animation in presentations

[Thatch]

The problem is that the designer doesnt normally get to choose what a presentation is created in. That typically goes to the sales & marketing pukes (a term of endearment really) that ask for the presentations in the first place. They tend to know few programs and those they do are typically the Microsoft office suite and little else. I think you'd have alot of resistance to trying to bringing in a new presentation package (just ask Astound).

I use to think that Xara should build a Flash animation studio tool. I still think they could do a bang up job of it. I'm just not sure that there is much room in the market anymore unless they went at it from another angle such as Toon Boom Studio has done (a nifty package if you're not familiar).

In short I think the folks at Xara have a proven history of looking at issues from a slightly different angle than other software companies and its done them well. I just don't think they (or much of anyone else) has the ability to edge out much of a living winning people away from Powerpoint, no mater how clunky the thing is.

J

[qmr]

good points Joe.

here at the university everyone uses powerpoint with projectors, and all lecture thaetres are on the network. So, people are thinking of the content they wish to present, not which software is the wizzyest. Powerponit is what they get with office. Im doing my best here to convert everybody to xara and irfanview for bitmap ersampling, or photoshop if they work with lots of slides and digital camera images.

Flash animations in powerpoint are very powerful - especially in explaining sequences of complex chemical actions etc. Also its heaps of fun for a cartoonist still haunted by childhood watching of Steamboat Willie...
Trouble is, adobe are trying to get a new standard started over flash with svg so the spiral goes on, and the evolution of these new formats (flash or animated svg) are best left to the big guys with their clunky software. Flash is superb. Xara is superb. Illustrator is a pain in the a**. Freudhand.. dont get me started on that..

In my work I begin most things in xara because of its speed and brilliant interactive tools that let me concentrate on the idea that I cant see until it appears onscreen and I work fast. So Ill and Freud with their dinky little dialogue boxes and insane un-ergonomic method are left behind.

But then after making the invisible visible, I want to move the xara thing to flash, so I export to ai and then to swf in illustrator. xara exports to swf ok but Ill has smarter tools (have a look at this xara..)
So, I can get the jobs done. Trouble is, you have to keep upgrading the software. Flash 6 cooks. I want it. Im trapped.

over and..
Q