Adobe, any chance Greensock could replace CreateJS for AnimateCC html5 publishing?

[little fat girl]

First off, I love Grant Skinner. He's done a ton for the Flash community and made all of our stuff better. Super-props for making html5 publishing from Flash possible via CreateJS.

Secondly, html5 publishing (and really webGL publishing) is the completely right direction for Flash and we're all excited about it. Being able to hit the 'Publish' button and have an animation/game/experience that will play everywhere is at the core of what has always made Flash great. That's why html5 export is so crucial.

The update over the summer was very helpful. It fixed some very broken stuff in the html5 publishing realm. All progress is appreciated.

But . . . it's still not there yet. The main problem I'm having is performance - especially on mobile. I know there are a lot of limitations to canvas, but there are obviously a lot of great examples out there of people who have gotten around those limitations: Premium Javascript Animation Examples and Showcases using Greensock . Meanwhile, I'm struggling with a half-second lag on a button press when I publish just that test out of Animate.

I *think* CreateJS is getting updated. There are recent commits on GitHub. But the minified library we get when we publish is from 2015. So that makes me wonder if there is much happening to improve html5 performance. If there is, those of us who use the Animate tool are not seeing it.

So anyway, all that preface is to ask if there would be a benefit to Adobe partnering with Greensock to develop a Greensock replacement for CreateJS. I suspect there might.

Greensock has always had 1) unbelievable performance, 2) unquestionable stability and 3) regular updates and improvements. Greensock's Javascript library has proven itself to be the same capable tool for Javascript developers that it was for Flash developers. These are qualities that Flash desperately needs in its publishing tools.

Flash (Animate) is still a great interactive animation tool. For those of us who want a WSYWIG IDE, there is still no decent replacement. However, it has clearly lost the ability to hit 'Publish' and have it work anywhere. If a Greensock animation engine could solve that, it would be amazeballs for Animate (and the rest of us).

Is this an idea Adobe would be willing to explore with Greensock? They get why Flash was great. They understand Javascript performance like nobody else. It seems like it could be an incredible partnership.

[StrongBeaver]

You can use Greensock together with Animate.  Don't expect much from CreateJS; my bet is to put full attention on AS3; with if you want a combination with Greensock. I hope to begin using Animate very soon; great tool and the recent updates are what other claim superior to that of Toon Boom besides a lot of web content and TV shows are to my surprise created with Animate.

[ClayUUID]

StrongBeaver  wrote

Don't expect much from CreateJS; my bet is to put full attention on AS3

That doesn't make any sense. If you're targeting Flash Player or AIR, you use AS3. If you're targeting HTML, you use CreateJS. You don't get a choice in the matter.

[StrongBeaver]

@Colin Holgate - Isn't WebGL more of a resource hog as well, how well does it scale across screens or common screens ?

@ClayUUID - The reason for my light endorsement to AS3 is because @little fat girl mentioned that CreateJS has not been maintained for a while; I would gladly endorse CreateJS or if my insecurities about WebGL are debunked then I would include that as well.

[Colin Holgate]

In WebGL bitmaps are handled by the GPU, so the performance is a lot better than canvas. But, you do have to be sensitive to how much GPU memory you're going to be using. Identical really to how you would use Starling, or GPU rendermode.

Interesting demo here:

HTML5 vs. WebGL PoC - YouTube

It's comparing CSS3 against WebGL, and CSS3 is usually smoother than canvas.

[Colin Holgate]

Something you may well know is that the CreateJS team have a WebGL fork. That would mean you could use the near-ActionScript syntax, like you do for canvas, but could also publish to WebGL.

[little fat girl]

How does one use this fork? Is there documentation about how to use the latest stuff from github in place of the minified createJS file? Right now when I publish, it includes <script src="https://code.createjs.com/createjs-2015.11.26.min.js"></script>. Is there a way to target more up to date libraries and/or the webGL fork?

[Colin Holgate]

The 0.8.2 release has webgl builds, but I'm not sure how to use them. Here's the examples page:

EaselJS/examples/WebGL at b114fe827168eb4ab0b95d2dbf8595da329554a1 · CreateJS/EaselJS · GitHub

[little fat girl]

I can't find anything recent about this stuff on gitHub. Are you talking about the webGL export out of Animate? Is that the same thing? I saw a blog post on createJS.com about adding webGL to EaselJS, but that was a while ago. And checking gitHub, it seems like easelJS hasn't been updated in a while: EaselJS/VERSIONS.txt at 5bd972564b24206b94db6d6e3f0a95907b59eca9 · CreateJS/EaselJS · GitHub

Which gets back to the point of how CreateJS just doesn't seem to be getting that much attention. Whereas the Greensock community is strong right now and cool stuff is getting made.

[Colin Holgate]

CreateJS is a replacement for all of Flash's features. Greensock is only an alternative to EaselJS. I don't think Greensock would be interesting in recreating all of the non-tweening things that would be needed.

[little fat girl]

Yeah. I understand that there is a lot more to it than tweening. I actually asked Jack Doyle of Greensock first, which led me to post about it here. He gave a generous response and in it sounded open to the conversation. You can read his response here:

Jack Doyle will you please save Flash? - GSAP - GreenSock