Illuminatus

[GreenlandIce]

Johnie, or anyone who may know..........

I know this is a bit off of the subject, but I'm looking to create a interactive training CD with some short avi clips of screen captures within various softwrae programs like Powerpoint, Kool Moves, Swish etc. and wondered if you had any recommendations for a program that would allow for this to happen quickly without a huge learnng curve. Some names I have heard,...include, Illuminatus 4.1, Macromedia Authorware, Creator CD Pro,.....any thoughts? I'm using "snag it" and/or "Camtasia" to capture the screen tutorials although I'm not real thrilled with the quality.

Thanks
TD

[johnie]

http://www.hyperionics.com/index.html

That is the link to Hypercam. I have had no problems with it and you have the added benfit of being able to select the area you want.

To display it you need either;

Flash ants's FM Player/ projector- this will allow you play the Real Player or MS Media file directly inside the SWF.

or

vid2swf or Flix to convert the AVI to SWF then use load movie commands.

or

A third party projector tool like swiff canvas or or Juglor+Jtools

[GreenlandIce]

Now that blows!!! You had an awesome response for me Johine and now it's gone!! I was about to refer to it and it's gone! Great timing for a FlashKit hiccup!!! By the way Greenland Ice and ToddPhilip Dolce are one in the same (office and home).

I tried HyperCam,...but it never worked!! Everytime I went to select record,..it gave me an out of memory error. IMPOSSIBLE because no other program was open and I have over 10GB of space available!!! That frustrated me so much so that I just deleted the program off of my drive and reverted back to SnagIt and Camtasia.

TD

[GreenlandIce]

OK Johnie,...I managed to get Hypercam working in my office(still not at my home) and it just can't handle the task. I have to record full screen (Powerpoint, KoolMoves,Swish etc. screen) and everytime I try it, Hypercam cries about my fps settings. I set the sucker down as low as 5 fps and it still complained that it was too high. It just can't handle full screen recording I guess. Oh well,...on to another.

TD

[johnie]

I know I was upset about it also- It took me 2 hours of surfing to produce that list of software.


I see what you mean. I usually don't have a need for video that large. The AVI format cannot handle full screen for very long I think as that would suck up resorces very quickly.

Have you tried Leelou or veiwlet builder? its at http://www.quarbon.com

Its not AVI but its probably what you are looking for.

[Bob Hartzell]

Is this what disappeared? I saved it because it looked like a gem.

Asia a FreeWare Wav editor... http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Platform/9182/

DigiDesign a very powerful freeware audio editor studio http://www.digidesign.com/

MP3 Studio http://www.worldusa.com/mp3/digitalmp3/index.shtml

Flash Wiz- a freeware Flash Sctrean Saver creator (It brands the Screansaver until you register for $50) http://www.flashwiz.co.uk/

SWF Browser- Free Nagware that can parse SWF's, set a SWF as your screensaver (on your computer only), and create Flash Projector Files.
http://www.swifftools.com/stools/

Get the Flash Stand Alone Player to make projectors. to legally obtain a copy of the FlaPlayer download the demo of Flash 5. When you uninstall the Demo the FLa Player stays behind. http://www.macromedia.com

Virtual Dub- A free software (GPLed) Movie format pre and post editor http://www.geocities.com/virtualdub/

Say It- a voice Synth Program http://www.analogx.com/contents/download/audio/sayit.htm

CSLU Tool Kit- Voice Synth software- http://cslu.cse.ogi.edu/toolkit/

Automated Composing Studio- It is another Free Audio studio (In Case Protools isn't working for you) http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~HB9T-KTD/music/muse.html

Qwartz Audio Master- Freeware another sound studio.

Ultimate Encoder (Add Ware- Free Usage and Dowbnload- $39 to remove ads)- Encodes MP3's from Wav files- http://www.usro.net/products/uencoder/

Pixia a very good Freeware Graphic Manipulation Program- http://www.ab.wakwak.com/~knight/index.html

The Gimp- The Free Software Foundations (Linux) version of Photoshop. This program is Gpled and is of coarse free. This was ported to the Windows OS last year. http://www.gimp.org

Star Draw- Part of the Star Office package. Star Draw has a very good Vectoriztion program and simple drawing program and even a 3-D Engine. The package is free to download from either http://www.sun.com or http://www.openoffice.org.

