Swishitized (SWiSH)

Member Name: blackcat2

Product:	SWiSH
Date:	27/07/01 (727 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: easy to learn, affordable, fun

Disadvantages: none, none, none

I recently had the luck to discover Swish. To understand what Swish does, well just about anything Flash can do.

I currently have version 1.5 but the new version due out any day now is version 2. That one will be able to do everything that you can do with flash from what I have read on the website.

I thought it would be ages before I would get to create flash intros, interfaces, greetings and more due to the cost of Flash. When I found Swish though that all changed.

Swish is only 30.00 US and when compared with around 400.00 US for Flash it is a clear bargain.

Also the ease of use comparison between Flash and Swish is outstanding.

Trying to learn Flash was like trying to take college level courses with no teachers in sight.

Learning Swish was as easy as being in the fourth grade with teachers everywhere you would look ready and willing to help you.

I found using animations in Swish to be a bit tricky. You have to have a program first that can seperate the animation into its individual frames.

Then make sure you number each frame in the order it should go and save them in a folder. Open Swish and import the animated images from that folder. If they are not in the right order that is okay. Just use the Up and Down arrows to organize them.

Now this is where it gets a bit tricky. You have to alternate between two actions in order to get your animation to look 'animated'.

To do this use the Show and Hide actions which can be put into place by right clicking in the area of the timeline next to your image and choosing either function from the menu that pops up.

Do this for each image placing one show first and then one hide. To slow it down or speed it up you have to change the distance between the show and hide function in your timeline.

Closer together the faster it will run, further apart and it slows it down. You will have to experiment with i
t to get the right speed.

Swish has many interesting preset effects for text and about half the text amount can be used on images.

Even with the reduced preset effects you can apply to images there is much that can be done.

Within the properties of each effect, which can be found by right clicking on the effect bar in the timeline, is a little item called 'transform'.

Using this you can adjust the properties of the effect you applied. You can rotate, fade in from specific x.y coordinate, fade out to a specific x,y coordinate and more.

This really increases the amount of effects that can be added to an image. Play around with it. I have and found some really unusual results that I have liked immensely.

Version 2 is going to have more that can be done with images. From watching the version 2 demos on the site I cannot see any difference between what it does and what Flash can produce.

You can also save your movie in Swish format or .swi for later editing. I have been thankful for this already as I have thought of improvements that could be made to existing movies.

The current version doesn't import .swf files but the new version will have this ability.

Also the new version will allow you to import an animation as an animation. No more messing with individual frames and putting it back together. :)

Swish has been the best software purchase I have made so far this year. I am thrilled beyond words at all that it can do and how easy it was to learn and is to use.

Add to that the fact that they are not charging an outrageous price for it and I am one satisfied customer.

There is a free trial download so you really have nothing to lose by trying this program out to see if it is for you.

Just remember, you cannot export movies with the trial version for uploading to the web. This is disabled in the trial versions.

However you
can view your movie creations in Swish using the preview player.

Also if you get stuck seek out the help files in the program. Alternatively you can go to http://www.swishzone.com/ for more help.

Also linked from SwishZone are user forums which you can register free on and ask any questions you have not found an answer to.

I have already asked one and everyone who responded was very nice and helpful. I received a satisfactory answer in less than 24 hours.

I hope this review has proved useful...

~,,,^..^,,,~ BlackCat2

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