In today's lesson, you will learn how to create a flash banner online for a beginner without knowledge of flash animation and without special programs (read). It should be mentioned that there are a large number of generators on the Internet that allow you to create banners, including in the flash (swf) format, but most of them are in English without support for Russian fonts. I was specifically looking for a service in which I could create a banner with Russian text.
Let me remind you that banners are graphic advertising of a website, blog or any other web page. Animated banners can be in flash format (swf) and in the form of gif-animation (read - this service will help you create a gif-banner). Banner advertising on the Internet is widespread and effective enough.
To create a flash banner online, follow the link.
In the Banner Now generator, click on the “Create Banner Now” button.
On the new page, select the size of the future banner.
You can choose one of the standard banner sizes or specify your own settings. Here you can also choose a banner background and clipart or upload your own. To do this, put a tick in front of the item Custom background , select the category of pictures from the proposed ones (animals, food, backgrounds, animals, buttons, etc.) or load using the button upload files .
Click the “create banner” button again.
So we got into the flash banner editor. If you are not satisfied with the choice of your background, then you can choose a new one. Under the working area of the document, you will find the Image Gallery and the Upload files button (upload your photo to the editor). After adding the background, edit its position and size by dragging the mouse over the edges of the image.
Use the Preview Banner to control the work in between. 
To the right of the work area, we see the layers. You can adjust transparency (alpha property), change the sequence of layers and delete unnecessary ones.
To the left of the work area, you see a slide track. By default, there is 1 slide in the banner. You can add slides, duplicate, delete, change the duration of a slide. To remove or add a slide, click on the settings icon in the lower right corner of the slide:
Change the duration of the slide by changing the time near the clock icon (also found under the slide).
At the top of the work area, you see the effects for the text. They are categorized:
- appear (appearance),
- stay (static)
- disappear (disappearance).
If you click on the button next to effects, you can select an effect for the image.
After adding text, you select its color, size, font, location in the settings to the left of the workspace.
When you have created a flash banner online, you need to download it. Click on the download banner (swf) button.
Here we put down the settings: 
- autoplay (autoplay),
- repeat (repeat),
- button mode,
- banner hyperlink (the page the banner will link to),
- open url in new page (open the page in a new window),
- use preload (use page load image),
- send cope of banner to my e-mail (send a copy of the banner to my e-mail).
Here's a banner we got:
I offer you several more flash banner generators with Russian language support:
- www.animationonline.com
- www.lact.ru/banner/en
- www.flash-banner-maker-online.com/customsizebanner3.php
These services are easier to use, so no instructions for use are required.
If you have any questions, you can ask them in the comments.
Video tutorial on working with the service
Here is such a flash drive I received in the SWF Text program
Wait for the complete download. Don't forget to turn on the sound !!!
I used SWF Text to create this flash drive. I learned about the program itself and how to work in it from the message
(Thanks for the link * NIKA *)
SWF Text is a program for creating animated Flash text. You can use more than 150 text effects and more than 20 background effects, you can change all the properties of the text at your discretion, including font, color, format, etc.
With SWF Text, without any Flash experience, you can easily create a beautiful banner or intro page in minutes. All you need to do is enter text, choose a font, and adjust the effects.
Therefore, in blogs, we usually place a picture when clicking on which we get to the Address of the flash drive itself.
Therefore, the sequence of actions is as follows ...
1. Save the USB flash drive in SWF format
2. In addition, we need a picture
(which means we will save our flash drive to your computer in GIF format additionally)
Now we need to define our flash drive somewhere on the Internet so that it has a legitimate Address.
For this purpose, I used my diary on Lyra.
We do it like this ...
In the diary on LiRu, open a new entry, and attach a USB flash drive (SWF) as a picture:
... (in full form, under the entry on the right side there is a "Attach file" window,
open the "Browse" window, find your flash drive, click on it),
and save it to Draft.
Then we go to Draft - our flash drive is already there, only a small one ... and it plays
We open it for editing, increase its size, and publish it in the diary.
From here we also take the address of the flash drive on the Internet, so that later on in blogs we can refer to it when making a banner.
