SWiSHmax
UPDATE!
If you purchase PowerPlugs for FrontPage, you'll get a special edition of SWiSHmax on CD in addition to other great tools for FrontPage! You can also purchase just SWiSHmax from them for $99.
Here's more information...
Is there any question but that Macromedia created a virtual gold mine when it
developed Flash? Certainly not! Fortunately, Macromedia didn't hoard
the mine for themselves. Instead, they licensed the use of Flash
technology so that others could take advantage of it, and that's exactly what
SWiSHzone.com did! In April of the year 2000, SWiSH was born. The
rest is, as they say, history.
SWiSH is now in its third major version and it's now a tool that
packs the power to develop any type of Flash movie that you can dream
of. We'll cover the big features in this review, but to really get
the feel for just how cool this software really is, you need to try it
for yourself. SWiSHzone.com offers a
trial download so that you can test drive this application at your
leisure.
What is SWiSHmax?
SWiSHmax is, in a nutshell, an application used to create
Flash animations. Many people are overwhelmed by Flash MX,
the Macromedia product used to develop in Flash. Flash MX
has more power than SWiSHmax, but many people never use it to
its full potential because of the learning curve. SWiSHmax
solves that problem by allowing you to do what would have taken
hours in Flash MX with just a few clicks!
Productivity Cubed
SWiSHmax allows you to be incredibly productive because it
automates so many chores that are usually difficult. For
example, if you want to add effects to an object or text, it's
literally as simple as clicking a button. It would be nice
to have an effect preview. As it stands, you have to apply
the effect and then play your movie to see it in action.
The Effects Menu in SWiSHmax.
Hovering over many of these brings up a list of over 100
effects!
Perhaps one of the nicest aspects of SWiSHmax effects is that
when an effect is applied, it is added to the timeline so that
you can easily adjust the timing of the effect. This also
gives you the ability to carefully control how one object's
effect interacts with another object's effect. It would be
cool to have full control over the effect via key framing, but
that's probably asking a bit much. If you want that level
of control, SWiSHmax will allow it with custom animations.
As you'll see later, creating animations in SWiSHmax is easy to
do.
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