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Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Tuesday, January 31st, 2012
In this post, we’ll discuss about the concept of layers and how you could utilize layers to arrange the image and text items the way you want in your flash movie. One may think Layers as stacks (or a pile of books), that lets you customize (arrange), flash movie items such as text and images. An item in the topmost layer has full visibility or is shown completely. Items that are lower in the Layer ordering may have other flash items displayed (partially or fully) over it.
Why need Layers?
Let’s take a simple example where you want to display a text item directly over an image in your flash movie. If you added the text item first and then the image, then in the normal case, the image would be placed directly over the image causing the text to be not viewable. To overcome the problem, you’d have to add the image first and then add the text item to your flash movie. This approach however may not be feasible when you have to work with a number of text or image items. This is where Layers are useful. With the Layers concept, you may re-arrange the layer order/stack order of the items such that one is shown over the other or vice-versa.
Where is the Layers Option in Flash Builder?
If you open the flash movie and go to the Timeline bar at the bottom you will notice that the images and text item labels will be listed. This is actually the ordering of the layers of the flash movie. To clarify, each item (text, button, image or video) that you place in your flash movie is created in its own layer. In the Timing bar where you see all the items listed vertically, you will notice a big horizontal bar over which you will find each item label (such as “Text1″ or “Image4″, or “Button1″).
This horizontal bar represents the layer, one for each item. To move the item’s layer, simply click on the empty area in the big horizontal bar of each item. Do not click over the item label or inside the item label area as this select the item…one has to click outside of the Item label text. Once you click it, the layer will be selected and you could then move the item layer up or down by drag it to move up or move down. So when you have images that take up the entire flash movie area and you wish to have text items show over or on the image, then you move the Text Items higher up the order in the Timeline and move down the image items below the text items.
Tags: create flash banner, create-flash-animations, create-flash-effects-online, create-flash-movie, create-flash-movies, create-flash-video, create-flash-videos, flash moviemaker, flash-movie-maker, free-movie-maker, online flash maker, online movie maker, Online-Flash-movie-maker
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Friday, July 8th, 2011
Hello everyone. In this article, I’d like to quickly introduce the concept of timing in the new Flash Builder. I’ll discuss on how to work with the Timing bar to adjust object timings and explain how it has changed the frame-based approach from the older version to the newer time-line based approach which also for more fluid flash effects.
Before I go ahead with the article, I would request that you take a moment to have a look at the video tutorial that explains about how the new Timing works. Since the tutorial explains most of the stuff, I’ll try to focus more on topics not covered in the video tutorial.
The newer Timing structure
If you were a user of the older Toufee version (Toufee Pro Flash Maker), then you would be aware that a Toufee movie is a collection of frames. With the newer Flash Builder, the frame-based approach has been retired and we’ve now moved to a Timeline-based approach where objects are arranged in a timing sequence via the Timing section available at the bottom of the Flash Builder.
When a new flash movie item is added to the Flash Builder, the item is position at the end of the flash movie in terms of its “timing”, i.e. if your flash movie’s total playing length is 01:30mins and you add a new item, then the item is placed (or is displayed) at 01:31min. This is the default behavior. Changing the item’s timing position is very easy ofcourse using the Timing bar – simply click and drag the item to the left in the Timing and its position is adjust immediately. It is that easy with the new Timing section.
Using the Timing Properties
 The Timing Properties is displayed in the left panel when you click on an item in the main stage or the Timing section at the bottom. Using the Start Time field to manually enter the start position has the exact same effect as dragging the item around in the Timing section. The Duration field controls the length in time the item is displayed on screen.
What if I need a frame?
You may run into instances where you need to have a frame-like convenience where you could set portions of the flash movie to a certain background image or a background color. With the new frameless approach, you may hit a road block here. There is ofcourse a workaround – let says you want a background image to show at a certain point in time. You would just add the image to your flash movie as you normally would when adding a regular image, set the Duration to the length of time if it were a frame. Finally, here is the most important setting – you would need to set the image’s z-index is lower than all other items which fall in the duration of the supposedly image to be used as the frame background. But how to set the z-index? Read on.
