After Effects vs. Flash for Animation

[PepperFox]

Hi there!  I was wondering if someone could tell me which is better for animation- After Effects or Flash?  The pros and cons for each, or something along thoes lines.  I've looked at other threads, but they were quite dated (or just useless, listing no reasons).  If it helps to know, I won't be doing web animation, and I'm already quite familiar with After Effects in the motion graphics and visual effects areas.  I'm also wondering which is used more commonly in the industry, and which would benifit me more in future (job opprotunities, ecetera).  Thank you in advanced.

[Dave_LaRonde]

No need to create vector animations?  I'm not talking about USING vector graphics in bitmap animation, mind you. 

I'd say AE would definitely have many advantages over Flash.  It's far more widely-used.

[bogiesan]

Flash is a programming and interactive system that also does a form of animation that uses a nonlinear stage paradigm.

After Effects is an animaiton system that has keyframes that are locked to a linear timeline. There is no interactivity or programming available. Therea re programming tools that allow layers and objects to interact with each other but not with the viewer.

AE's output is rendered movies that start, run and end.

Flash's output is a file that can be manipulated, oten desired or necessary for web interfaces. You can program a button in Flash that will run a movie that was created in AE. You can program a button in Flash that sits on top of a movie that was created in AE.

The choice is usually dictated by the end use. However, I know people who use Excel as a word processor.

[graphics_zak]

Thank you. This best answered my question about the difference.

[Vicasso]

AE is best compare to Flash..

[Rick Gerard]

This is an  apples and oranges question. AE is used to create shots or short sequences. Flash is used to create interactive presentations for the web or apps. Without knowing what you are trying to produce it is impossible to point you to the best tool. If it is interactive content then your choice is Flash. If it is a movie then it's After Effects. 

[Vicasso]

Thanks Rick,

I'm agree with your point. Next time I'll keep in mind this thing.

Thanks again!

[Tonys_Denial.exe]

Considering interactive apps are really the only place for flash formats, I would say that you should stick to After Effects. That way you can control the export options that make compression ratios an actual topic. Import Photoshop and Illustrator elements with ease. I would also imagine that After Effects formats play nicer with Premiere projects in case you have a director that uses it as part of his/her workflow.

Strangely enough, Flash is more common in the industry (Well, more shorts rather than full feature, recorded, videos.). Mainly because Macromedia was a real thing before Adobe bought them out, and our planet is chalk full of people who don't care to upgrade their education.

[Schuhbox · Accepted solution]

Rick is correct. I have used both Flash and AE for animation for years and it really does depend on what you are trying to achieve. Flash has advantages in my opinion in that you can put multiple assets on one layer in Flash where each assets requires a new layer in After Effects.

If you do use Flash, do NOT use movie clips, use graphic symbols instead...this is "old school," however when you export the result you can then import the swf into After Effects and have the best of both worlds.

Hope this helps!

J.

[Roei Tzoref]

each assets requires a new layer in After Effects.

just to be accurate, in Ae you can have multiple assets in one layer: a shape layer can have multiple shapes in one layer, and a precomp (which is a layer) can contain an infinite amount of layers inside.