Hello all.... first post.
I'm a motion graphic designer using After Effects in conjuction with some other software at work. I've never really gotten into using flash, I do mainly broadcast graphics/animation. But I'm curious about using after effects for banner and skyscraper work on the web. So I'm coming from the other end of the spectrum, but the possibilities seem quite exciting. Coming from after effects to flash frustrated me and I lost hope! The time line and keyframing bugged me more than anything... but I guess it's just what you're used to.
As far as I understand it, flash would have much quicker loading times because of file size and the flash system. As in it uses very little raster graphics, whereas after effects is obviously all raster. Is this right? I haven't got much to compare it to since I'm not a flash user. I heard Photoshop CS4 has embellished on it's animation features again so you can keyframe much more, it's getting closer to after effects. From the little experience I have of flash the drawing tools seem basic, I'd probably import illustrator vector art. I heard of a program or plug in? Called papervision for flash which lets you manipulate stuff in 3d (or 2.5d) space a little like AE.
As for file size. Like even.listener says it depends on which codec you are using. If you're working for broadcast you need a lossless codec like uncompressed quicktime, or apple animation codec, avid codec, tiff/targ sequence and so on. These do give you big file sizes but if you are later converting to flv or swf or whatever then it doesn't matter. I haven't heard great things about the swf or flv export from after effects, I'd probably give adobe media encoder a shot, or maybe even quicktime pro.
So if anyone who uses AE for flash banner design is reading this it'd be good to know how feasible it is and if you ran into any problems!
cheers
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