Electric Dog Flanimate Power Tools v.6.0.0 is a major stable release

EDAP Tools v.6 is a huge milestone not only for us and the constantly evolving Smart Magnet Rig system, but a turning point in the history of Flash Animation.
For the first time ever, with the release of EDAPT Tools v.6, professional-grade Inverse Kinematics tools are available for the Flash / Animate platform.

We decided to finally listen to our users and give them the option to support this project financially by providing amazing Premium features on top of the already brilliant and ever more polished free tool set.
This re-structuring will allow growth of the project and the development of more incredible tools, which Flash animators could not even dream of in the past.

More powerful and flexible than ever before, EDAP Tools v.6 come with a new FreeStyle Rigging tool, fully-fledged professional-grade Inverse Kinematics implementation, Layer Parenting integration, polish, stability, performance and UX improvements, and much more!

See the highlights here.

Change log

1. Structural changes:

• Professional-grade implementation of Inverse Kinematics, available as a premium feature
• Full integration of Layer Parenting into the Smart Magnet Rig workflow
• Many stability and performance improvements
• Countless UX improvements

2. New tools:

• FreeStyle Rigging tool – now a separate tool, which can be called via a customizable shortcut. Improved stability and performance.
• Full Inverse Kinematics implementation (SMR IK) consisting of multiple interconnected tools, commands and added features:
• KineFlex IK – when interacting with SMR IK Controllers KineFlex is now an IK tool.
• Create And Manage IK Objects – a new command.
• SMR Helpers panel – a new interactive panel with a customizable set of buttons.
• IK Constraints manager – a tool to save, apply and manage IK constraint presets.
• IK Clean Up – a special command which deals with specific IK clean up scenarios.
• SMRize Parented – an automated script, which converts a Layer Parenting rig into a Smart Magnet Rig.
• Layer Parenting Toggle – a new toggle command which works with SMR; can be used as a Clean Up alternative.
• Make Edaptable – a new automated script, which unifies the positions of Registration and Transformation Points to make the selected elements Edaptable.
• Element Welder (for KineFlex) – a function which welds a child element to its parent for all KineFlex transformations, so that they can be used effectively as front and back elements of the same object.
• EDAPT Commands panel – a new interactive panel providing alternative access to commands.

3. Added features:

• SGC panel: You can now temporarily hide any Thumbnails from view by Shift-clicking on them.
• SGC panel: You can now load more than 100 Thumbnails (v.6.8.0.1)
• SPC panel: Now you double-click to edit color swatches and to rename groups.
• SPC panel: Unifying colors is now done via a dedicated button to the right of groups and based on a selected swatch.
• KineFlex is now also an Inverse Kinematics tool.
• KineFlex now supports Welded elements, where a rear part of an object can be locked to its parent and always move in sync with it. For example, the two parts of a turtle's shell or the back side of a collar.
• KineFlex can now penetrate through the Layer Parenting Shell and work directly with the SMR Core (v.6.5)
• KineFlex: in Animate now has a setting, allowing to fine-tune its performance to best suit rig's complexity (v.6.9)
• FreeStyle Rigging tool: improved visualization of rigged elements to reduce visual noise during rigging (v.6.5)
• Sync Symbols To Timeline now has a special Offset mode, where the user can define a desired number of frames. Thanks Niels Beekes for the idea!
• Timeline Block To Symbol now has the option to preserve the original content intact. Thanks Mario Salas for the idea!
• Next/Prev Frame In Symbol now have an Auto-key mode where the current frame is converted to a Keyframe with the same keypress. Thanks Mariusz Wlodarski for the idea!
• Find And Replace Strokes: now can delete strokes completely (v.6.9)
• Clean Up (SMR) now works from left to right. (Direction has been reversed.)
• Clean Up (SMR) now has improved performance and is several times faster.
• Smart Magnet Joint now also snaps IK Controllers.
• All comment labels are now disabled by default to circumvent a performance bug in the newer versions of Animate. Users who do not use Timeline preview often, can enable comment labels from EDAPT Control Panel > Miscellaneous.
• A new EDAPT Objects Compatibility mode, which is intended to protect the creation and insertion of EDAPT Objects from System Clipboard interference by other programs. Can be enabled or disabled from EDAPT Control Panel > Miscellaneous.
• EDAPT Objects can now also be created via the SMR Helpers panel.
• Enter Or Punch Current Frame can now Enter F2 even if the current layer is locked, starting from a single selected frame in the Timeline.
• Updated EDAPT Shortcuts.
• Fully redesigned EDAPT Help.
• Countless small UX improvements.

4. Many bug fixes

It is highly recommended that all users upgrade to take advantage of the latest changes.

New articles, videos and help entries

• Completely rewritten and revised series of articles on Smart Magnet rigging with many new videos
• New comprehensive article about Magnet Snapping
• New in-depth article about the types of EDAPT Objects
• Detailed documentation about all the new features and tools
• More than 3 hours of new video material

Important note about shortcuts

We strongly encourage our users to switch to EDAPT Shortcuts to get the full EADP Tools experience!

We understand that as our set diverges more and more radically from Macromedia/Adobe defaults, transition can be frustrating at first and requires a few days.
But the benefits to the user would be huge as all EDAPT shortcuts have been assigned with animation/design workflow usability in mind. As you get used to them you will realize how much time and hand movement they will save you.

If you need to modify the EDAPT set to better suit your needs, in Animate CC just use the Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts… dialog. Flash 8 and CS users, please, refer to this article.

General recommendations

To our users in 2020 we continue to recommend working with Flash Professional CS6 for character animation whenever possible. It is the most rigid, stable, bug-free and best performing version to date.

Supported versions of Flash and Animate

Since Adobe moved to a subscription-based model with more frequent updates, Animate versions are not a finished stable product any more. It has become a perpetual work in progress – much more prone to bugs and regressions. Because of that and the huge abundance of versions we had to limit support and only test on the 4 most recent versions of Animate.

For a full list of supported versions, please check this article.

Known Issues

For a detailed and up-to-date list of all known issues, please visit this link.