Wild FX Pro

www.wildform.com

Maureen Shannon, NJCPUG

 I have several flash products. They range from simple and basic to difficult. The simple application works well but doesn’t do anything I really find exciting. I also have two others, one I can’t begin to understand and the other, while difficult to understand it does make some nice effects but it crashes all the time and is unstable. Not much of a choice! I readily admit that I am timeline challenged and need something that works easily. So when I got into a discussion about flash banners recently this made me realize I had to find a better way to make them for our web site. I began the hunt for “the better mousetrap”. Amazingly enough, I found it!

I found a product called Wild FX Pro from WildForm. I liked what I saw immediately. I was impressed with the extremely large variety of effects and the user comments quoted on the site were very good. I do read these things, I think it’s important to know what others think about applications. So I decided this was something worth taking a look at. I am very happy to report that it exceeds what I expected from it and it works great.

Recently I had to put an announcement on NJPCUG’s home page. I thought a flash banner would be the best choice for calling attention to it. So here I was faced with the need to put up the announcement right away and limited resources to do it with.  I wanted to use a flash banner, that much I was sure of. Without thinking, I opened the product I had been using previously and after it crashed three times on me, I gave up in despair. I had only downloaded Wildfx Pro the night before and hadn’t even looked at it yet so I wasn’t sure how it worked or if it would be difficult to use without any real time to study it.  It was now 7 in the morning and I had been up all night doing web work and other group related things and I was not in the mood to try and learn a new product when I could barely see straight. But since I needed something right away, I installed WildFX Pro and decided to take a look at it.

Installation requires an installation code from them and you must be online to do the install. It prevents piracy and while it’s not my favorite way of installing things, it works just fine. I had the application installed and up and running in a few minutes. This is a downloadable product. The whole process is very easy to do. You buy it, they send you the code, you enter the code during the downloadable installation, and you are up and running.  The reason I don’t care for doing it this way is that my ISP continually disconnects me during uploads and downloads. It is very annoying and extremely frustrating. Luckily when I installed this I didn’t have any problems. The second reason is that my SIG computer is not connected to the internet and in order to demonstrate products at our meetings, I would need online access for products that install in this manner. Since the SIG computer is only used for meetings, it has no line to the internet.

Now I had to figure out how to use it. I looked at the interface, it was very straightforward and didn’t look difficult to use at all. I wondered if I was missing something because it wasn’t confusing or difficult to do. I entered the text I wanted to use and tried a variety of effects from the “Custom” selection. As I went down the list, it became a very difficult choice to select just one. Each was unique. I have never seen so many styles nor have I seen anything to equal these effects. They are excellent. Every time I thought I found an effect that was sure to be the one, I’d look at a few more and find another one that was even better! That’s the hardest part about using Wild FX Pro, deciding on an effect!

Two examples shown below: S4 flares and S4 butterflies. Both of these are in use on our web site in my graphics SIG section if you want to seem them running to get the full effect.

All the changes I wanted to make were all on the first tab of the interface. The font attributes were editable. I could change the font size, style, and the stroke and fill colors with just a few steps. The background color could be changed or an image could be used to replace a colored background. The size of the movie is also set here. It’s all right there and easy to do. You also make your export file type selection from the “Main” tab. Choices are Video or SWF (flash). I didn’t have to search through tabs for the attributes I wanted to edit. There are others tabs on the interface. The second tab is for a video output, the second for SWF output options, the third tab is for customizing, and the last tab has the HTML output selections.  In order to add the .swf file to your web page, you need to copy and past the information from the html page into your page – if you are using a page other then the one generated with the file.

It took me just a few minutes time to create a flash banner and then add it to the web page. It was fast and simple to use. No crashing or difficulty understanding what to do with it. I would give this an A+ rating right off the bat! It’s problem free and exceptionally easy to work with. It’s the perfect answer to the prayers from those of us who don’t have time to waste on difficult applications.

Each effect is visible when you highlight it.  A preview box opens on the screen with the text you have entered. Each new effect selected is displayed in the open preview box so that you can see the effect run. You have the option to loop the file or run it once. Some effects will do the main effect in a single loop and have a small effect that will continue to run in the background even with a single play which is really great.

Features of Wild FX Pro:

  Wild FX Pro Video and Text Animator

            Comes with 417 built-in effects

            Exports video and Flash .swf files

            Works with our installed fonts

            Easy to use – just enter your text and select an effect

            Make advanced text animations without any programming knowledge

            Lets you create your own effects templates

            Includes over 40 infinitely customizable effects

            Savable settings files

            Support for double-byte characters such as Japanese and Chinese

            200 additional text effects are available in the Wild FX Power Effects Pack

            Available for Windows and Mac

Video Output Features

            Outputs videoformats: .mov, .avi, .dv, .mp4, and image sequences

            Alpha channel support for creating transparent backgrounds for use with

Non-linear editing software

            Previews with title safe area

            Safe color output option

            Add fades to exported video

            Easily adjusts to NTSC and PAL framerates

            Bilinear filter to smooth edges on text

WildFX  comes with 417 installed effects. 176 of these are standard effects, 196 are dynamic effects, and 45 are custom effects. Each has a letter code icon in front of it do identify which type of effect it is. Standard effects have an “S”, dynamic effects have a “D”, and the custom effects have either a “C1” or a “C2”.

As I experimented with it, I found I could use it in a lot of ways other than just adding an animated text banner. One of the flash demo applications I have has an option to link to a flash file and use it as an introduction or an end effect. This will work great with that application. And RoboDemo has a built in option to include an animated introduction with a variety of effects. I found several of the RoboDemo animated effects that I like very much are part of the WildFX effects. They are licensed to eHelp. By looking at the SWF tab, I discovered that it had the option to link the flash animation to a previously created flash .swf file. I was able to make lots of other effects and have an introduction created in WildFX lead into my RoboDemo flash file by using the link option. This is the first flash animation product that I have had that allowed me to link to other files. This feature is very handy! It also adds that something extra to a flash movie.

I concentrated on creating flash files and didn’t go into the video options. When I realized this I went back to WildFX and made some avi’s. But as I played around with intro’s for some of the avi’s movies I made, they some how ended up as flash files! The avi’s were just as easy to create and it wasn’t that I had any difficulties, it’s just that I really love the flash files and keep making them. Most of my other avi’s are entirely too large to put up on the web site so that you could see an actual example using a banner at the beginning of it. I took my PC camera and made a few movies of my birds but they ended up to be enormous and not something I would have the patience to download so I wouldn’t expect it of others. So for the time being I just used .swf files for examples.

Please visit the Wildform web site to learn more about WildFX and their other products. From what I’ve seen from the one I am using now, they are outstanding. I am extremely happy with this product and how easy it is for me to create an exceptionally nice banner in minutes. If you like flash text banners and are looking for the perfect product to make them with, I’d highly recommend that you take a look at WildFX. I think you too will be very impressed and pleased with it.  

Click here to view a demo of WildFX Pro.