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Last active July 13, 2023 15:39
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An explanation on why you shouldn't use Adobe Animate's built-in camera.

Do NOT use Adobe Animate's built-in camera.

You might be asking, why the hell not? Here's an explanation as to why.

History

External SWF Converters

Before 2011-2013, there were many poor options when it came to rendering Flash animations. The then named Adobe Flash had their old .AVI, .MOV, and image exports (Which I'm pretty sure TV studios used this option). However, these did not work well with ActionScript and Movie Clips. What's worse, the .MOV exports had frame drops depending on the animation. Sure there was external .SWF converters at the time, though all it did was screen record the video which resulted in numerous frame drops. Not to mention, logos if you didn't pay for the converter.

Enter Kurst's SWF Renderer and Swivel. Developed in 2011 and 2013 respectively, both of them supported Movie Clips and ActionScript. Plus, there was absolutely no frame drop in both software. Swivel is completely free, however Kurst's SWF Renderer was not (their older version was).

Adobe Animate Built-In Camera

In November 2016, Adobe Animate introduced the built-in camera. At the time, this was revolutionary given that since most animation software already had that, but Flash was late to the party. It also was a good alternative to the popular "Flash VCam" originally designed by Sham Bhangal in 2004.

How it fails

Despite having somewhat positive feedback, any external SWF converters will receive an error when you use it. Since both softwares haven't been updated in a while, they can't handle Adobe Animate's camera. The way Adobe made this VCam is probably the reason why it doesn't work. If you use an older version of Adobe Animate (pre-camera), you can see that there's an invisible symbol named "_VCam". This is where the camera is stored. It has hidden ActionScript code, similar to those "Flash VCams".

If you want to render your animation with the built-in camera, you have to render through Animate. Their rendering options improved after Adobe Flash, however their filesize is massive, which is the reason why people prefer those external SWF converters instead.

What we can do?

If you're planning to use a VCAM in your animation, make sure it's those "Flash VCams" instead of the built-in camera. Or if you don't want to do that, you can convert the animation into a symbol using a JSFL script.

TLDR

External SWF converters like Swivel and Kurst's SWF Renderer won't work with the built-in camera.

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