Scene-based, 0bject-oriented Animation and Interactive Authoring

FlareWorks has an original easy-to-use interface that makes it easy to stay focused on the creativity of making animated presentations with intuitive interactivity. FlareWorks is a fantastic web and multimedia development tool for creating library sets of reusable templates of animated objects, effects and paths.

Animation Made Easy

Apply a path to an object, set the beginning and ending speed, location and time . . . that's it. No "key frames" to set and the Flare timelines visually display every effect's beginning and ending points. Adding a second or third path to an existing object will automatically use the ending values of the previous path for the beginning values of the appended path. Likewise scale, skew, rotate and other effects can be appended so that the combined animation appears continuous in its speed and movement over time.

Shareable Movies, Scenes, Objects, Paths & Combo Effects

Any combination of effects that makes up the composite behavior of an object can be saved as a template to be duplicated and modified for other scenes or projects. You can create your own library of useful object behaviors and exchange any flare object with other flare developers. A combination of object attributes and effects is an object style that can be used again and again in different scenes and on different objects. An entire scene that may consist of multiple object behaviors can likewise be saved and shared. A complex menu system could be created, saved, and loaded for another project, then just modify the menu's images, text, and/or links . . .you're ready to go.

Movie Composition

Composing a movie can be approached in different ways depending on whether existing elements are loaded or new elements are created. The process usually involves clicking on a button or dragging and dropping a item on a timeline which causes a small dialogue window to display to fill-in additional values for various properties and attributes. A possible workflow for a linear presentation would be as follows:

1. New Movie:	Fill in the name, dimensions, and frames-per-second (FPS).
2. New Scene:	Fill in the name, background image or color, start and stop time.
3. Create Objects:	Add Images, Text, Shapes, or Lines with default or new attributes
4. Place Objects:	Drag on drop on Timeline, set or adjust their layering
5. Apply Object Paths:	Apply paths, setting the starting and ending locations and speed.
6. Apply Object Effects:	Apply audio, scaling, skewing, fading and rotational animation and speed.
7. Playback Scene:	Play composition for a segment or entire scene with or without sound.
8. Modify Scene:	Adjust paths, effects, and layering for desired animations and effects.
9. New Scene:	Add 2nd and 3rd Scene as the first.
10. Add Transitions:	Select and drag and drop a transition between scenes on the movie timeline.
11. Add Movie Audio:	Drag and drop selected audio to the movie timeline.
12. Playback Movie:	Play composition for a segment or the entire movie with or without sound.
13. Finalize Movie:	Select any scene, object, path, effect or audio for final modification.
14. Publish Movie:	Make an Animated GIF, AVI, or SWF (Macromedia Flash) File.

Interactivity can be added by applying events and actions to object and frames. Any object can become " hot" by dragging and dropping a mouse event on that object, then setting the rollover, down or up attributes and what actions these events trigger. Likewise a frame can have an action applied that may jump the play to another frame, URL, or movie. An action can even change the value of another object. s color, opacity, or scale.

Multiple Timeline Views

Flareworks has three separate times line views. Scene View provides the big picture, for adding transitions between scenes and laying down audio across multiple scenes. Object View provides the view of all the objects that have been applied to a scene. Effects View is where animation effects can be added and modified, individual animated objects can be tested, the entire scene can be tested, or short segments (clips) can be previewed. Playback of the entire movie is possible with or without the audio. All of the views make it possible to define a play segment and then playback a scene or a portion of a scene, all or only selected objects. Effects View makes it possible to not only select an individual or group of objects for playback, but additional previews can be made by turning on or off individual effects assigned to a selected object. Interactively the best effect and best animation for an object can be decided by viewing it one way then the other.

Audio

FlareWorks will import audio files created externally and previously saved as WAV. An audio file can be applied to an object or a frame. The file can be set to autoplay when the object is active on the timeline.  A frame or interactive object can have an event which is set to stop or change any playback attribute of a named audio file in the current movie.

