Topic: About a project I'm considering.

[Eric Roman]

   In 2010, Steve Jobs decreed the death of Flash.  He prophesied low-power mobile operating systems as the dominant content platform and the processing involved in delivering slick Flash playback would prove draining to these devices and thus impractical for the era.  This landscape would favor somehow-less-resource-heavy digital video.  I didn't quite understand this decision in the secondhand way it was delivered to me then.  The meaning only became clear when I happened upon his thoughts on Flash over six years later. 

   I began carving out my online place here within the Castlevania fandom.  This was during the dialup days near the dawn of broadband’s prevalence, when efficient file sizing was the best way to promptly deliver an engaging experience across the board.  One thing I loved about the Flash platform, especially as I became capable of wielding it, was its ability to deliver a significant amount of content within a relatively small package.  Exporting Flash animation to high-definition video seemed to require an unreasonable amount of disk space that would far outweigh the footprint of the original SWF output.  Before Cloud storage and Terabyte Hard Drives caught on, of course. 

   A lifetime later I arrived to my own reasons for making use of Apple’s environment.  In the meantime countless eyeballs turned their focus away from broad monitors and towards the tinier stages of glass and metal you may now be cradling as you read this.  My animation repertoire has been missed by all but a few of those viewers now transfixed by iOS and Android.  Thus, there is something I have been meaning to do: adapt and bring these works into the present digital entertainment landscape.  ParoVadius RESET is a significant piece I want to carry into this world. 

   ParoVadius RESET: Video Edition will be an HD video export of the SWF with both notable improvements and sacrifices: being that (to my knowledge) there is no practical way to interact with a streaming video, the film will play through in one long take, Bad Ending first.  The various DVD-style features will be dropped, thus forging a distinct experience between the Flash version Last Modified July 2006 and the Digital Video version First Considered near the end of last month. 

   Also distinguishing this edition will be several edits and visual improvements I’ve planned, mostly with regards to the hand-drawn artwork appearing across the movie.  I would also love to fill in the gaps in the voice performances that have hung around for the last decade: namely, lines missing for MAYAKAISA, the complete absence of Princess Meloura, and perhaps even a fresh take on Pure, since her original actor is currently busy kicking ass with her art. 

   One more thing came to mind while considering this announcement.  As a way of both increasing artist exposure and mitigating copyright restrictions that could disrupt the film’s presentation outside of my own site, I’m interested in tapping the videogame music remix community to perform its soundtrack.  They would effectively be covering segments from Dream Theater, Konami, and a couple anime.  For this I’d reach out to artists brought to my attention through Dwelling of Duels and Noisechannel Radio (the very same camps I would call upon in this thread, natch). 

   As ParoVadius was born here on The CastleVania Dungeon Forums in April of 2002, it’s only proper you’re hearing about this first.  If anyone here is interested in volunteering their musical or voiceover talents, or knows of anyone who might be a good fit for this edition, drop me a PM. 

   Thank you for letting this piece of Fan Art be a part of your experience. 

[Lelygax]

   ParoVadius RESET: Video Edition will be an HD video export of the SWF with both notable improvements and sacrifices: being that (to my knowledge) there is no practical way to interact with a streaming video, the film will play through in one long take, Bad Ending first.  The various DVD-style features will be dropped, thus forging a distinct experience between the Flash version Last Modified July 2006 and the Digital Video version First Considered near the end of last month.

There is a way, but it would need to be on youtube and it wouldn't work on mobile, it would involve using annotations and isn't hard, people use it all the time on youtube. But it wouldn't make sense since the purpose is to make smartphone users being able to watch your video xD
What people usually do in this case is add links on the description as an alternative.

As a fan of your ParoVadius animations I'm happy to hear about this.

[Dracula9]

You know me. You need voicework, just say the word. Music on the other hand is more variable, but I'll put my hand half-on the table for it nonetheless.

[Corpsecrank]

Here are some things to consider from someone else who animates using flash.

My first point is that flash was actually never meant to be used to create a full length animation. It was designed to create website elements like ad banners for example. It was meant to basically do what gif could only with sound and interaction as an added bonus. That really sounds all wrong when you think about it because our understanding of flash is that it is primarily an animation tool and not just for simple web elements for us those things are what come second to everything else flash can do. And we are obviously not the only ones that feel this way about flash.