Now about the second part - the GIF image.
It turned out to be very heavy for me - (more than 5 MB) and about - 80 layers.
The task is to lighten the picture.
For this I
1) reduced the number of layers to 20 (i.e., 4 times), and the time of each frame had to be increased accordingly by 4 times.
2) reduced the size of the image itself (although it was possible not to do this).
As a result, the weight of the picture decreased 10 times and became equal to 586 KB
(for comparison, almiria the picture weighs 3.22 MB, i.e. 6 times larger - but it is also more beautiful and larger in size).
There must be a reasonable compromise here.
In principle, using the AVI video format, you can upload a USB flash drive to Video.Mey.ru like this. how i did it in
Have you ever wondered what is hidden behind the beautiful animation of banners on the Internet? Or newfangled cartoons created using computer technology? Most often, they are based on "flesh", or rather, this is how the name of the Flash technology is translated from English. Today we are going to talk about flash animation for a website:
Flash technology
The multimedia framework was developed by Macromedia. But after its acquisition (merger), all rights to the technology were transferred to the new owner - Adobe Systems.
The area of modern use of Adobe Flash:
- The creation of web applications is a fairly new direction. Includes full or partial use of Flash to create websites. In partial application, using this technology, individual design elements are created: various interactive menus, animated buttons, etc.
Compared to conventional html-based resources, flash sites have some features that limit their use. This includes the high cost of development, demanding server resources, long download times with slow Internet connections, and some other aspects:
- Implementation of multimedia capabilities - for listening to audio and playing video on sites, media players created on the basis of Flash are often used. Their development includes the use of one of the scripting languages (usually JavaScript):
- In online advertising, the technology is most often used to create animated banners. They imply not only the playing of multimedia advertisements, but also some kind of interaction with the user based on the game.
Flash development framework and toolkit
To create Flash animations, the traditional tools from Adobe are most often used:
- Adobe Flash Professional - a program for creating interactive animation (animator);
- Adobe Flash Builder - an environment for creating a web application interface;
- Adobe Flash Player is a browser-integrated player for playing Flash.
In addition to it, a number of third-party applications can play this type of multimedia content. The most popular of these are Gnash, QuickTime, and a few others:
This technology allows you to display any type of graphics ( raster, vector, 3D). And also supports streaming relaying of audio and video data. A light version of Flash Lite has been developed specifically for mobile devices.
The main standard for Flash files is the SWF extension. The abbreviation stands for Small Web Format. Video recorded in Flash has file extensions FLV, F4V.
Vector graphics are at the heart of the development of interactive animation on Flash. It is thanks to this that it was possible to implement support for the multimedia platform and the independence of the animation quality from the screen resolution.
The file size of the Flash application is the same for all users regardless of the screen specification (resolution).
Flash interactive animation is based on morphing (vector type), in which there is a slow flow between keyframes. To play the data, a flash player is used, the operation of which is in many ways similar to the operation of the JavaScript virtual machine. The software component of the technology is implemented using the ActionScript language.
The disadvantages of the technology include the following points:
- Heavy load on the central processor of the client machine. This is due to the low efficiency of the flash virtual machine, which is embedded together with the player into the user's browser;
- High probability of errors - Flash animation can be played with a high probability of errors. Moreover, failures in Flash playback negatively affect the operation of the entire client application (browser). This is due to insufficient control of the fault tolerance of the program code when creating flash applications;
- Failure to index - All text content displayed in Flash content does not participate in the indexing process. This limitation is especially problematic for those resources that are based on this technology.
Overview of Third Party Flash Creation Software
Sothink SWF Quicker was taken as a prototype application for demonstrating the basics of creating Flash. According to many professionals, the program is the most understandable and easiest to learn.
In addition to creating and editing, the flash editor "knows how" to work with all other types of web animation (GIF, HTML and other standards):
After installation, go to the friendly interface of the program. Unfortunately, after wandering through all the nooks and crannies of the interface language switcher, we did not find it.
