Welcome
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The easiest way to learn how to use Insane Flash Animator
is to look at the samples and tutorials under the 'Samples' menu.
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Press the help button in the top right corner of each window for a detailed description of the features in that window.
A yellow description box will appear beside each option.
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We give you almost everything for free.
Flash movies created without registration will jump to our website when clicked.
Our registration price is very affordable.
Please go to our website for more details.
Making movies
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To start making a new flash movie, click the 'New flash movie' button on the toolbar.
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You can then add any number of elements to your movie. Elements may be bitmaps,
vector drawings, sounds, etc. You can add an element to your movie by pressing one of
the buttons on the element toolbar.
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You can change the way that an element is shown or hidden by adding an event for that element.
You can set the timing, the movement, or any other characteristic for the element.
An event can be added for an element by first selecting the element and then
pressing one of the buttons on the event toolbar.
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You can play your movie at any time by pressing the 'Play' button
in the Movie window or the 'Play' button on the menu toolbar.
The movie will continue to play until you press the 'Stop' button.
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You can export your movie as a flash file at any time by pressing the
'Export flash movie' button, or the 'Export flash movie as' button. The movie will be
exported as an SWF file. You can then play your flash movie in your internet browser
by pressing the 'Play flash movie in browser' button.
User interface
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Insane software uses a new and revolutionary type of user interface.
Every window and every menu is built using dynamic html.
This not only makes Insane's products better looking and more powerful,
but it also allows the user to customize every aspect of the interface.
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If you want to change the appearance, or add new features to any window or menu,
just right click on that window or menu, and choose 'Edit Source'.
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The interface is also fully programmable using Insane's improved Javascript.
Every object is a Javascript object with properties and methods.
Some objects, such as bitmaps, are also Javascript arrays, and any
object in a bitmap's array gets automatically drawn onto its surface.
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A complete reference for Insane's new improved dynamic HTML and Javascript
will be provided in future versions of Insane Flash Animator.
Until then, everything you need to know is shown by example in the interface code.
Elements
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A flash movie can have any number of elements.
Some elements are loaded from files such as bitmaps and sounds.
Other elements can be developed within the interface, such as vector drawings.
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You can easily add new elements.
Elements appear on each frame of the movie in the order they are listed,
with the top element being drawn first and the bottom element being drawn last.
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Some elements can have child elements (also called layers).
Some of these child elements can themselves have children,
and there is no limit to how deep the layers can be.
Insane Flash Animator works by building a tree of elements which represents
the layout of the movie.
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When an element is first added to a movie, it has an option which automaticaly shows the
element when the movie begins playing. But when an event is added later to show the element differently,
this option should become disabled. When elements do not appear the way you want them to,
have a look at this option.
Events
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Many other animation tools use a timeline with frames.
But timelines are restrictive, and people think in seconds, not frames.
So Insane Flash Animator does not use a graphical timeline, it uses a list of events instead.
The timing of events is given in seconds instead of frames.
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Insane Flash Animator has a list of events and each event has a 'delay' value.
For the first event, the delay will be the time in seconds since the start of the movie.
For each event that follows, the delay will be the time in seconds since the last event.
Using relative times instead of absolute times makes it easier to insert or remove events.
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Some events apply directly to elements. Events such as 'Move' and 'Morph' can only
be applied to one element at a time. Events such as 'Show', 'Hide', 'Wave' and 'Explode'
can be applied to any number of elements by first selecting the desired elements
and then creating the new event.
Scenes
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Many other animation tools force you to divide a movie into separate scenes.
Insane Flash Animator has a 'Scene' event, but this event is only used to mark
a place within a movie that you can jump to using a 'Play scene' action.
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Scene events can also be used to hide some elements and show other elements
at the same time to give the impression of a scene change. But they also allow
other elements to remain unaffected by the scene change.
Painting
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Painting with vectors is easier and much more flexible than painting
with pixels. Using vectors, every detail of an image can be changed at any time
after the image is drawn.
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Insane Animator uses a Paint element which can have any number of brushes,
and each brush can be used to draw any number of strokes.
Only one brush can be used at a time,
and the current brush details will be shown in the Paint properties window.
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Every time you want to draw something in a different color,
or with some other variation in the brush details,
you will first need to create a new brush by pressing the 'Create a new brush' button.
The new brush be the same as the last brush until you change its details.
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When you change the brush details. The appearance of any lines or shapes that
were drawn with that brush will change also. Previous brushes can be selected,
and their details can be changed, and new strokes can be added using
those previous details.
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After you have gained some experience,
you will get more of a feeling for when to simply add a new brush,
or when to start a whole new Paint element.
It is a good idea to begin a new Paint element for each component
of a complex image.
Bitmaps
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Bitmaps should not be used for animations.
You can animate the image on a bitmap inside the editor,
but when the bitmap is exported to a flash file,
its image will not change.
Movies
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When you create a movie element, the new movie becomes a child of the main movie,
and it acts just like any other element. It is transparent and plays over the top of the
parent movie while the parent movie continues to play.
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The child movie's details are saved in the main movie file.
There is no need to save a child movie separately.
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You can create animated buttons by using movie elements for each of the different states
of the button. When the button changes state, the movie for the new state will begin playing.
Fonts
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Insane Flash Animator uses only TrueType fonts.
If you want to have a wider choice of fonts,
then please download more fonts from the popular download
sites on the internet.
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Flash files contain the shape of every letter,
so text will appear the same on every computer.
Fonts do not need to be installed on the viewer's computer.
Optimizing perfomance
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Movies playing within the editor play with a variable frame rate.
When movies are exported and played in a flash player, they play with the set frame rate.
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A movie's performance playing within the editor does not always reflect its performance playing in a flash player.
Be sure to test the movie playing in a browser before coming to any conclusions.
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Feathering and 3D effects cannot be directly exported to flash.
Instead they are exported as bitmaps.
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Morphing an element that uses feathering or 3D effects will cause
each frame of the morph to be exported as a bitmap. This may result
in very large flash files.
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Try to fill shapes using the 'Shape fill' rather than the 'Point fill' paint tool.
Using 'Point fill' can result in much larger flash files,
particularly with images that are moving or morphing.
Coming soon
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Insane Flash Animator is rapidly developing and many new features
will be made available over the next few months.
New releases will appear every few weeks.
Please stay tuned to our website for the hottest new versions and the latest news.
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New features coming soon are:
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A mask element
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A flash edit box and flash html
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A frame by frame animation editor
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Expressions, variables and conditions in the action list
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Full Javascript programming
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Real 3D modelling and animation
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Improved sound mixing
