Feature summary | Animate | 2015.x releases

The August update of Animate 2015.2 offers you Google font support in HTML canvas, extra brush sizes, new .APR publish profile format, changes to zoom behavior in the timeline, and enhancements to onion skin range markers. Read on to learn more about the features included in this release.

Google font support for HTML canvas documents

New in Animate 2015.2 | August 2016

When animators use desktop fonts to create and publish their outputs, end-user experience is skewed and inconsistent. Animate 2015.2 release supports addition of Google fonts to your web content and provides a consistent end-user experience across all form factors. 

For more information on this feature, see Google fonts.

New brush sizes

New in Animate 2015.2 | August 2016

Animate now provides a wide range of Brush sizes with more granular control and includes the following enhancements:  

• New brush sizes in the range of 1-200 pixels
• Live preview when adjusting brush sizes
• Brush and Eraser tool cursors uses outline mode view and becomes non-obstructive when you draw in context with other artworks
• Remembers Brush settings such as last used brush size, shape, and mode across Animate sessions 
• Improved drawing experience, especially for shorter brush strokes

For more information, see New brush sizes.

New publish profile format

New in Animate 2015.2 | August 2016

When Animate introduced the ability to create templates, animators created custom templates for web advertisements and generic web content with its in-built publish profile settings. Due to inherent limitations, animators were unable to share their templates with their publish profile settings and the templates were shared separately or used a .fla as a template instead.

From this release, Animate introduces support for. APR file format that lets you bundle the canvas publish template along with its publish profile settings. Going forward, any new asset linked to a publish profile is bundled and shared as well.

For more information, see Specify publish settings.

Improved resize timeline view

Enhanced in Adobe Animate 2015.2 | August 2016

Enhancements to Resize timeline view provides a balanced timeline zoom experience.

For more information, see Customizing the Timeline view.

Enhancements to onion skin range markers

Enhanced in Adobe Animate 2015.2 | August 2016

In previous releases of Animate, the range markers were dragged to move the onion skin ranges. From this release, you can use the Shift key and drag the range markers or the loop range using either of the markers across the Timeline. 

For more information, see Onion skin markers.

Additional option to create a key frame

 Enhanced in Adobe Animate 2015.2 | August 2016

To automatically create a keyframe, click and hold the in-between object that is part of a classic tween. 

Adobe Animate 2015.2 - June 2016 release

The 2015.2 release introduced exciting new features such as:

Pattern brushes

New in Animate 2015.2 | June 2016

Learn how to use Pattern brushes to paint a vector pattern along the path or stretch to its entire length. Use the integrated global library within Animate to use Art and Pattern brushes. In addition to the default brush presets, you can import new Pattern Brushes to your Animate document using the CC Libraries. 

For more information on this new feature, see the Pattern brushes.

Frame picker

New in Animate 2015.2 | June 2016

Use frame picker to visually preview and choose the first frame for a graphic symbol. In previous releases, you could not preview the frames without getting within the symbol. This feature enhances the user experience for animation workflows such as Lip Syncing.

For more information on this new feature, see Frame picker.

Layer transparency

New in Animate 2015.2 | June 2016

Animate introduces the capability to set the visibility of the layer to transparent. To do so, Shift+Click the eye column in the timeline to set the visibility to transparent.

For more information, see Layer transparency.

Improved web publishing options

Merging JSON/JS code

New in Animate 2015.2 | June 2016

Animate embeds JSON file into JS. When you create a Spritesheet during canvas publishing, no external Json file is created and is included within the JS instead by default. 

With this change, you can even preview the published files locally without hosting them on a server (as before).

For more information on this new feature, see Merging JSON/JS code.

Embed JavaScript into HTML

New in Animate 2015.2 | June 2016

Animate introduces the capability to include JS file within the HTML file during canvas publishing.

For more information on this new feature, see Embed JavaScript into HTML.

Support for transparent canvas background

New in Animate 2015.2 | June 2016

Want to create a transparent canvas during publishing to view the underlying HTML content?  You can now set the canvas background to transparent. To do so, use the Alpha % to set the transparency level and the No Color swatch option to completely set the canvas stage to transparent.

For more information on this new feature, see Support for transparent background.

HiDPI compatible HTML5 canvas output

New in Animate 2015.2 | June 2016

Animate generated output is now HiDPI compliant and delivers a sharper output on high-resolution displays.

For more information on this new feature, see HiDPI compatible HTML5 canvas output.

