INTRODUCTION

Adobe Animate CC

Adobe Animate CC – or in short Animate, is the most common and versatile authoring tool for interactive web animations. It is part of the Creative Cloud family from Adobe and neatly integrated in the creative workflow.

Visual Design Surface

It comes with a visual design surface, giving you full creative control. It is very similar to other design tools like Adobe Illustrator. You can compose your composition visually on the so-called stage and use the timeline to create even complex animation choreographies with ease.

Adobe Animate CC has a visual design surface

Web standards compatible

In contrast to the former Flash Professional, the primary output format within Animate CC is 100% web standards compatible with Canvas or WebGL as potential creative surfaces.

Publishing Formats

Regarding web animations, the primary publish format in Animate is HTML5 Canvas. You also have the option to switch to WebGL which at the current state is merely a “preview”, meaning it works but it is not fully supported. It can be regarded as a foundation for future implementation, for example regarding 3D support (which is not there yet!). You can also export SVG with help of a plugin created by C.J. Gammon. Although it works, I would advise to be cautious using this format for client projects.

CreateJS

The underlying framework for HTML Canvas export in Adobe Animate CC is CreateJS, a JavaScript based library founded by Grant Skinner. It is a suite of modular libraries and tools that has been around for quite some time now, so Adobe is not inventing something new here but instead relying on a well established format. The library as such is well documented and comes with its own API so it offers convenient hooks for developers. The CreateJS suite consists of EaselJS for drawing and element handling in the Canvas context, TweenJS for tweening and animating, PreloadJS for – well – preloading and SoundJS for audio. If you want to learn more about CreateJS go to https://www.createjs.com/