In order to understand how to make Flash animation in this application, we will use the built-in templates. The "New From Template" dialog box appears immediately after starting the program. In addition, it can be called through the main menu item "File". Among the proposed options, we have chosen to create a banner:
In the next window of the wizard, from the drop-down list, you need to select a template according to which the animation will be created. Below it is a small frame in which the selected template is played:
In the next steps, you need to set the dimensions of the banner and enter 5 phrases of text that will be played in the animation. In addition, you must specify the address of the resource to which the user will be led by clicking on the banner:
After compiling the project and closing the wizard window, you can view the resulting video in the built-in player. To do this, click on the green arrow at the top:
After closing the player, let's take a closer look at the application interface. Please note that it consists of two main windows: the upper one is intended for editing the time interval of the video, and the lower one is a normal graphics editor. Each of the elements is located on a separate layer, which can be modified using the standard tools located on the side panel:
The created flash animation for the site can be published. The publishing method can be selected by clicking on the "Publish" button at the top. There are three options to choose from, including insertion into the html code. Detailed configuration of this process is available in a separate window "Publish Settings".
Probably everyone has seen some kind of advertising animation on the sites, when you hover the mouse cursor over which something starts to change in it. Or played online applications / games on sites (social networks or others). Even if you go to this site using a non-existent link such as you will be taken to approximately the same page, created on the basis of flash animation technology. And they have a file with the SWF extension. This article describes what kind of file it is, how to open it (for example, play a toy offline) and how to change it (for fans).
What is a .swf file?
SWF file - Flash animation created with Adobe flash or another program for developing flash applications. Flash movies can contain both plain text and vector, bitmap images, 3D graphics (limited), audio, video, scripts in ActionScript.
The Flash platform has become very widespread in the field of creating interactive applications. These can be flash cartoons, games, videos (.FLV format files), web sites created in whole or in part using this technology.
Well, then follow the instructions from the site.
To open it, start the browser (it is desirable to create a new tab in it), "take" LMB for your swf file and drag it to the browser.
Option 2
Through the program.
There are 2 good programs for opening such files - this (the office did not find the site) and.
As for the second - it is free, but English-speaking and the developers have hammered something, they stopped releasing updates on it and it will go for a maximum of XP.
If you get lost on the manufacturer's website and don't find how to download this program:
select the Downloads tab in the top menu
Most users of computer systems, one way or another, have come across Flash-animation. In this format, many cartoons, banners on websites or even simple Internet games are made. But what exactly are SWF files and how are they created or edited if you need to make some changes to the finished project? This and much more will be discussed below.
What are SWF files?
Few people think about what a SWF animation file really is, considering it a regular video.
In fact, the files themselves are compiled derivatives of the original FLA format, which, in turn, is a project in which you can see and change the original structure. Naturally, this requires some kind of SWF file editor. But which one? Today, there are so many programs for creating and editing Flash-animation that it is quite easy to get confused in them.
How to open a SWF file?
We will return to the editors a bit later. For now, let's look at how to open a SWF file in the simplest situation. There are at least two options: either use a software player that supports this format (KMPlayer), or start playback in a web browser.
In the second case, for correct playback, a prerequisite is the presence of the installed Flash Player plug-in from Adobe or its analogue in the form of the Macromedia Flash extension, which, in general, is the same.
The principle of editing a finished Flash movie
Now a few words about how, in general terms, the editing of the finished project is carried out. The editor of SWF projects of the most primitive type simply cannot open the file, since the finished SWF file, as already mentioned, is compiled and contains a minimum of information about the initial structure.
Thus, before using the simplest SWF file editor, you first need to translate the finished file, so to speak, into a readable form. In other words, it needs to be decompiled into its original FLA form. For this, special utilities are used, which will be discussed separately.
The best editors to create animations from scratch
Nevertheless, to create a video (and not edit it) at the initial stage, both the simplest applications and entire professional-grade software packages can be used.
All of them cannot be described, but among the programs intended for this, several of the most popular can be distinguished:
- Alligator Flash Designer.
- SWiSH Max.
- Adobe Flash Professional.
- Corel R.A.V.E.
- Sony Vegas Pro.
Alligator Flash Designer
This SWF editor in Russian of all those presented below is the simplest and is intended mainly for quickly creating animated banners that will be used on sites on the Internet.
