Dynamic vs. static animation

Another advantage to using coded animation goes far beyond simple file size. It's the fact that a coded animation becomes dynamic. Have you ever watched the movie Titanic? I hope I'm not giving away too much, but the boat sinks—every time. It sank in the theaters, it sinks on VHS, and it even sinks on DVD. Short of pressing the Stop or Pause button, you can't stop it from sinking. That's because a movie is a series of still images. The images near the end of this particular series show the boat sinking, and that's that.

Now let's move from the Titanic movie to a Flash website. Remember the late 1990s, when Flash was originally taking off? Everyone had to have a Flash website intro. Some shapes would slide in and grow or fade out. A cheap audio loop would play. Some trendy buzzwords would fade or slide in or out. Maybe a beam of light or some shadows would appear. Wow!