Is it possible to develop a Flash application using only Open Source? [closed]

Question

I want to create a Flash application but I do not want to pay the $700 for Flash Professional CS5 (neither to pirate it).

I have been looking at previous questions here in SO and around the net for hints of free software allowing to develop flash apps.

From my current research, it seems the tools I need are: 1. FlashDevelop or similar to create and compile ActionScript code. 2. Pencil, Synfig or similar to create animation (is it possible to export to fla? 3. ?? to put everything together and compile a swf file.

My question is whether anyone has successfully followed a similar path to build a flash application using only open source. And better yet, if someone knows of a good web site with documentation on how to tackle such a task.

Protip... I have looked at the Open Source Flash Projects page which contains a comprehensive list of flash related open-source projects and libraries...

Answer 1

Good question!

I've seen a list of alternatives on the Inkscape Wiki, but I haven't evaluated them yet.

As @LordCover mentions, you could use something like as3swf for the timeline, but I imagine, unless you build a tool to replicate the Flash timeline, it would be pretty cumbersome.

I know you mentioned something free and hopefully open source, I'm looking forward to see a good answer too. But, what I was thinking is, maybe, depending on how much time it would save you by using a tool meant for the job vs. something hacked together, in case there isn't anything better, maybe you could buy an older version of Flash, like Flash MX, which should be a lot cheaper than the current version. This way could create both tweens(motion/shape) and frame by frame animations. Then you could name your movieClips containing animations to control them from FlashDevelop (either loading them or using the [Embed] metadata tag). Since Flash MX is so old, it should also run on Linux through Wine.

Another important point is, what kind of animations do you need to use in your FlashDevelop project ? If it's just motion tweens(alpha, x,y,rotation, etc.) I think embedded assets(swf, png, svg) animated with a tweening library like TweenLite which also has a TimelineLite class for nicely sequencing tweens would work well.

If it's nice hand drawings animated frame by frame, maybe an illustration tool that could export individual drawings as pdf pages and PDF2SWF from swftools to get a swf.

These are my 2 pence, Looking forward to see the best solution.

Answer 2

You are right in that you need Flash Develop. You'll compile it with the free Flex SDK (See the configuration tutorial here). As for graphics, there's no real option to create animation and import them into Flash Develop without Flash itself. You're going to be stuck using sprite sheets AFAIK.

Answer 3

@DMan, I agree that he can't create them in FlashDevelop but sure he can import them into FlashDevelop if he done them in Pencil or Synfig.

The story here is that those animations/movieclips are SWF files not FLA and so they have an open format which can be dealt with easily by FlashDevelop.

If you have the gut and courage to do it, you can really create animations manually by modifying a plain SWF file byte codes. The format to do it is somehow complex but it is possible, this procedure gives a simple approach:

1. DefineShape (here you define your shape with its ID, bounds and a structure describes the shape precisely).
2. PlaceObject: this adds the character to the display list.
3. ShowFrame: here we tell Flash Player that its time to render the display list contents on the screen and that is our 1st frame.

But of course, it gets more and more complicated with adding more effects/animations, that's why you may want to create an open source designer to be combined with FlashDevelop to complete your development framework.