Layering/Item Order
 If you open the flash movie and go to the Timeline bar at the bottom you will notice this – all the images would be ordered first and then you would see the text items listed after the images. This is actually the ordering of the layers of the flash movie. To clarify, each item (text, button, image or video) that you place in your flash movie is created in its own layer.
If you look at the Timing section on the left, Text3 has the highest z-index value, i.e. it is the highest in item order in the flash movie.
In the same way, Image3 has the lowest z-index. If one would require to create a frame-like effect, then order the item in the Timing section such that it is at the bottom of all other items that falls within this duration. In the Timing bar where you see all the items listed vertically, you will notice a big horizontal bar over which you will find each item label (such as “Text1″ or “Image4″). This horizontal bar represents the layer, one for each item. To move the item’s layer, simply click on the empty area in the big horizontal bar of each item. Do not click over the item label or inside the item label area as this select the item…one has to click outside of the Item label text. Once you click it, the layer will be selected and you could then move the item layer up or down based on your preference. So when you have images that take up the entire flash movie area and you wish to have text items show over or on the image, then you move the Text Items higher up the order in the Timeline section at the bottom and move down the image items below the text items.
Tags: create-flash-animations, create-flash-effects-online, create-flash-movies, create-flash-video, flash moviemaker, flash-movie-maker, free-movie-maker, online flash maker, online movie maker, Online-Flash-movie-maker
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Thursday, February 12th, 2009
We’ve just finished adding additional formats to which you can now export flash movies created with Toufee. The top priority were the MOV and FLV formats as we got a number of requests for the same. Some users also did wish to export their flash videos to WMV. Without dissapointing any of them, we’ve added support to all these formats and in addition, we added MP4 support as well!
Very quickly, here is how to convert your flash movies to MOV, FLV, WMV etc
- Submit your flash movie for YouTube conversion (Publish -> Export to YouTube option), yes, you heard us right, its YouTube conversion. As a first step, your flash movie needs to be converted to the AVI format. The AVI file is then converted to one of the target formats (MOV, FLV, WMV) which you’ll see in the steps that follow
- You’ll receive an email that your flash movie is ready to download. The email will look similar to this. Watch the last few lines closely though as you will now see a link that allows you to download the movie in MOV format.
- When you click on the MOV link in the email, a new page will open with the message that your request for MOV conversion has been acccepted. You will receive an email with the link to download your MOV file when it is ready. If MOV conversion is all that you need, then that is it. However, there is one more step you need to do if you are converting to FLV, MOV or MP4 formats
- To convert to FLV, WMV and MP4 formats, you simply take the MOV link (shown in previous step) from the email and append the following parameter to the MOV link
“&filetype=flv” (without quotes)
So for example, if your MOV link is
http://toufee.com/commoncgi/addmovrequest.pl?userID=56&proj=promobanner&domain=toufee.com
then your FLV movie link would be just that with the “&filetype=flv” appended at the end of the URL.
http://toufee.com/commoncgi/addmovrequest.pl?userID=56&proj=promobanner&domain=toufee.com&filetype=flv
Once you paste the above URL in a browser window, you’ll get a similar confirmation page (as in step 3), this time however your movie will be queued for FLV conversion. The same applies to WMV and MP4, i.e. you simply need to change the value in the filetype parameter to wmv or mp4.
Hope this helps. Should you have any questions, please leave a Support Ticket by going to http://www.toufee.com/support/ and click on Submit a Support Ticket hyperlink.
See you all. Till next time.