Transitions

Flare Transitions simulate many of the popular video effects that are used to visually change from one scene to another. Speed and other values can be set for each type of transition. A transition may fade-in to a color or gradient fill then fade out to reveal all the objects on the new scene, even while animation may be in progress. Flare provides for the following transition types:

Checker Board Across		Checkerboard Down
Horizontal Curtains In		Horizontal Curtains Out
Vertical Curtains In		Vertical Curtains Out
Circle In		Circle Out
Rectangle In		Rectangle Out
Dissolve to Color		Dissolve to Scene
Venetian Blinds Close		Venetian Blinds Open
Horizontal Blinds Close		Horizontal Blinds Open
Cover Up	Cover Down	Cover Right	Cover Left
Wipe Up	Wipe Down	Wipe Right	Wipe Left
Push Up	Push Down	Push Right	Push Left
Reveal Up	Reveal Down	Reveal Right	Reveal Left

Standard Objects

FlareWorks comes with many objects that are easy to generate and modify including Text, Images, Clip-Art, Lines, Shapes, and Buttons . After the objects are created, named and set with initial attributes, animation paths can be assigned with multiple effects such as scale, fade, skew, rotate or fill. All animation properties can be change over time. Interactive Text and Buttons are complex objects that are preconfigured with popular visual and interactive effects. These objects can automatically generate multi-state mouse effects with sound, actions, and visual changes.

Special Objects

Special Objects are Flare templates that combine one or more objects with different preset effects and sometimes pre-configured paths. These Object show up on the timeline as one object and have one dialog window to change all their values. Any object created with FlareWorks that has multiple effects and/or paths can be saved as a Special Object in a library for reloading or to share with other FlareWorks Developers.  Select from a variety of templates text effects, slide shows, or animations.  FlareWorks has many combinations of text effects to make words squeezed in, flyout, screech to a stop, or be typed in a character at a time. These can be selected, loaded and modified with new text.

Paths

The are many types of paths that can be copied, pasted, modified and saved in the Path Library even before they are applied to an object. Simple dialogs are presented to create a path between any to points on or off the viewing area of the movie. These Direct Paths can be used to create animations that goes from top to bottom or left to right for instance. The Curved Paths are similar to the direct with the addition of being able to set the level of curve between the two points. The Elliptical Paths are used to create paths for circling clockwise or counter clockwise and for creating paths that spiral outside in or from the center out. The Wave Paths are used to create a wave-like motion between two points where you can determine the number of times the paths peaks and any changes in amplitude before getting to the finish point. Wave Paths are great for creating a bouncing up and down motion or swinging back and forth whether it once or twice or ten different times. This is all done by configuring and apply one path. The Plotted Paths allow you to set 12 points in order of progression on or off the viewing area. The movement from point to point can be set to be a sharp direct path or a smoother curved path. In all paths, relative beginning and ending speeds can be set and the number of cycles for repeating or reversing the movement along the path.

Standard Effects

There are many visual effects that can be changed over time with various speeds. The object's Scale, Skew, Rotation, Fade, Fill, Outline, Color and Brightness can all be changed over time. The result could be an object moving along a designated path while it is fading in and rotating clockwise as it enlarges to 300% its original size.

Special Effects

Any combination of effects that makes up the composite behavior of an object can be saved as a template to be duplicated and modified for other scenes or projects. A combination of object attributes and effects is an object's style. A combination of effects can be saved and used again and again in different scenes on different objects. A saved Special Effect could have a specific gradient, outline width and color, and opacity setting that is applicable to different shapes that are going to have the same visible look. A Special Effect likewise could incorporate the combination of a path with a rotation effect over time that is to be applied to 2 or 3 separate objects. Many Special Effects come with Flareworks. Some of them are:

Flyby-over:	Object enlarges while moving from center to top of screen
Flyby-left:	Object enlarges while moving from center to left of screen
Flyaway-under:	Object shrinks while moving center to bottom of screen
Flyaway-right:	Object shrinks while moving from center to left of screen
Slide to stop:	Object is skewed one way as it races on screen then it quickly shifts the other way depicting the impact of the stop until the skew bounces to normal.

