Digital Workshop

DW has just come out with some really nice extras for OPUS. they're calling them "opusEXTRAS." Especially if you are using OPUS professionally, I highly recommend you purchase this package.

Text Pak: This alone is worth the full price of opusEXTRAS. It's a collection of 34 NEW text animations. Once installed, these appear within the Properties -> Text ANIMATION tab. These are incredible! You will NEVER be confused with PowerPoint presentations if you use these. They take OPUS to a new, higher level. This is a MUST HAVE feature if you make your living building multimedia presentation. You will be blown away when you see how your Text Objects present themselves using these animations!

Buttoneer: This is another FONT which is automatically installed on your computer. You can see the really nice computer icons by going into your Character Map, then go down the list and find "Buttoneer." This will give you great icons especially for Buttons, but you can use them within Text Objects too. I opened my Character Map window and went to Buttoneer where I clicked the icon I wanted then did a Select and clicked Copy. I then went into OPUS and created a Button. I did a Paste where I normally would type text for the top of the Button. I found (in some icons) there are UP, DOWN, and Mouse Over type icons, so I repeated the Copy/Paste process for Mouse Over and Button Down states. It's a great way to quickly create VCR type Buttons (Play, Pause, FF, Rewind, Begin, End, Stop). I'm going to Copy and Paste these Buttons into a new Gallery for future use.

Button Borders: Create a regular Button Object, then go to Properties -> Borders, then tick "Add Border" and select "Buttons." Select an Arrow, for example, but make sure your selection ends in "Up." Go to the Button Down state and do the same thing, but select the same Arrow which ends in "Down."

Here's the part that took a moment to figure out: Go to Properties -> Button. Notice that while your new Arrow no longer has a normal Button rectangular edge, the "Colour" box is still ticked. This is where you can change the color on the surface of your new Arrow (Button). If you go to Properties -> Effects, you can tick Texture to add a texture to the surface of your Arrow, and you can add a Shadow to really make it more 3-D.

With a couple of mouse clicks you can have some fantastic graphical Buttons which would take hours to build with a PaintShop Pro type graphics editor.

Animated Blends: I'm still "playing" with this one. The directions suggest you use this as a Mouse Over highllighting effect. I created a regular Button Object, then on the Properties menu, I went to the Mouse Over state, then to the Effects Tab. I ticked Blend, and selected Animated in the selection window. You get a sample view as you highlight each possibility. They certainly are animated. The Arrows animation requires you to view it in Preview. Nothing appears in the sample window. You get Arrows moving inside your Button when you do a Mouse Over.

This is nice to have and know about, but I think it needs to be a feature you use very sparingly. I probably need to try other Objects besides Buttons to really give this a chance to become one of the things I normally include in a business-to-business type presentation.

Summary
DW has done a great job in giving us more artistic features for OPUS. I'm using XE, so I'm not sure if someone with Presenter could use these features.

Thank you for the kind words! To answer your last comment; Opus Xtras works with all Opus 5 products - Presenter, Presenter Pro, Creator, Pro and Pro XE.

Is there an example of the 34 new text animations anywhere?

Thanks, Linda

Linda - I can dropload you an avi or mpeg sample if you want

Pete

pete.smithies@xtra.co.nz

Please... an mpg would be great.

Thanks, Linda

OK Linda,

I have sent you a zipped file and will add the attachment here too.
The mpeg was far too big and to see these text animations in all their glory - the mpeg just didnt do them justice

Hopefully the zipped files will work for everyone else

Pete

By the way - you will need the web plug in from DW to view the ILM
double click the html file to view

Pete,

I picked up a copy of opusXTRAS when it came out to achieve a couple of things, and to date I have not had the time to experiment with all the bits and pieces. Your demo has given me a good overview of what I have in my arsenal of text animations.

Thanks

I think Fred's explanation of the new features is well worth a walk through as well...
The animated buttons using buttoneer are very good.

Pete

Thanx for the demo! I think maybe I need the package. Is it still on sale?

Yep - it's still on sale Evereddie
I went to the Digitalworkshop.com website, paid by credit card and received an email link to download the file.
I always burn downloaded files on to a cd immediately afterwards just in case the hard drive fails or some other kind of problem occurs.
You can pay a little extra ($10 USD from memory) and DW will send you a boxed cd.
The extras package is a whole lot of fun
Cheers
Graham

Pete, that was really appreciated.

And you've sold me on the moves... I'm off to buy.

DW - may you should offer Pete an incentive to let you use his example.... seeing the thing for real is by far the best sales technique!

Thanks, Linda

Linda,

You are welcome.
Many thanks.
Like you, I have nothing but the utmost respect for DW and the people on this forum - as far as I am concerned - this forum is all the incentive I need. I was just happy to contribute in some small way.

Regards
Pete

Pete,

Thank you for the awesome samples. I bought the extras pack a while back but had not messed with the text animations part at all. After seeing what you did I will definitely be playing around with it as I see many opportunities to use it in publications.
Thanks
Dave

Ok so you got me all excited, I went in and tried the animations with the new text pack and they don't work! Any of the new ones I selected did nothing (selecting the old ones do work). Has anyone had this problem? Is there a step I am missing?

Dave

Did you load them in to the right directory.

I think prior to the latest release - I had Opus 5 and Opus 05 on my C drive.

Once I ascertained the correct installation - I was OK
Might be the same for you?
Just a thought

Pete