gemini://senders.io/gemlog/getting-into-flash.gmi

> I personally never got into flash...I don't know who did that.. it's kinda mysterious how people got into flash programming.

So I'm slightly younger and I got into flash in two ways. Firstly, I """"obtained"""" a copy of Macromedia Flash 5 on CD. But more importantly, secondly, I only got into it because of Newgrounds. It was the early 2000s and Newgrounds was where it was at. Watching videos playing games I loved it.

So yeah. It's 2000 and somehow a CD ended up on my desk with a marker scribbling of "Flash 5" on it. The interface for flash was a paint canvas and it primarily was an animation platform (I guess). You had a timeline where you could drop in different pieces of art and even animate using keyframes. You could type into the web "stock sound library" or something of that nature and find just an archive of stock, royalty free: punches, gunshots, etc. It was glorious.

I started out simply making animated doodles. I was a very active paint user so I was familiar with the interface from the start and would just make essentially computer flip books. I then would copy art styles like Eskimo Bob which used very simple human figures. This was the era of "We don't draw arms so its easier to animate".

But since you're talking programming - something I love about flash is that you get into the programming side of it the same way most kids learn programming - by taking an already made program and modifying the source until its your version of the game. At first I'd take the simple space shooter I downloaded and replace the artwork to make it Vegeta or something else I drew. Then I would dip a bit further in and maybe make him faster, or have more lives, etc.

I don't want to brag I didn't delve too deep into actionscript. But I literally paused the gemcast about 5 minutes in just like "ahhh! flash!". I used that copy of Flash 5 as my primary art program until I properly learned photoshop in the 2010s. I absolutely loved it. Vector based art meant I could scale it as I needed. I would spend so much time as a teen in the early 2000s on my PC with flash open making a silly video for my friends or just tracing a picture online to practice my drawing and totally not making a nsfw picture of a character I liked...

Anyway. Flash basically was my childhood. Thanks for bringing it up! I realize I didn't even directly address the question and I'm being mysterious how I obtained it. But I genuinely don't remember. I can ask my Dad next time I see him.

Getting into Flash

Links