Camtasia Studio 4 was released a few weeks back and I’ve finally had the opportunity to make a few screencasts highlighting some of the new Flash related features as well as some backdoor hacks that allow you customize and configures many items that aren’t exposed in the UI. So, the next few posts will be devoted to Camtasia Studio’s Flash output.
This first screencast gives a high level overview of some of the Flash UI elements that we’ve introduced in the Camtasia Studio 4:
1) Flash Preview - Camtasia Studio actual embeds an Active X control in the C++ GUI in order to allow you to pick your Flash output theme (skin) and preview how your output will look in the Flash skin you’ve chosen as you resize elements (scale the content, size the toc, etc.). The Flash theme selector also has buttons which open MFC option dialogs and the like.
2) Target a Specific version of Flash Player - Camtasia Studio allows you to target Flash Player 6 - 8. If you choose to output to swf your content and controller swf’s will both reflect the version you select. If you choose to encode your content as as an flv your controller swf will reflect the version you’ve chosen and the flv will be encoded to the codec you select (both vp6 and h.263 are supported).
3) Optional Preloaders - Camtasia Studio 4 now includes a variety of preloaders and progress bars which come in branded and unbranded varieties.
Screencasts are available for the video iPod as well
5 Comments
Thanks for the screencast Brooks. Been wondering what’s new with the flash options.
A question for you.
If I have a link on a page to a flash flv w/TOC, how do I set it up so the flash comes up in a floating player window sized to the flash w/TOC interface. This would help me because now the flash comes up imbedded in an html page and I have to brand the rest of the page according to the look and feel of the website it’s on. If I could have it pop up in a floating player window, I would only have to brand the look and feel of the flash content, TOC, etc. and not the rest of the web page.
Thanks
Jeff
jeff@jbaker.com
Brooks, how in the world are you doing all those neat perspective views and transitions between screen shots. Is that native to Camtasia??
Hey Michael,
All the perspective and animation is being done with After Effects. I’m pushing hard internally at TechSmith for this type of functionality to be added to Camtasia Studio, so if you like it drop the Product Manager, Troy Stein, an email ( t.stein@techsmith.com ).
Earlier in the year I created a screencast tutorial for a session I did at FITC which gives an overview of multi-application workflows and demonstrates using After Effects to give screencasts a bit of color.
http://www.brooksandrus.com/blog_assets/fitc/applying_perspective/index.htm
Hi Brooks,
Your blog contains a lot of good information. I would like to congratulate you for your wonderful effort. This has been extremely useful to me.
I went through the hack of creating nested TOC and have been able to make it work. Is there a parameter that I can set such that the nested section is initially collapsed.
Is there a way to customize the skins?
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[...] Brooks Andrus has blogged some very nice screencasts on new Flash and Quiz features in Camtasia Studio 4. Brooks works for TechSmith, the company that makes Camtasia. [...]