Flash Intros

[php_noob]

Can I make Flash Intros in After Effects?

Like this one -> INTRO

or they were made from FLASH and AFTER EFFECTS combined?

[almostbob]

Flash sucks
flash intros penalise in search, annoy your customers
anything that makes the page load longer, kills customer retention

[JasonHippy]

Flash sucks
flash intros penalise in search, annoy your customers
anything that makes the page load longer, kills customer retention

heh heh, aside from that and actually staying on topic..heh heh!

I've never used after effects, so I couldn't comment on its functionality, but it's certainly possible to do an intro like that in flash. But you'd have to be bloody good to get something that looked as flashy looking as that behemoth of an intro!

That was a very professionally made intro..But its a shame it took so long to load...It should be noted that the flash intro you linked to there was more the kind of thing for use in a video presentation, a desktop flash app or perhaps a LAN based site rather than a web based flash site, it even said so on the web page.

If you're planning on doing an intro like this for a video presentation or a desktop flash app, then you should be OK, go ahead and give it a shot, the sky's your limit!

However; if you're doing this as an intro for a website, then you'd probably be better served doing something more optimised. As bob has already pointed out, if your intro doesn't load quickly, then potential users of your site will just leave...They won't wait!
Likewise, if the intro is too long (and especially if there's no 'skip intro' button), your users will just leave...unless the intro is really REALLY engaging! (Which most aren't!)

The other thing to consider if you're doing it for a website is, do you really need a flash intro on your site? Does it fit in with the design and feel of the site?

If you're doing an intro for the web you'll need to:

1. Ensure .swfs are as small as possible:
Obvioulsy, if the .swfs are small they will load more quickly.
You can optimise their filesizes by:
Using vector graphics wherever possible
Optimising any bitmap assets for the web
Using the lowest quality audio and video you can get away with
(Obviously, don't use too low quality or you'll scare people off, you just need to find the happy medium between a fast loading time and good enough quality!)

You can also break your project up into several smaller .swfs.

2. stream where possible:
stream any audio and video wherever you can rather than embedding it into your .swf.

3. Accessibility:
Is the content accessible?
e.g. could somebody use the keyboard to select the 'skip intro' button if the mouse was unavailable to them?

Further notes:
If your intro is part of a flash website (i.e. an entire website done in flash) you also need to make sure that the layout of the main website is intuitive...In the past there have been far too many flash websites that have had really wierd arty-farty interfaces that make no sense to anybody but the designer....Sure some of them looked pretty swish, but they made no sense. Or they used far too much animation and were too slow (to both load and run!).

As long as flash is done correctly for the web, there is absolutely nothing wrong with it...Unfortunately because flash got a bad rep many years ago due to slow loading, poorly designed sites implemented with equally poorly designed flash/actionscript code, many people see still flash as a bad thing! (And probably because there are still quite a few badly designed/badly implemented flash sites around!)

And of course the other thing to consider with a 100% flash site is what are you going to do if people don't have flash installed? Are you going to have a non-flash version of your site for people without flash? or are you simply going to write them off?

Search engines also have problems with 100% flash websites as they cannot search the sites for too much of the content (especially if the site is one HTML page and a bunch of .swf's)

Personally, I think flash is best saved for online games, streaming audio/video or other interactive content. Using it for animated intros and even entire websites is possible, but if you're going to do it you need to make sure you do it really well or you'll potentially drive people away from your website.

Cheers for now,
Jas.

[almostbob]

And of course the other thing to consider with a 100% flash site is what are you going to do if people don't have flash installed? Are you going to have a non-flash version of your site for people without flash? or are you simply going to write them off?

Good point
large corporates, many of who use flash in their websites block flash from being installed on pc on the lan
the big dollar customers won't see the fancy work
and may block the site entirely because of flash
I know the control I have over the access point between my lan and the www,
I do it to annoy my kids

Mr Php_noob,

That was the great explanation by Jason and almostbob.

