* Luck Monkey Designs Flash content creator
In previous issues of this newsletter, I’ve written about several utilities and Web server components that produce Flash content. Today I have another utility that is designed to make creating Flash content easy and is one of the most powerful Flash tools I’ve seen in this market.
The tool, from Lucky Monkey Designs (see editorial links below) is called Kool Moves. While not as complex as Macromedia’s Flash authoring tools, Kool Moves still presents a serious learning task.
To get you started there are tutorials and a number of examples of text animations and Web sites along with animated clip art and buttons. There are also “wizards” to help you build content although only two are available at present: A banner builder and a slideshow creator. You can also import Flash movies (SWF files) and Flash videos (FLV files) to use in your project.
Kool Moves comes with a library of action-script-based text effects, text effects templates, clip art items and buttons, and Web interface templates. To make it easier to create content based on your ability with the product and familiarity with Flash creation, there is a choice of four skill levels, from a wizard-driven process through to expert mode.
You can create mouse-over effects, include Flash MX 2004 action scripting, incorporate preloaders and even animate characters using skeletons inside shapes (a feature called “bones”).
Some of the demos are excellent, and at only $49 (actually, $39 during the company’s current promotion) Kool Moves is an incredible value!
