Creating Video Portfolios with Flash Catalyst

In Creating Video Portfolios with Flash Catalyst at Adobe TV, Karl Soule demonstrates Flash Catalyst, a new tool in CS5 Production Premium to create interactive designs without coding. There's more at the Adobe TV Flash Catalyst channel; in the sample below Terry White runs through his 5 favorite features.

Adobe Flash Catalyst in public beta

Via John Nack, Adobe Flash Catalyst is on Adobe Labs. It doesn't seem like it's designed for "the rest of us" even if it imports PSD, AI, and Fireworks PNG files and lets you assign behaviors. The world has changed since mTropolis and Adobe Director were popular, but many UI metaphors haven't.

There are several training resources to help learning though. Adobe provides 12 or so resources to start and links to more -- including over an hour of free training videos in Flash Catalyst Beta Preview by Mordy Golding at Lynda.com. Here's an intro from Adobe (fullscreen):



Update: Beet.TV spoke to Adobe marketeer Dave Gruber about this release,

Flash Catalyst demo

Adobe's Flash Catalyst, soon to be in public beta, makes more sense to me than Flash, but because it was designed for Flex, hopes are not too high. Anyway here's Kevin Lynch’s Flash Catalyst Demo from a few weeks ago. via Eismann

Catalyst on Adobe EDGE

John Nack notes a new video on Adobe EDGE about Adobe Catalyst (codename Thermo). Thermo seems like it could be a front-end UI long needed (since mTropolis appeared anyway) for Flash and Director. Catalyst can do some of what's supported by the Flash Player, including 3D cards in space, but it's really designed for working with Flex. So while it's a good start it won't have some of the niceties of AE, Encore, Conduit, or even the dead "Flash-killer" Adobe LiveMotion.

A more in-depth but staid video from MAX 2008 on Adobe Catalyst is on the MAX channel of AdobeTV.

MAX channel on Adobe TV

Adobe TV added a MAX channel where some MAX 2008 (San Francisco) presentations can be viewed. There's a video on Flash, After Effect & InDesign, a Flash Video Roadmap, and a couple of videos on a new app named Adobe Catalyst ("Thermo"). While the presentations aren't oriented to the AE-centric, interactive, vectors, cross-media workflow, and cross-media advertising is increasingly important to everyone except those few exclusively in the pixel-pushing business.

Thermo is Flash Catalyst

Adobe is rebranding groups of related technologies as "Flash Platform" for Adobe Max. Also unveiled was Flash Catalyst, code named Thermo.

Adobe says Flash Catalyst is "a professional interaction design tool for rapidly creating application interfaces and interactive content without coding. Flash Catalyst enables artwork created in Adobe Creative Suite 4 to be imported with full fidelity and quickly converted into dynamic components such as buttons, scrollbars, input fields and more. Finished projects can be published directly to Flash Player or AIR. When combined with the next version of Flex Builder ["Gumbo"], Adobe Flash Catalyst enables design and development to be done in parallel. This workflow supports iterative development and delivers higher quality results with faster time to market. A preview release of Adobe Flash Catalyst will be available for MAX 2008 attendees. A public beta version is expected to be available on Adobe Labs in early 2009."

It's not clear if this tool could be used instead of Flash itself since there's no appearance of SWF export functions or if it can work with digital video. For now there are demo movies on Adobe Labs, and last year's Edge movie:

Adobe technology sneak peeks

Who knew that the Magic Wand Tool would become compositing's Holy Grail?

John Nack shared links for 2 sessions of Adobe's 2008 Fiancial Analysts Meeting where some new technology (maybe CS4) was shown. The After Effects part was in session 2 around the 27 minute mark, but look for the button to reveal the transcript cue list.

Earlier sneak peaks were noted here in NAB 2008 on Adobe TV and Flash CS4: IK, curve editor, 3D postcards, XML, plus Technology sneak: InDesign -> Flash.

Update: Older but here's a peak of Thermo, a forthcoming Adobe design tool, mentioned earlier with official sneak peek video.

Thermo: Adobe's new RIA design tool

Adobe Edge is featuring a sneak peek video on Thermo, code name for an RIA design tool under development at Adobe. Flash the app is enervating for someone used to After Effects, and I've tried using it in every version since Future Splash Animator 1. I'm not sure why Flash never moved to the way of mTropolis with it's easy to use messenger model.

Thermo is the sort of technology metaphor I'd like to see in the Production Premium suite. Instead of limited templates for producing Flash versions of a DVD, I'd like to see new tools more like this, even as an Adobe Elements "Flash Toy" with only branching and looping at first, then migrating to more complex setup with effects and nodes/pipes/flowcharts. Or even better a reimagining and rewrite of After Effects and maybe Flash. If video over the web continues to grow, new tools that share creation metaphors and integrate media creation and interactivity could be useful. Aviary seems to be inching towards this with their RIA/AIR apps.