Welcome to Swish, a low-bandwidth movie tool!

Once you open Swish Max, this interface will appear on your screen:

The first step to get you going in Swish is to click on “Start a new empty

movie” because you’re going to make a new movie!

Before you go further in developing your Swish movie, you need to make sure

that the width and height of the movie is properly sized for viewing later on

the Internet. On the right side of the interface, there is a tab called

“Movie” with a box for the movie’s dimensions. Change the width to 600 and

the height to 450.

Also, make sure that there is a check mark in the “Stop playing at end of

movie” box.

In the same movie tab that you’ve been working with, click once on the

rectangle next to “Background Color.” A palette should appear as follows:

Choose a color that is appealing to you (please don’t use neon colors!) and

click once on it with the left mouse button.

The rectangle next to “Background Color” should change colors and your

movie will change to the color you’ve chosen!

You’re doing a great job!

Now that you’ve got the basics covered, let’s move on and add

some text to your movie!

The tool bar at the top of the interface contains many icons that will help

you create your movie. Move your mouse over the icons until you find the

icon that says “Insert Text” and then click left once.

Once you’ve clicked on the icon, a text box will appear on your movie. You

can change the font style, size, and color by using the menu on the right side

of the interface. You can also reposition the box by clicking left once when

the mouse turns into a four-directional arrow and holding until you reach the

desired position.

To change the text, click once in the white area on the text menu and begin

typing. You will notice that what you type in the white area appears on your

movie screen in place of the previous text.

Notice how the text you just typed is highlighted in blue in the “Outline”

menu on the left side. This shows that you are still working with the text.

From here, you can add actions to the text. Take your mouse up to “Add

Effect” and click once.

Click on “Appear into position” and choose one of the actions by clicking on it

once.

You will notice that a blue bar has appeared in the timeline above the movie.

This shows that the text will appear for 20 frames of your movie.

You can change the amount of time it takes for the text to appear by moving

your mouse to the end of the bar until your mouse turns into two parallel

lines with arrows pointing to the left and the right. Click left once and hold

until you reach the desired position.

The process for making the text disappear from the screen is similar to the

steps you took to make the text appear.

From the “Add Effect” button, navigate down to “Disappear from position”

and choose one of the options.

You can determine the length of time it takes for the text to disappear

from the screen by following the same procedure you followed when you

changed the time it took for the text to appear.

One last thing- You can preview your movie by navigating to the triangle icon

in the toolbar. This is the “play” button. Click once and your movie should

begin.

Or…

You can go to “File,” “Test,” “In Browser” (control, shift, T for a shortcut) to

watch your movie in a browser window. This feature let’s you see how your

movie will look on the Internet!

Now that your Swish movie has color and text, let’s add some

images!

In the toolbar, move your mouse to the icon until the text saying “Insert

Image” appears (it’s right next to the text icon you used earlier). Click left

once on the icon.

Navigate to your space on the school’s network (the H drive) where you have

your saved images. Click left once on the picture you want to insert and then

click “Open.” (Please keep in mind that your interface will look slightly

different from the one below due to your different drives)

Notice how the image appears on the movie and in TWO tool bars. You can

see that the image is highlighted on the “Outline” toolbar on the left side of

the interface and in the timeline. This shows that you are working with the

image. If you wanted to work with your text, you could click on the text in

either the timeline or the “Outline” toolbar to select it.

You can add effects such as having the image appear and disappear into

position just as you did with the text. Refer back to the text handout if you

need some help recalling the process!

Also, one thing that will help you once you begin to insert additional images

and text is the feature that lets you hide the objects you are not working

with. For example, if you wanted to work only with the text in your movie,

you could go to the “Outline” menu and click left once on the eye next to the

image to make it disappear from view. After you click, a red “X” will appear

over the eye showing that the image is not visible. You can do this with any

image or text and can make it visible again by clicking twice on the eye!

You can preview your work any time by following the steps in the text

packet! Also, don’t forget to save your work often!

E. Ray

February 2005

Now that your Swish movie has images and text, let’s add sound!

To begin with, go to “File” and click once on “Import…”

An interface similar to the one below will appear on your screen. Navigate to

the location where your sound is saved (the space on the school’s network is

the H drive).

Click once on the name of the song you want to incorporate in your movie and

then click “Open.”

Click “Yes” to insert the sound as a soundtrack.

Because the movie will stop playing after it is viewed once, you also need to

stop the music in your movie. To do this, first click once on “Scene_1” in the

“Outline” menu so that “Scene_1” is highlighted in blue.

In the timeline, move to the frame where your last action is completed. For

example, if you have text fade out by frame 100, you should anchor your

cursor in this frame. Click left once in the frame to anchor your cursor. A

blue box will appear in that frame. Make sure that you have clicked in the

“Scene_1” line!

With your cursor over the blue box in the “Scene_1” line, click right.

Navigate down to “Sounds” and click on “stopALLSounds.”

Now, you will notice a blue box with an “s” inside in the ending frame.

* Here are some additional things that will help you while working

on your movie!

1) You can slide your effects by clicking left so the effect turns blue. Now,

hold the mouse button and drag the box to your desired location. Then,

release your mouse.

2) Also, you can delete any effect, image, or text box by clicking left once

so that the object is highlighted in blue. Then hit the delete button on your

computer.

3) After you’ve saved your Swish movie, navigate to “File,” “Export,”

“HTML+SWF.”

A window called “Publish SWISHmax Movie” will appear on your screen.

Navigate to the same location in which you’ve already saved your Swish

movie, title your movie (remember- no capital letters or spaces!), and click

save.

Congratulations! Your Swish movie is now complete!

E. Ray

February 2005