Flash Player 10 (Astro) and AIF/Hydra

Aral has the video of the astro preview from Adobe MAX 2007 keynote. A must see.

Astro is the codename for Flash Player 10. Revealed features are advanced text layout (with bidirectional languages support), 3D effects (very cool), and custom filters, blend modes and effects. All are impressive.

For custom filters, blend modes and effects, a new image processing language, codenamed Hydra, is announced. You can play with Hydra now, using Adobe Image Foundation (AIF) Toolkit Technology Preview. You'll need hardware acceleration, as software based rendering is not supported yet. Chances are that your video card is one of the supported ones, unfortunately I still use an X550 based card (my CPU is E6600, quite sufficient. I didn't get a better card because I never needed 3d acceleration, till today), so I was only able to read the documentation. Some features of Hydra will not be supported by Flash, hence it's Adobe Image Foundation, not Flash. Don't forget to check Kevin Goldsmith's blog if you are interested in Hydra.

All in all, I see a very bright future for Adobe Flash Player and the Flash Platform. And thank you Aral for the video (BTW, SWX rocks)!