does weather.gov have? Their website visually appears a bit outdated, but it works just fine.
- kevin_thibedeau 8y agoThe looping radar views use flash [1] [2]. The composite regional radar loops don't though [3]. That is unfortunate because the former has more information and detail. There's no reason why it can't be reimplemented with canvas or SVG to manage the overlays. [1] https://radar.weather.gov/radar.php?rid=buf&product=N0R&overlay=11101111&loop=no https://radar.weather.gov/radar.php?rid=buf&product=N0R&over... [2] https://radar.weather.gov/radar.php?rid=BUF&product=N0R&overlay=11101111&loop=yes https://radar.weather.gov/radar.php?rid=BUF&product=N0R&over... [3] https://radar.weather.gov/Conus/northeast_loop.php https://radar.weather.gov/Conus/northeast_loop.php
- basch 8y agoamateur as in non professional/commercial. people not in for profit trades.
- fipar 8y agoMakes sense then. My wrong for forgetting that definition of the word when reading your comment.
- devmunchies 8y agoAmateur meaning lover. Someone who does something for the love of it and not the money.