The New Flash - Codename ‘8-ball’
Recently at a Flash conference in THE JAPAN, Kevin Lynch, the chief software architect at Macromedia, introduced some of the upcoming functionality of the next version of Flash, codename ‘8-ball.’
An attendee video taped the presentation, and an assembly was posted on the web.
The functionalities that stood out to me (as a Flash animator) 
are the Flash player rendering upgrades that will make it much easier to test scenes without rendering raster video, the ability to import keyed-out video (guessing this isn’t for broadcast, but we’ll see), and the improved drop shadow and glow-effects.
Nothing too overwhelming here, but it’s a promising start.
You’ll notice that Kevin incorporated Homestarrunner into his presentation, 
using the character to demostrate some of the effects. Must be a fan.
There’s been much discussion about this upcoming Flash version amongst the Flash animation community, all spurred by some rather elaborate postings over at the fwak! blog. It’s great to see that the Macromedia guys are actively pursuing suggestions from the field.
You can download the 10-minute video here….
>> low bw (5mb 320×240, 15fps)
>> med bw (14.5mb 320×240, 30fps)
>> high bw (42mb, 640×480, 30fps)
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