You can make the flash intros like that you shown, only by alpha videos. The background animations are called alpha videos like png transparent. The only animation here made are the text which is co-ordinated with the video. Thats it!. But looks good! you can create intros without the video, that also looks nice for some websites. Follow the optimization technique explained by jason.

[php_noob]

Mr Php_noob,

That was the great explanation by Jason and almostbob.

You can make the flash intros like that you shown, only by alpha videos. The background animations are called alpha videos like png transparent. The only animation here made are the text which is co-ordinated with the video. Thats it!. But looks good! you can create intros without the video, that also looks nice for some websites. Follow the optimization technique explained by jason.

Thank you for the comments, I am not planning to do something like that anytime soon, well I am just curious on how they were made? I am using flash for presentations and not on website anymore...

Thanks for the Replies!!!

[php_noob]

heh heh, aside from that and actually staying on topic..heh heh!

I've never used after effects, so I couldn't comment on its functionality, but it's certainly possible to do an intro like that in flash. But you'd have to be bloody good to get something that looked as flashy looking as that behemoth of an intro!

That was a very professionally made intro..But its a shame it took so long to load...It should be noted that the flash intro you linked to there was more the kind of thing for use in a video presentation, a desktop flash app or perhaps a LAN based site rather than a web based flash site, it even said so on the web page.

If you're planning on doing an intro like this for a video presentation or a desktop flash app, then you should be OK, go ahead and give it a shot, the sky's your limit!

However; if you're doing this as an intro for a website, then you'd probably be better served doing something more optimised. As bob has already pointed out, if your intro doesn't load quickly, then potential users of your site will just leave...They won't wait!
Likewise, if the intro is too long (and especially if there's no 'skip intro' button), your users will just leave...unless the intro is really REALLY engaging! (Which most aren't!)

The other thing to consider if you're doing it for a website is, do you really need a flash intro on your site? Does it fit in with the design and feel of the site?

If you're doing an intro for the web you'll need to:

1. Ensure .swfs are as small as possible:
Obvioulsy, if the .swfs are small they will load more quickly.
You can optimise their filesizes by:
Using vector graphics wherever possible
Optimising any bitmap assets for the web
Using the lowest quality audio and video you can get away with
(Obviously, don't use too low quality or you'll scare people off, you just need to find the happy medium between a fast loading time and good enough quality!)

You can also break your project up into several smaller .swfs.

2. stream where possible:
stream any audio and video wherever you can rather than embedding it into your .swf.

3. Accessibility:
Is the content accessible?
e.g. could somebody use the keyboard to select the 'skip intro' button if the mouse was unavailable to them?

Further notes:
If your intro is part of a flash website (i.e. an entire website done in flash) you also need to make sure that the layout of the main website is intuitive...In the past there have been far too many flash websites that have had really wierd arty-farty interfaces that make no sense to anybody but the designer....Sure some of them looked pretty swish, but they made no sense. Or they used far too much animation and were too slow (to both load and run!).

As long as flash is done correctly for the web, there is absolutely nothing wrong with it...Unfortunately because flash got a bad rep many years ago due to slow loading, poorly designed sites implemented with equally poorly designed flash/actionscript code, many people see still flash as a bad thing! (And probably because there are still quite a few badly designed/badly implemented flash sites around!)

And of course the other thing to consider with a 100% flash site is what are you going to do if people don't have flash installed? Are you going to have a non-flash version of your site for people without flash? or are you simply going to write them off?

Search engines also have problems with 100% flash websites as they cannot search the sites for too much of the content (especially if the site is one HTML page and a bunch of .swf's)

Personally, I think flash is best saved for online games, streaming audio/video or other interactive content. Using it for animated intros and even entire websites is possible, but if you're going to do it you need to make sure you do it really well or you'll potentially drive people away from your website.

Cheers for now,
Jas.

Thank you for the courteous reply, unlike the others! ;)