Flare Creation Tools

Though FlareWorks comes with many modifiable objects and effects, and a developer can make his own Special Object and Special Effects by the using the timeline construction, FlareWorks includes extra powerful creative tools to easily make modifiable Special Objects and Special Effects. These include Flare Clip-Art Creator^TM, FlareSequencer^TM, Flare MovieObjects^TM, and the Flare Multi-Flyer^TM .

Flare Clip-Art  Creator^TM

FlareWorks^TM makes it possible to create and use Flare Clip-Art^TM . Flare Clip-Art are importable vector-based objects that are vary small in actual KB size which can easily be scaled, faded, or rotated over time. Flare Clip-Art can be created and utilized to optimize size and playback of Flare Movies. Hundres of Flare Clip-Art items are ready to load and modify. More and more will become available as FlareWorks development increases.

Flare Sequencer^TM

FlareWorks^TM makes it easy to create and move an animated clip, sometimes called a sprite. The Flare Sequencer^TM allows you to sequence imported JPGs or Flare Clip-Art and set individual playback intervals between each image and apply this as one object on the timeline. A completed sequence could be the looping of a butterfly flapping its wings, then a flight path could be assigned to this sequence object so that the butterfly flys across the screen. Other effects could be applied to a sequence object, changing, for instance, the opacity or scale over time.

FlareMovie Objects^TM

FlareWorks^TM includes a scene-in-a-scene feature, called FlareMovie Objects^TM . This makes it possible to have objects in one scene communicate with a another scene while both scenes are playing. An animation sequence in a Flare Movie Object can be played, stopped, or jumped to another frame interactively by using interactive objects that are in a another scene. Paths and all the visible effects can be applied to a Flare Movie Object just like a Flare Object, including effect changes over time. A "Movie-in-Window " effect can be created by turning any Scene into a Flare Movie Object, then add the Flare Movie Object to another standard scene.

Flare Multi-Flyer^TM

The most creative and powerful feature of FlareWorks^TM is the Flare Multi-Flyer^TM , affectionately called "The Cloner". This tool makes it possible to simultaneous create mutliple related objects with mutliple effects by selecting just a few options and pressing the create button. The Multi-Flyer can clone a single object into many objects or break-apart text characters or words into separate objects, instantly applying pre-configured animations. Multiple cloned objects could be created and requested to randomly over time change size, rotation, and location until they all converge at the same destination. This random feature could be applied to the beginning or the end of a Multi-Flyer, multi-object, multi-effect creation. A simple text-explosion for instance is created by simply requesting that random paths be applied with similar ending distance but random ending locations. An object and any or all of its effects can be cloned with similar or different begining or ending displacements. Multiple cloned objects could be requested to fly on to the screen with increasing opacity and size every quarter of a second by pressing one button. The Flare Multi-Flyer^TM is the simpliest, most creative, most powerful multi-object, multi-effect animation tool ever made! You've got to try it to believe it!

Flare Publishing

Flare can be used to generate Macromedia's Flash (SWF) files . Flash Publishing provides for the auto-creation of the HTML page that calls the embedded FLASH (.swf) file. All of the Flare files for Movies, Scenes, Objects, Paths and Combo Effects are saveable as Flare Movies (FLR) which is a Flare format that can be read and modified by FlareWorks or FlareExpress. Flare Movies are reloadable and shareable with anybody using a Flare product but can only be created and full edited with FlareWorks.

TrueType Fonts

Flare Text Objects can integrate any TrueType font. Your Web pages can have dazzling headlines and animated text, that download faster than bitmapped graphics. Flare supports formatting for alignment, bold, italics, underline, text color and outline color.

Compatible File Types