The next thing I want to mention is that there is NO replacement for flash as an animation tool. Go ahead someone try to prove that wrong to me because it simply isn't happening. I know because I tried to find an alternative. HTML5 is supposed to be the almighty reason for no longer needing flash and some day it might actually be. But that day hasn't arrived yet. It won't until someone can design a robust set of tools that can do what flash is able to or more. Flash takes a significant amount of time to learn. Learning to use a new set of tools to do something you are currently good at is a huge setback to anyone. But even if we simply accept that there is a need to transition and do the work needed to become proficient with a new set of tools it will need to be on par with what is currently available and depending on how much time elapses between the new tools coming out and you becoming good with them they may need to have more features that are modern to that particular time that flash would be lacking should it die.

The idea that flash is not a permanent thing is always in the back of my mind. But I refuse to worry about what to do until I see there is a viable replacement for flash and/or flash is no longer supported. Remember we animate with this tool and an animation does not need to be flash but we can still create using flash and then use what we have to create HD video for platforms like youtube.

Regardless of what platform you want to target and if it supports flash or not we can continue to animate with flash as our tool and then release any media in whatever format we want. This allows flash to be used even when a target platform does not directly support the flash format. The flash format is only really necessary when you need the interactive features of flash. The biggest draw there is obviously flash games and those DO have a replacement set of tools in fact many tools unlike animation. Those of us here on the forum familiar with all the game remakes could talk for days about possible options for making a game there are at least half a dozen great tool sets for making a game I could list.

Anything other than a game that would need interactive elements probably can be done in HTML 5 right now as it wouldn't need the level of complexity a game would. Simple buttons or other minor things those are all done without the need for such an extensive set of tools.

In the end I am unsure why people who animate with flash were not transitioning the media they create to more appropriate formats that can be used today. I feel like as technology came up to speed to where standard video formats could easily be streamed no one really realized they could be creating media in those formats and targeting a broader range of platforms with flash. I think missing that was easy considering how fast things have changed over the years and how few people actually have the skills needed to animate something. Only recently have I seen guys I know start doing this with the stuff they make. I see many guys who were only uploading to newgrounds start also uploading to youtube or even transitioning over to youtube entirely. There is also some incentive to drive that transition. Newgrounds I think has some type of revenue sharing in place. The problem is that it can't even come close to competing with something like youtube in terms of how much a user can make with their work. Youtube is available on basically everything and has so much traffic that a place like newgrounds would never stand a chance.

Things are changing slowly but surely it will be a while before we no longer need flash though.

[Lelygax]

@Corpsecrank: You've answered your own question, its exactly because only flash lets you interact with a video that people still uses Newgrounds. Also it comes with every browser without needing to install anything else, so its the default choice of many. Also a flash video size is very smaller and stretching it doesn't lose quality because its based on vectors.

For videos with no choices people are already converting it to a normal video format and uploading on youtube like you said.

[Gunlord]

This is very cool! I'm busy with stuff so I can't offer any direct help, but I wish you the best, brother

[Eric Roman]

Heh, thanks G!

HTML5 is supposed to be the almighty reason for no longer needing flash and some day it might actually be. But that day hasn't arrived yet. It won't until someone can design a robust set of tools that can do what flash is able to or more.

Yeah, man, I heard you can do THIS with HTML5 and you can do THAT with HTML5 and in the years since I entertained such noise I haven't seen ANYONE do ANYTHING useful with it outside of nifty/gimmicky demos or streaming video placeholders.  Granted, I didn't seek out what people were doing with this platform, but neither was that the case with the first Flash parodies I encountered at the turn of the century.  Those came via word of mouth/E-Mail Forwarding, as most shared content today, and I'm yet to be directed towards my first HTML5 anime...   

The abandonment of Flash brought another sentiment to mind: Fuck you, you don't need to use these pencils anymore!  I was defied to abandon a toolkit I know well for some nebulous thing I'd have to squander precious time mastering.  I'm all for learning new skills--you're only old when you're unteachable--but, personally, I'm not in a place at the moment where that's practical.  What is practical for now is sticking to my strengths and moving my work up a notch toward the current playing field.  Shortly after we began our conversation Newgrounds' Swivel tool returned to my attention and, when I realized my machines could handle it, the process became even easier.  In the weeks since I've been going through FLAs and sharpening them up for the mobileverse.  (I meant to begin a Fan Stuff thread to post the Video Editions as they came along, but this link to my YouTube Channel will do for now.) 

There's a reason pencils and paints and crayons are still viable artistic tools.  Flash 5 is still a practical artistic tool.  HTML5 may one day become a practical artistic tool.

Until then, I've got a legacy to add to.