Ganesh
Tags: convert flash movie, convert to MOV, export flash movie MOV, export flash movie to FLV
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Sunday, October 19th, 2008
In today’s highly competitive and fast paced environment of online marketing and website promotion, everyone needs to market and advertise their websites in order to reach the right target customers. Flash banners are one of the best marketing tools available for this purpose. A flash banner is a new form of online advertising which is quickly replacing traditional marketing method. Flash banners are designed to attract visitors to the advertiser’s website, thus increasing exposure of the website. Flash banners are embedded in various websites, just like billboards that we can see on high-rise buildings or television advertisements that we see in between our favorite shows. Flash banners are popular amongst giant websites, such as Microsoft and Nokia.Traditionally banners have been created using GIF files. But Flash banners have been proven to return better results than animated gifs, especially in displaying advertisements. Flash banners are generally smaller and they can be used to show videos and sounds. This certainly improves the visibility of the flash banners, since they are more animated and more attractive than static banners. These eye-catching banners can also be designed to include interactive functions that allow viewers to do various things such as clicking and even typing text on them. Certain things are better explained using images and animated words. Diagrams, flow charts and other types of charts are delivered better using flash banners than using plain text.
Website owners who wish to use flash banner in their websites should not use stock flash banners. It is better if you design your own flash banners because other people might be using the same design and your flash banner will not be special. By designing your own flash banners, you are free to use whichever image, video or audio files you like. Customization is unlimited to only your creativity and imagination. Use your own company or website logo, put your own images and sounds, and reach your target audience. Furthermore, you will be able to create a unique, one-of-a-kind flash banner. The message is conveyed accurately when you design your own banner and you can control the size so that it will not be too heavy and slow down the website.
To create flash banners, one is usually required to have some knowledge of ActionScript. However, nowadays there are more options of applications that can be used to create flash banners by just using a mouse. Whichever application you choose, be sure to create flash banners that are not too large in size, as most websites require flash banners to be within certain limits, before you are allowed to advertise at their websites. Also always remember that flash offers a considerable advantage over the animated gif banners because of the reasons just mentioned, so it only makes sense that you use flash banners for your advertising. Remember that attractiveness plays a huge role in catching the attention of visitors to your website. The more eye-catching your flash banners are, the more visitors will click on your advertisements and as a result, you will get more traffic from potential customers.
To cut a long story short, we have designed “the ultimate flash banner maker” so average people like you and me can also make flash banners for our business – but without spending a fortune on expensive software Or months in learning all this technical Flash mumbo-jumbo first…
http://www.toufee.com
Sanchit Bhatnagar,
CEO – http://www.Toufee.com
~Create flash banners in under a minute~
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Friday, October 17th, 2008
With so many millions of websites on the internet, after a while, they all start to look the same. If you want your website to stand out from the masses, you should strongly consider a Flash website. Flash websites are used by the most modern companies on the cutting edge of the industry. All of the big names in the industry use Flash now. It’s almost a requirement if you’re going to compete in the business world. Some of the biggest brands in the world like Nokia, Nike, Volkswagen, and Adidas all use Flash. With so many people utilizing this technology for their web design, shouldn’t you strongly consider it for yours? One of the oldest methods in the book to becoming successful is to follow those that are also successful.
Flash offers a lot of benefits for your website. The biggest thing that it provides you is the ability to catch someone’s attention. Let’s face it…you’ve only got a couple of seconds to get a prospect’s attention. If you fail to do so, they’ll just move on to something else. Someone else that sells the same product as you will end up capturing their attention. In this business it’s all about attention-getting strategies. If you get their attention right off of the bat, you can pull them into your website. They’ll want to see more and learn more about you and your products. The longer that someone spends looking at your website, the more likely they are to buy something from you. Without sales, your business will go under pretty quickly. Anything that you can do to keep people on your site longer is essential to your success.
A Flash website will also give your website a unique look that you won’t get anywhere else. The last thing you want is for your site to look like a standard, cookie-cutter format. Those types of sites don’t evoke any emotion from visitors. When you can get others emotions involved, you have a much better chance at making them your customer.
With all of these obvious benefits, you should undoubtedly implement a Flash website for your business. It can be the difference between a mediocre website and a great one. This could be the difference between a few sales and an abundance of sales.
