Hi,

I have started doing web development as a freelancer. I want to create flash intros and website on my own. But I have a problem. I do not have knowledge of Flash. Can anyone please tell me some place or software from where I can get readymade flash intros or similar stuff at some nominal price?

Henry Norman

Have you considered Swish or Swift3D? These are packages that are easy to use, with an intuitive interface that is similar to Flash, that allow you to create Flash animations. Each package runs about $99-$150, I believe. I think you can download a trial version to try out, as well.

www.swift3d.com - Swift3D
www.swishzone.com - Swish, and Swish Max

The idea behind flash intros is to personalize your site with a flash intro that has some meaning to the content inside. That is hard to do with ready-made flash. It also cheapens the animation used from a marketing standpoint. The illustration that pops into mind is the TV term "all new" that we've been accosted with the past 5 years or so. It was a good term until every show was "all new".

So I'd echo the suggestion above, learn flash or an equivalent package. It's not overly difficult but it will take some time. And artistic ability. If you're lacking in one or both, normal non-animated pages are still very healthy and to many people preferred over flash pages (especially intro pages)

The other thing I'd warn against (this has been discussed here recently) is making flash websites. Use animation to enhance you site, but as an addition to a page, not the underlying technology. This thread is a discussion about just this topic. There are arguments on both sides -- see which side makes sense to you...

Another site you might check out is: http://www.flashkit.com/ - I have received a few great little programs there to help me understand flash

Hi there,

First of all, thanks to Jason Michael, Waltp and Corey Bryant for your valuable suggestions.
I have checked the link given by you. The templates at www.swishzone.com are very trendy but they are charging about $25 for each template that is very uneconomical.

I have also checked flashkit.com. But I couldn’t found any stuff of my interest there.

Once, I tried to learn flash and after learning basics of flash, I realized that it is very time consuming task and it didn’t seemed to be my cup of tea. Due to shortage of time, I need some readymade stuff or something, which could be customized to my needs as and when required.

You might be right in saying that flash is not desirable but the whole scenario is as follows:
I have a questionnaire wherein I ask my clients that whether they want to have a flash version of site or just a flash intro in addition to the other pages of the site and charge them accordingly. If the client agrees to have a flash version of the site or flash intro, then I have to get it done from some designer which is not affordable as I am left with very less amount of money after paying a big chunk to the designer. So, I am looking for a solution that could provide me with the flash websites and flash intros that could be customized to my needs as and when required.

Suggesting clients not to go for flash sites may result in great loss of my business.

So I invite some more suggestions from your side.

Henry Norman.

Then IMHO, you need to learn Flash or partner with someone who knows it. I doubt you're going to find a good samaritan to design a generic flash site for you to sell w/out charging you for his time. As you said, it's time consuming.

2nd problem, even if you do get a generic Flash site, who's going to "customize" it? You need to know Flash in order to change Flash.

I're recommend if you don't want to learn Flash, you remove the questions from your questionaire. If you surf the web, you'll find Flash is not used to the degree you think it is -- you can do quite well with HTML, ASP/PHP/PERL, and animated GIFs.

.. really WaltP!

As a web designer, I too recommend that you just go ahead and learn Flash. You'll probably be called upon to use Flash time and time again. It really isn't difficult, although it is time-consuming. As others have said, artistic ability is critical, especially if you plan on doing frame-by-frame animation (ugh). Anyhow, I wish you good luck!

Conker