There are not so many tools at the disposal of a novice web designer, nevertheless, there are about one hundred and thirty different effects, the ability to create animated text, pictures or insert soundtracks. The interface is extremely simple and straightforward, so this particular application is very well suited for mastering the basics of creating this type of animation.
SWiSH Max
This animation file editor is very similar to the previous utility, although it looks a little more complicated for a beginner.
With it, you can create more professional, good quality work. Any user can deal with it due to the fact that the application itself provides for the presence of video tutorials that explain the basics of creating animation videos.
Adobe Flash Professional
The Adobe Flash SWF file editor is a professional-grade software package that not everyone can master the first time.
There are so many tools in his arsenal that many professional web designers and animators believe that any fantasy can be realized with their help. By the way, if you look at the world ratings of software in this area, it is the Adobe Flash applications of the CS and CC series that are the undisputed leaders.
Corel R.A.V.E.
Before us is another professional SWF editor with capabilities comparable to the previous package from Adobe.
Of the most interesting, we can note the possibility of drawing two-dimensional objects, determining their movement along a predetermined path, snapping to a specified path, creating a double of an animated object to change only the size, color or location, after which the program automatically performs the necessary transformations and animates the image. Naturally, this is not all that this application is capable of. You can study it and admire more and more new possibilities for a very long time.
Sony Vegas Pro
This package for working with video certainly needs no introduction. Even those who have never worked with this type of multimedia know about it. Of course, this is not a SWF editor as such, but it does have tools for creating animation, and they are quite worthy of attention.
The program allows you to create and edit animation videos (in this case, the emphasis is on them) using more than 200 effects, editing can be done on the basis of 8-bit mode, and at the finalization stage, to improve the quality, switch to 32-bit. You can also apply color filters to eliminate differences in different fragments, set the storyboard frequency at 30 fps and higher, and also set a variety of aspect ratios, including even transformations and transitions between them (4: 3, 16: 9, 16: 10), etc. In general, there are enough tools.
Additional utilities for working with Flash
Speaking about creating and editing animation videos, one cannot ignore some additional utilities that may be useful in work. In particular, this concerns the conversion of the final SWF file to the original FLA project format by decompilation (code formatting), as well as some additional tools used to improve the image quality and reduce the size of the final file without losing quality.
Among the most essential programs are the following:
- Flash Decompiler Trillix.
- Sothink SWF Decompiler.
- Flash Optimizer.
- Sparkle SWF Optimizer.
Flash decompiler trillix
A novice user will need this program to convert a SWF file to FLA format so that the project can be opened even in the simplest editor and make the necessary changes to it.
In fact, it is an advanced converter with editor capabilities, in which changes can be made on the fly. It can also be used to perform batch conversion. And all this is done without the obligatory installation of Adobe and Macromedia plugins.
Sothink SWF Decompiler
This program is also a decompiler-editor, however, it is paid. Its possibilities are very interesting. It is focused on quickly creating or editing banners, videos and even Flash games.
For beginners, the application provides for the presence of a special "Wizard" based on the choice of the type and structure of the future project from the available templates. In addition, you can work with source code, apply all sorts of filters, effects, or create vector images in a special WYSIWYG environment.
Flash Optimizer and Sparkle SWF Optimizer
These two small utilities, as the name implies, are some kind of optimizers that allow you to reduce the size of the finished SWF file to save space without losing quality. They are especially useful to all those who post their work on the Internet or are engaged in the creation of banners and online Flash-format games.
According to the official websites of the developers, these utilities allow you to compress and reduce the size of the original object by as much as 70%. They have several types of optimization using automatic transformation after setting the necessary parameters.
What to use?
Finally, the most important question is: "Which of all this to choose?" We think that novice animators and web designers should start with the simplest utilities. For those who are at least a little versed in creating and editing SWF movies, professional utilities are no doubt suitable. Here the choice is up to the user. However, if you wish and study the reference information that is available in most of the presented applications, it is very easy to master the work with them. But which editor is better? By right, the palm belongs to the developments of Adobe, although the rest of the editors and decompilers should not be discounted.
