Cs3 Vs Cs4

[Rucklo]

i'm sure there's a topic like this somewhere, but the searchfunction don't allow less than four letters, so that's no help, and i really don't feel like manually browsing for it, didn't find such a topic in page 2, that's enough...

i might get one of adobe's bundles, depending on my upcoming finances. i'm taking a basic flash-course at school, and wanna get into learning flash a bit more. my main goal is to learn AS as good as possible, so that I can maximize flash and integrate my audio as good as possible in games and such, possibly make my own games in the future.

at school we have CS3, but a later version should be better, no? reason that i get a little hesitant is the fact that AS1/2 and AS3 are so different.

If somone could tell me the main differences between CS3 and CS4 I'd be thankful (or post a link to a thread where the comparision have been done...)

[Techno]

CS4: CS3 with suped up stuff with FLEX and a bunch of other cool things. The only thing is you need at least a semi-good computer.

CS3: Equally awesome without the cool special tweens and the filters are a lesser quality.

I would go with CS4 if you have a good computer, if not just get CS3, only problem is CS5 is going to come out next year so i say wait it out.

[zuperxtreme]

If you're just going to stick to programming, I recommend you save your money. Not only because there's no reason to buy CS4 when AS3 stayed the same between them, but because the Flash IDE is just crap for programming. The only real "good" thing is targetting Flash player 10. But you can do that with Flex for free.

So... more doubts for you.

[K-Guare]

To me CS4 seemed more of just CS3 with a better looking interface.
I was never able to get used to the placement during the trial period,
but I've been using CS3 and the similar Flash 8 interface for quite a while.

In CS4, they did introduce a z axis and 3D options. Along with the bone
tool - which seems a little cheesy to me - and a new method of motion
tweening which I never bothered to learn, as they still have the 'classic'.
Other than those I'm not entirely sure of
anything else significantly new that they did.

One thing I didn't like that isn't exactly Adobe's fault is that
a lot of people still have Flash 8, and CS4 can only convert to CS3.
So collaborating is a little more difficult if your partner hasn't
upgraded recently, and with CS5 coming out soon it's bound to get worse.