Review: Flash Utilities
August 15, 2001
|
As Flash becomes more and more a part of routine life on the
Internet, it follows that there has been given birth to utilities
to help improve the experience. This review covers three of those
utilities: Clipyard, Wildform Flix, and
FlareWorks.
|
While each of the three have different functions, they do all serve to
expand the use of Flash creations on Web sites, and they all
save Web designers a lot of work.
Clipyard
Designed by Goldshell to work with that company's two fine
products, Mix-FX and
FlaX, Clipyard enables
users to easily combine the effects created in those two programs
to make a large .SWF file.
That is important because both of those products create one-line
effects, but with Clipyard they can be combined to make a two-
line creation.
That makes Clipyard an ideal tool for creating banners and
movies. It places and positions items easily so that users can
avoid having to hassle with the loadmovie command.
Further, while making use of Mix-FX and FlaX creations are its
primary purpose, Clipyard will work with any .SWF file. You
simply import the .SWF file and drag and drop it where you want
it to begin.
Additionally, the program is a rather small download and is
priced to perfection: free.
Wildform Flix
This is a program that takes advantage of the fact that Flash is
installed on more than 96 percent of all computers using the
Internet. It allows users to encode video, audio, and image files
into a single .SWF output.
This means that those types of files can be shared almost
anywhere online. The .SWF ouput can be used as standalone or in
an HTML file. Users can also import Flix movies into a Flash
authoring tool and tailor it to meet their needs.
Flix, now available for Mac users, too, works with the following
formats:
- Video: .ASF, .AVI, .DV, .MOV/.QT, .MPEG, .WMV
- Audio: .MP3, .WAV, .WMA
- Images: .JPG/.JPE, .GIF, .PNG, .BMP/.RLE,.PSD/.PDD,
.TIF, .PCT/.PIC, .TGA/.VDA/.ICB/.VST
What is it called again?
Wildform Flix
|
Where can I get it?
http://www.wildform.com/flix/
|
How much does it cost? $99
|
How big is the download? 2.13 MB
|
Is it worth it? If you have the need, you'll want to get it.
|
FlareWorks
Of the utilities mentioned here, Flareworks is perhaps the most
versatile for creating Web and multimedia presentations.
Animation is as simple as selecting an object, applying a path,
speed, location and time. Further, the program does not require
the use of key frames, and more than one path can be added to a
single object.
Create a series of effects you like, and those can be saved for
later application to another object.
Movies require that users drag and drop an item on a timeline,
and the program provides multiple timeline views —
scene, object, and effects. The scene
view shows the overall production, enabling users to add
transitions and audio to multiple scenes. Object view lets
users see all objects added to a scene, and effects view
allows users to test any portion of the scene.
The program offers the usual types of transitions, and .WAV files
added to a production can be coded to start automatically, then
stopped or changed later by an event placed within a frame.
Also included are a number of standard and special objects for
use in presentations, all of which can be animated with paths,
fades, skews, rotates, or fills. Special objects that users
create can be saved in a library for later use.
|