The Blender- Free Full Functioning 3-D software. http://www.blender.nl/

PhotoLine- a shareware combination Drawing and Image Manipulation Package- Can Vectorize B&W images. Very Easy to Use. http://www.ciebv.com/ $69.00

I also recomend either getting A third party tool like Swiff Canvas ( $100 Works very good with KM in Win 95. I could not get it to work in Win 98 but My OS may very well be corupt), Juglor+Jtools ($100 for Juglor and then they charge you for each J-Tool. I could not get Jluancher to work- this product is very overpriced in my opinion), Projector luancher ($79 Its cheaper than the others.), Flash Tools (freeWare produced by the Standalone and Applications board Moderator- not as easy to use a the other tools but is more powerful, as this toolkit lacks the apperance modification features and is command line based many people avoid it.) or getting a hex editor like EXEScope (There is a tut in the tutorial section on how to use EXEScope to modify Projector Files. Since Hex Editors are very affordable- EXE Scope is all of $20 and there are many free hex editors out there including hex editing with word pad- If you are on a budget this may be your best alternative) and some packaging software (SuperPimp http://www.winamp.com Free- GPLed- but hard to use. There are many shareware packagers out there.)

[TPhilipDolce]

Bob,...

Bless you!!! That is it!!! Thanks so much!!! saved by Mr. Kool himself!!

TD

[johnie]

Yup, that's most of the thread there. What you are looking at is probably some of the best Free-ware/ Shareware out there.

Qwartz- Is actually a better sound editor than digi-design. I'll pull the link to that one. The MP3 Codec cost 19.99 though but for 19.99 you can't find a better sound studio.

[johnie]

this is the link...

http://www.digitalsoundplanet.com/SoftwareHouse/Products/Audio_Master/Freeware/freeware.phtml

[johnie]

2 other pieces of Multi Media software that I left off...

QT Pro 4.1 (You can beta 5 for free if you want) http://www.apple.com/quicktime/ (This program is only 29.99 BTW. QT 5 supports Flash 4 play back just like Flash supports QT playback.

and Animation Stand Personal edition (Freeware) http://www.linker.com/

Animation Stand is for creating Raster Film (QT format that's why I recommend purchasing QT or at least downloading the beta) animation and video. They have several Examples on their website of Animation shorts.

I left this off also, this is really for advanced users, FS Commands can send commands to active X componets and thus you can expand/play things better control stuff with something like VB. Microsoft has a freeware VB Edition for active X called VB Control Creation edition. This edition allows you to make VB scripts and componets that run inside of other MS products like IE and MS word. You can download VB Control Edition from http://www.microsoft.com

On another Note Both C++ and VB can play and use Flash as the Front end. It is very easy to get VB to play Flash movies. Again you control the Program from the FS Commands. VB and VC++ can be downloaded from microsoft but they are expensive. There are several Free C++ packages that can be downloaded here http://www.thefreecountry.com/developercity/index.shtml

Another thing I left out is Java 2 (Okay I know its really Java 1.3 but everyone refers to it as Java 2 for some reason) has the ability to control (Using Live Connect instead of active X- You will need either the Java Media Player or a GPL Flash intergration kit with Player or the Flash Java Media Player-only Flash 2 if you use the MM player- Flash 4 for the the other 2) and play Flash movies. If you download the JDK and Forte (both are free Downloads) you can do some Java applications that use Flash as a front end. Download from http://www.sun.com

[TPhilipDolce]

I'm very familiar with just about every animation program out there. AnimationStand does have a free personal edtion, but it basically limits you to a much smaller scaled down sized animation. I would recommend this product if you want to try it before buying their $595.00 professional version (which does export to .swf.,& HDTV) The Linkers (Sheldon Linker)are very friendly people and would be most helpful if you e-mail them with any additional questions.