Creating animated Flash banners with SWiSH Max

Posted on July 18, 2008 at 5:32 am

Animated Flash logos and banners are not that easy to pickup for someone with no Flash experience. Putting an elaborated animation with fade-in, fade-out, rotate and explode for example is not a simple process to do in Flash.

With SWiSH Max now on its version 2 from http://www.swishzone.com, you can make great looking logos in minutes. The final output is a standard Shockwave SWF file so it only needs an Adobe Flash player plug-in to run.

The software is not a freeware, it costs $149.95 for the latest version. Sounds expensive? It does sound expensive but for a program that lets you make instant great looking graphics then this is still cheap compared to the $699 Adobe Flash.

After you have installed the software, you can start by making a new file from a Template. Click File > New from Template…

The templates will appear and they are choices that differ on size so just pick one that you want, in this case we will be making a mid-size banner so I picked the Half Banner with a size of 234 X 60 pixels:

The blank slate will appear and to begin adding text in the canvas, click the Text Tool:

Then type the words that you want to appear on the banner, in this case I want to have “Online Tech Tips” on the banner:

Notice that like other word processing software like MS Word, you can change the properties of the text by altering the font type, size, color, boldness, etc…

Now for the fun part: animation. The easiest way to add animation to SWiSH Max is by right clicking on the Timeline Panel and adding an animation effect of your choice:

The Timeline Panel is a frame by frame representation of the movie you are making. The first frame is at the left most part while the last frame is at the right most part.

Here is a sample video of what we have done so far - I exported it in GIF format so you will see the animation:

Now that one is easy, let’s do something more complex like A twist and turn effect:

Notice that I put the 3D Twist and Turn effect after the Fade effect on the Timeline Frame. The output is below:

Here is how you can export the files to GIF: Click File > Export > GIF Animation

You can also follow the same step and choose another format like SWF, AVI or PNG. The added capability to export the HTML code with the SWF is a handy way to create web pages without having to worry about what code or tag to put to embed the SWF file. You can also try to export it on an EXE (projector) format that lets you play the animation as a stand alone app like a screen saver.

If you want to make navigation buttons, banners, Flash games and animations then this tool is worth exploring especially if you don’t have the time to study Flash or Photoshop. With SWiSH Max, creating animated texts and pictures is a breeze.

Ben Carigtan writes about computers and software and how to make the best out of them.

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2 Responses to “Creating animated Flash banners with SWiSH Max”

abhishek said on : July 19th, 2008 at 5:34 am

I have been a fan of swishmax from my college days…love the swirl effect in it.

How to create animated menus with Adobe Fireworks Says:

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September 7th, 2008 at 5:38 am