Do sites like goanimate, xtranormal, and animoto use Flash + ActionScript, OpenGL, or other technology?

Question

What technology is used by sites like goanimate, xtranormal, and animoto? Especially the video compilation engine in the backend of animoto? Could HTML5 be used to do everything that's there?

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 06 '11 at 16:48

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My son who is into programming games, has discovered something called AGAL, which he thinks gives the best performance.It is supposed some sort of GPU unspecific assembler language.

answered Apr 06 '11 at 16:48

Omega Centauri

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Do you have links to this AGAL thing? I tried a very quick search, couldn't find anything... – FrustratedWithFormsDesigner Apr 06 '11 at 19:01
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Adobe Graphics Assembly Language? It seems to be related to 3D graphics in Flash. – James Apr 06 '11 at 19:16
Found an interesting intro: http://iflash3d.com/shaders/my-name-is-agal-i-come-from-adobe-1/ – FrustratedWithFormsDesigner Apr 06 '11 at 19:24
If you use [haXe](http://haxe.org/doc/intro) instead of ActionScript 3, you can use [haXe shader language](http://haxe.org/manual/hxsl) instead of assembly. – back2dos May 06 '11 at 22:58

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 06 '11 at 21:03

Well, my copy of xtranormal (which is pretty old) has some Ogre3D related files in it, so I'm going to say its using either DirectX or OpenGL to render its graphics (Ogre apparently supports both), not flash. I also see a DirectX related DLL in there, so it sounds like, at least on Windows, xtranormal is using DirectX. On other platforms I'd assume OpenGL.

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered May 07 '11 at 01:15

I took a look at goanimate, the progress bar I saw is the default Flex progress bar.

However, having a lot of experience with Flex and pure ActionScript projects, I would not recommend Flex for something like animations or games. Flex is more for business applications and RIAs.

I would recommend using Flash + ActionScript (3.0). I am sure that HTML5 can do most (if not all) that Flash can do, but it will be much harder (At least for now.)

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Aug 05 '11 at 12:38

Could HTML5 be used to do everything that's there?

Of course. You can do just as much with HTML5 as any of those other tools. The only limitation is that your making a web based application and are relying on internet connection.

The DOM, SVG, canvas and webGL can all cope with the rendering.

Do sites like goanimate, xtranormal, and animoto use Flash + ActionScript, OpenGL, or other technology?

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