What it is
Flash was a platform for animation and interactive content. The Flash authoring tool produced SWF files that played in the Flash Player browser plugin, and in projectors on kiosks and CD-ROMs. Through the 2000s it was the main way to put animation, video, games and rich interfaces on the web.
It began as FutureSplash, was bought by Macromedia, and passed to Adobe when Adobe acquired Macromedia in 2005. Smartphones that did not run the plugin, and the rise of HTML5, ended its reign. Adobe ended support for Flash Player at the end of 2020, and the authoring tool lives on as Adobe Animate.
How I use it
- Trained on it in the Game Art and Animation masters program at the Art Institute of Vancouver, 2003 to 2005.
- At B3 Communications in 2007, built the Experience Engines: Flash showroom touchscreens for luxury property with interactive site plans and view studies that ran on kiosks.
- Several of those kiosks still run today, through a self-hosted emulator. Koloa Landing, 2008, is on the demonstrated work page.
- Interactive CD-ROMs and presentations among the hundreds of one-off multimedia pieces from my independent contracts.
In its time, Flash was the right tool for anything that had to move and respond to touch: a kiosk, an interactive CD-ROM or an animated site. I built showroom work on it because it let one person design the screen and program it. That point has not changed: give people something they want to touch.
Questions
Can Flash kiosks and content still be run today?
Yes, with an emulator. Several of the Experience Engines kiosks I built at B3 Communications still run today through a self-hosted emulator.
Can you rebuild an old Flash piece in modern technology?
Yes. I build interactive pieces such as touchscreens, prize wheels and phone games in current web technology, and I have been doing this kind of work since sales showrooms ran on Flash kiosks.