Block-Buster text scroller

November 18th, 2009

Many users have asked how to do a 3-D scroll into the distance text effect as seen in some very popular science fiction movies. Although scrolling text is reasonably easy to achieve, it is far more difficult to give it the 3-D look as seen in the movies. We have done all the work for you and produced a component that you can simply drag onto the stage.

This component will work with Max3 and MiniMax3 with build dates of 20090904 or later, and although the component is not included with the 20090904 build’s installer, it can be download here.

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Adding a new section to the HiFi Template

October 30th, 2009

The HiFi project template is one of the more popular free sample templates that is distributed with SWiSH Max3. Although feedback has been positive, we have received a number of requests to increase the number of sections. The discussion below shows how to edit the supplied template to add an additional section. You could repeat this process a number of times to add even more sections.

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Windows 7 Gadgets

October 27th, 2009

The windows sidebar has been removed from Windows 7. However, Gadgets are still supported. Our earlier blog article ‘Make a Vista sidebar gadget’ explained how to make a gadget for Vista, this followup article explains how to convert these previously described gadgets for use on Windows 7.

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Simple Max3 Wizard

October 22nd, 2009

SWiSH Max3 users that have used the New Project… feature will realize that Max3 is supplied with number of example projects that can be easily customized using the wizard interface. The projects, galleries, sites and banners available under the New Project dialog are all examples of Max3 Wizards. This tutorial gives an example of how to create a simple wizard to alter the text, shape color and background color of an object. 

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Using Content Library

October 19th, 2009

One of the more powerful features of SWiSH Max3 (and Max2) is the availability of the Content Library. (Sorry, the Library is not available in miniMax products.)  The Library allows various Resources to be shared across multiple objects in your movie. Not only does this reduce the size of your movie (i.e. it will load faster), it can also simplify editing changes to your movie since editing the single library resource will cause the change to be reflected in all of the objects that link to this common resource.

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Countdown Timer

October 19th, 2009

Have you ever wanted a countdown timer for your website, or wondered how long it is until 1st Jan 2012 (local time)? If so, then this component could be for you!  This new CountdownTimer component allows you to specify a countdown date (Year, Month, Day, Hour and minute) in either local time or GMT time. The display then shows the remaining days (max days is 999), hours, minutes and seconds. At the end of the countdown period it will display “End” in the seven segment display.

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