Interactive Slide Show

[Jason Milligan]

I’m not saying this would be the best method, but this is probably what I would do:

Create the various comps in AE and render them.
Then create the interactivity in Flash and have the videos load in a swf.
This would give you more versatility than Encore unless you are burning to disk.

[Kevin Miller]

Thanks for the response. I guess you’re saying that AE is a straight up motion graphics app that is not really suited to creating interactive presentations. I have used Proshow Producer and a friend tried to turn me onto Sony Vegas but then I got more interested in AE because of my experience in Photoshop. I am an architect so I am most interested in creating presentations that do not look anything like the conventional powerpoint presentation. I know you can do AE type stuff as well as assigning interactive controls in Macromedia Director but that is a heavy script based program which relies on writing code. I’m already in way overhead without getting inot code yet!

[Kevin Miller]

Jason,

I included a link to a company that specializes in this work.

https://www.propointgraphics.com/products-flash-presentations.html

It appears that flash is indeed what they mostly use. I guess AE would serve the purpose of creating the videos, animations, and such (comps). Since I do not know anything about flash, I would have to assume that everything is composed in flash and the interactivity added to it as well. Can you recommend what would be a good flash application to learn?

Thanks,

[Jason Milligan]

Flash is the application so you’d want to start with it:
https://www.adobe.com/products/flash/?ogn=EN_US-gntray_prod_flash_home
You can download a trial

It is now owned by Adobe (it was previously Macromedia) so it plays well with AE and their other products.
There would be a variety of ways to approach what you want to do based on how you want to deliver it (DVD, browser, standalone app, etc.) and how much you want to get into actionscripting.
Flashkit is a good resource
https://www.flashkit.com/

[Thomas Leong]

You may want to check out Wings Platinum 3. Demo download available.
There are various versions for single screen presentations, and there is a table comparing versions in the Help file – search for ‘versions’ first, then jump to ‘table’ which is linked from there.

IMO, the most suitable for your intended use is the Pro version which has built-in Text support. However, its text functions are not as versatile as Powerpoint. An alternative is to create your text in Photoshop and import the .psd files into the Wings timeline where you can then manipulate to your desire. Alpha channel is supported for both stills and video files so exports from AE is fine for inclusion in your presentations.

Pause/Stop/Start markers are available and you may even export a completed presentation into an EXE file for presenting on a laptop not licenced to run Wings (Wings requires a USB dongle to run). The EXE file can include your pause/stop/start markers.

Thomas Leong
https://www.multidisplays.freeforums.org

[Thomas Leong]

For suitability, I meant the cheaper ‘Advanced’ version, not the ‘Pro’ version.