Responsive scaling

New in Animate 2015.2 | June 2016

Want to create a responsive animation?  Learn how Animate resizes the published output based on various form factors to deliver a responsive, sharper, and a crisper HiDPI compliant output. 

For more information on this new feature, see Responsive scaling.

Transparent and responsive OAMs

You can now generate transparent and responsive OAMs from Animate and directly embed them within Muse, Captivate, and Dreamweaver.

For more information, see OAM publishing.

Author-time bitmap snapping

New in Animate 2015.2 | June 2016

Learn how to snap the bitmaps to the nearest pixels during author-time so that they look sharper on canvas. In previous releases, the bitmaps blurred on the canvas and did not provide an optimum user experience. From this release onwards, when publishing an HTML canvas document, Animate ensures that the bitmaps are snapped to the nearest pixels so that they look sharper on the canvas.

For more information on this new feature, see Author-time bitmap snapping.

Preloader in HTML5 canvas

New in Animate 2015.2 | June 2016

Preloader is an animated GIF which is displayed when the scripts and assets required to render an animation is loading. Once the assets are loaded, the preloader is hidden and the actual animation is displayed.

For more information on this new feature, see Preloader in HTML5 canvas.

HTML5 canvas publish template improvements

New in Animate 2015.2 | June 2016

Learn how Animate has modularized the HTML 5 canvas template for better customizations and provides more control over published outputs.

For more information on this new feature, see HTML 5 canvas template improvements.

JSAPI support to import and export HTML templates for canvas documents

New in Animate 2015.2 | June 2016

Use new JSAPIs that support import and export of HTML templates for canvas documents. 

For more information on this new feature, see JSAPI support.

Publish canvas assets to root folder

New in Animate 2015.2 | June 2016

Use this feature to publish canvas assets to the root folder instead of the sub folders. 

For more information on this new feature, see Publish canvas assets to root folder. 

Center stage

New in Animate 2015.2 | June 2016

Improve your user experience by using the various alignment options to display the canvas in the center of the browser window.  Select options to center the stage horizontally, vertically or both. 

For more information on this new feature, see Center stage. 

Other enhancements

User-defined colored onion skinning

Enhanced in Adobe Animate 2015.2 | June 2016

Use customized onion skinning color coding to help you distinguish between the past, present, and future frames. Onion skin frames that move away from active frame appear with progressively decreasing transparency. 

For more information on this enhanced feature, refer User-defined colored onion skinning.

Pinscript

Enhanced in Adobe Animate 2015.2 | June 2016

Use the Pin Script feature to pin tabs of individual scripts in the Actionscript pane and move them accordingly. This feature is useful if you have not organized the code within your FLA file into one central location or if you are using multiple scripts. You can pin a script to retain the open location of the code in the Actions panel and toggle between the open scripts. 

For more information on this enhanced feature, refer Pin script.

Advanced PSD import options

Enhanced in Adobe Animate 2015.2 | June 2016

Animate can import still images in many formats, but you usually use the native Photoshop PSD format when importing still images from Photoshop into Animate. When importing a PSD file, Animate preserves many of the attributes that were applied in Photoshop and provides options to maintain the visual fidelity of the image.

For more information on this enhanced feature, see Advanced PSD import options.

Advanced AI import options

Enhanced in Adobe Animate 2015.2 | June 2016

Animate lets you import Adobe® Illustrator® AI files and preserve most of the editability and visual fidelity of your artwork. Enhanced AI Importer also provides you with a great degree of control in determining how your Illustrator artwork is imported into Animate and lets you specify how to import specific objects into an AI file.

For more information on this enhanced feature, see Advanced AI import options.

Turbo charged performance on windows platform

Enhanced in Adobe Animate 2015.2 | June 2016

Experience turbo charged performance improvements for all your everyday workflows such as Timeline Playback, Timeline scrubbing, Drawing, Panning, Zooming, Transforms, and watch your animations come alive!

Improved paint brush interactions

Enhanced in Adobe Animate  2015.2| June 2016

Animate introduces enhanced performance and experience when using paint brush strokes. Paint brush performance enhancements are applicable for transform operations on paint brush strokes such as scale/translate/rotate in addition to zoom/pan of stage.

Latest Flash player and AIR SDK integration

Enhanced in Adobe Animate 2015.2 | June 2016

Animate supports the latest version of Flash Player (version 21) and integrates AI SDK version 21.0.