While Flash is obviously a great thing, you shouldn’t overdo it. If you have a Flash intro, you should always put a link to skip it in plain sight. The worst thing for a customer is not being able to skip over your Flash intro if they frequently visit the site. After a few times of seeing this, they’ll start to just avoid your site all together. You should use Flash with moderation on your site. Otherwise you might start to annoy people. Some classical elements should still be utilized throughout your site as well.
Overall, Flash is a great tool for your web design. If used correctly, it can put your website over the top. It might be the exact thing that you’ve been looking for to complete your online business.
To cut a long story short, we wanted to make flash easy… so average people like you and me can also make flash websites for our business – but without spending a fortune on expensive software Or months in learning all this technical Flash mumbo-jumbo first…
But all the “Industry Experts” said it “could never” be done…
So Out of Pure Frustration, we researched and reached out to the Greatest Programmers to Build “The Ultimate Flash Maker.”
http://www.toufee.com/
The Easiest and Fastest Flash Movie Maker Online
Plus you’ll receive 175 Free Flash Plugins For Trying!
If you know how to use a mouse… you can create Flash with Toufee.com …Period!
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Tuesday, August 19th, 2008
Many times, Toufee users are faced with the need to convert their video files from one format to another for easy upload to Toufee Pro. Sometimes users might have encoded the video in a less known codec. So if you ever have a problem uploading your video files to Toufee or problem with your video files not getting detected in Toufee Pro, simply convert the videos to MPEG format using Any Video Converter. This tutorial covers step by step the procedure of converting movies to MPEG.
Download and Install Any Video Converter
Download and install Any Video Converter from the following URL
http://www.any-video-converter.com/any-video-converter.exe
Step 1: Launching Any Video Converter
Click on the Any Video Converter Professional icon on the desktop or select it from the Program Files folder in the Start menu. The Getting Started page opens which quickly lists the steps involved in the conversion. You’ll find that converting with Any Video Converter is a breeze as its one of the most user friendly program that is available.
Step 2: Select the Video file
Click on the Add Video button to browse and select your video. Once you have selected your video, it will be listed in the grid as shown below.
Now select the MPEG II Movie profile from the Profile dropdown list box (see above screenshot). The Profile option is where you select the target format into which you are converting to. If you are converting to a different format, say, WMV, you can select the the same from the Profile dropdown list. Any Video Converter supports most of the formats so you can be rest assured you’ll never run out of options.
Step 3: Starting the conversion process
When you are ready to convert, click on the Encode button. You might get a warning (like the one below) since the evaluation version supports converting upto 3 minutes. Click on Continue to Evaluate button
The conversion process with start and you will see the progress as shown below
Step 4: Completing and verifying the conversion process
Once the conversion is complete, you will see the Completed message in the Status field. Click on the Output Folder button (on the bottom left of the screen) to open the output file and verify by playing it.
As you saw, converting with Any Video Converter is a breeze. You should not find any problems now with uploading or converting videos for use with Toufee. Should you have any further questions, please leave a support ticket as always!
Posted in Toufee Tips, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Wednesday, July 30th, 2008
You might have encoutered the “Add Frame Error” when trying to convert your Toufee flash movies to AVI or MPG or when uploading them to YouTube using Toufee ProConvertor software. This usually indicates not having the latest Desktop Flash Player and the required Flash ActiveX for your browser. We will be soon porting the Toufee Pro Convertor software to a server-based program which means you do not require any software to convert your flash movies to AVI or MPG video, but for the meantime, please use the following updates.
Please install the latest Desktop Flash Player along with the Flash ActiveX plugin by downloading these from the following URLs
http://www.toufee.com/flash/plugin.exe
http://www.toufee.com/flash/activex.exe
Make sure you clear your browser cache before installing the above updates.
Also make sure you have the latest Toufee Pro Convertor which can be downloaded from http://pro.toufee.com/downloads/setup.exe
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