negush blog

My colleagues who went to present our brand new component, FlashEff, to the world, came back two weeks ago from the Flashbelt and FITC conferences. Overall, it seems that many people got interested in it and everyone who heard about the project was very impressed with it. This is a good sign for us, especially since we’ve just launched the final version (so no more beta).

While we were working on the component, we had really useful input from people with high expertise in Fash and ActionScript, many of them highly regarded in the Flash community. So the difference between the FlashEff beta and the final version is very much based on their feedback. Thank you very much to all of you.

Of course, we cannot create a product that would please absolutely everybody in the Flash community, but we tried to do our best in creating a component that would be easy to use (especially for those new to Flash) and also, leave an open door to those experts who like to code more than use the visual workflow.

There is a free version that has 30 patterns, which you can use to create show/hide effects on text, apply filters on clips and create buttons from movie clips on the stage, fast and simple. You can download it from the component’s main page and test it out. If you’re happy with it and want more, you can even purchase a full version that includes all the current (100) and future patterns. Also, we’ve changed the initial pricing model and now you can purchase the component for 1, 6 and 12 months. Also, there’s an unlimited version of the component, which costs a little more than the rest. For more information, you can check out the component’s site: www.flasheff.com.

There are a few ways to create text effects using Flash, like alpha or blur animations, color changing, text scaling or moving text and these are relatively easy to do. But what happens if you’ve seen some fancy text effect on a site or even in a video clip, perhaps in a movie, and you want that exact effect in your Flash banner, presentation or site ? It is highly unlikely that the effect was made with Flash. Chances are it was made with some professional tool for video editing.

If you want to have that same effect replicated in Flash, that means you’re going to work for the next few nights and write a lot of code to get there. Yes… if you’re a Flash and ActionScript pro… But what if you’re a rookie… Maybe you’ve never written code before. What then ?

Then, you should use this great tool developed by us at Jumpeye Creative Media. It’s called TxEff. This is a Flash CS3 component (only works with ActionScript 3.0) which you can use to create amazing text effects in Flash, literally in a few minutes, with just a few mouse clicks and a few parameter settings. That’s how easy has become creating Flash text effects. The animation below took me 15 minutes to complete (including testing more parameters to get the effect I wanted and consulting the help pages to get more info on some parameters).

Another great thing about it is that there is a free version of the component, that comes with three patterns embedded into it. You can use these patterns to create a large number of effects, number limited only by your imagination. You can download the component from JumpeyeComponents’ site but you’ll need an account for that (if you don’t have one, go ahead an create it). On the same site, you have access to several tutorials to get you started, the component’s help pages and documentation on all the patterns and their presets. These patterns are actually extensions of the component, so you’ll need both the component and the pattern into the Library, to create an effect. JumpeyeComponents also has a Knowledge Base, containing solutions to a few common questions regarding TxEff.

Besides all these, the component’s site (www.txeff.com) is actually a large effects database, created by all the people visiting the site. If you like an effect there, you can easily import it into your project (just remember to have that pattern into your Library).

Let me give you a piece of advice: before starting to work with TxEff, try to go through the documentation. The component is quite complex, even though it is easy to use, and has a few limitations and requirements. Also try to check out some of the tutorials to get a better idea of what TxEff can do. If you’re having problems with integrating the component, you should read the documentation first or check out the knowledge base… Chances are that you’ll find the answer to your problem there. If not… JumpeyeComponents support team will happily help you out.

Download source files