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Flash Slide Show and Animation Tools from ImageMatics
Flash Slide Show and Animation Tools from ImageMatics
by Rick Hendershot,
Linknet Creative Resource Library
If you are looking for a tool to take a series of digital
images and turn them into a flash presentation, then chances are ImageMatics has
a product that fits the bill. In fact this company produces three slightly
different products, and it is important to understand the differences between
the three before making your purchase. In this overview we look at the three
different products:
ImageMatics Personal Edition (PE)
ImageMatics Web Designer (WD)
ImageMatics StillMotion Creator (SMC)
ImageMatics Personal Edition (PE),
www.imagematics.com, $49.95
The PE and WD lines each have a slightly different feature set and are targeted
at slightly different users. PE is the "entry level" multimedia creation tool
from ImageMatics, and is for users wanting to create relatively simple,
non-interactive flash slide shows. It has all the features of other similar programs, but includes the
capability of adding titles (or "labels") to each slide, and a title page to
your show. The sound capabilities of this product are more robust than some of
the
other slide show creation software available as well. The user can add
separate sound tracks to each slide, overlay them on top of a "background" sound
track, and then mix the relative volumes of the two tracks. This version does
not allow you to add navigation buttons or links from individual slides. You
will need to buy the "Web Designer" edition to get those features (see below).
When trying this product you may be confused by the different
versions (or product names).
Some reviews
refer to it as "ImageMatics StillMotion Personal Edition" — no doubt a reference
to its evolution from StillMotion, the company's core product line. StillMotion
is a more powerful version of
the program that incorporates pan and zoom techniques borrowed from StageTools.
These capabilities are not part of the PE product.
My recommendation: If you need simple titling capability, then
you should get this program. But if you want VCR controls, get
FlashSlider
(previous review). It is less money and easier to use. Here is an excellent
review of
ImageMatics PE that puts it in the context of other products from ImageMatics
(while confusing the two product lines in the review title).
Imagematics Web Designer,
www.imagematics.com, $79.95
Take ImageMatics PE and add a series of navigation and web
enhancements and you've got ImageMatics Web Designer. These enhancements include
links to different URLs from each slide, other actions associated with slides
(such as "jump to slide" and "play a swf file"), several styles of VCR controls,
preloaders, and navigation menus.
And don't forget to add some serious pan and zoom features
(borrowed right from StillMotion Creator), that allow you to turn individual
slides into moving pictures (think Ken Burns).
These enhancements turn this product into a "multi-media
authoring tool". According to the company, files created in Personal
Edition are completely compatible with the WD version, so you can start with PE,
and upgrade later without losing your old productions.
This little production includes an imported mp3 soundtrack
(Alison Kraus & Union Station), as well as a title slide, captions for each
slide, and VCR controls. Notice that the audio is integrated with the slides so
that the nav buttons control the audio as well as the video. This is not the
case with
Flash Slider. The slight "jitter" is caused because the original image is
not of high enough resolution to have enough pixels to accommodate all the
steps. The fix is to use a higher res original, or a faster zoom.
My recommendation: The differences between PE (Personal
Edition) and WD (Web Designer) are quite significant, and make the Web Designer
edition well worth the upgrade price. If you want to get beyond basic
slide shows, add hyperlinks, interactive buttons, and pan and zoom featurs to
your slides, then this is a very good way to do it.
ImageMatics StillMotion Creator,
www.imagematics.com, $99.95
This is the entry level version of ImageMatic's "Pan and Zoom" animation
product. This version will only create Flash output files. SMC Plus ($149.95)
and SMC Pro ($249.95) are capable of higher resolution output — up to HDTV with
SMC Pro.
The claim to fame of this line of products is that they can
create professional looking Ken Burns style pan and zoom effects from simple digital images. The
rudimentary pan and zoom tools available in Imagematics WD are just a taste of
what StillMotion Creator can do. This product, developed in cooperation with
Stage Tools, can create complex simulated camera movements such as rotation,
curved camera paths, variable rate zooming, simulated perspective shifts, motion
panoramas, continuous loops, and "holds" of specific duration, plus transitions.
Particularly important for the web content creator, adding
effects with StillMotion Creator does not significantly increase the original
file size. For instance, ImageMatics claims that a full minute's animation
requires only about 600 bytes more than if you were just using the still image.
There is a more extensive overview of this product at
myzips.com.
Another review at the
Web Developer's
Virtual Library says,"StillMotion Creator is
not a difficult program to use, nor is it a large program. It is, however, very
good at doing what it promises. Its interface is very clean and easy to use, and
the learning curve is little more than a slight bend in the road... It may be
too expensive to just play with it, but if you have a need for this type of
program it is probably a bargain and well worth it.
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