Welcome to our Amara Intro and Banner Builder™ tutorials. Although the application is pretty easy to use, we have created step-by-step tutorials to make sure that absolutely everybody can create web banners and intros for their website with the tool. Amara Intro and Banner Builder™ allows you to create banners - the simplest form of animation that can be created with the software - or intros - which are a bit more complex than banners.

A banner consists of a sequence of sentences or a sequence of text blocks appearing one after the other. This is the traditional banner as seen on millions of other websites.

An intro is more complex as the sentences or text blocks do NOT necessarily appear one after another, as it's possible (when the effect tab is set to intros) to set the incoming time of each text effect (the moment when the effect appears) and the duration (the time the text remains on screen). With these features you can make animations whereby, for example, sentences appear one by one, while the previous ones remain on screen, and after they are all displayed they will fade out all at once, as well as many other variations. (Check out an Intro sample)

Banner tutorial:

1) Go to the layout tab and set the movie dimensions to 468x60 or any other banner dimensions.

2) Select a background color or add your own background picture.

3) Make sure compression is ticked.

4) Set the loop to the desired number of loops which is infinite by default.

5) Go to the Type tab and select Banner.

6) Go to the Text tab (This is where the actual building of the banner needs to be done).

7) Click on Add Item and enter the desired text in the text 1 area. (picture 1)

8) To create a second and third line of the banner animation click twice on Add Item and enter the desired text in the respective text areas.

Now click on Generate and Display and you will see that you have created a rough banner animation without any effects or font properties.

To assign a text effect to the text of text area 1 click on text 1 (picture 1), click on the text effect tab and select any of the desired text effects (picture 2).

picture 1


picture 2

Do the same for the two other text lines. First activate the required text (figure 1) and then enter the respective text in the text area.

Click again on Generate and Display and you will see you have created your first basic banner.

9) To position your effect: Activate the required text line (figure 1), click on the position tab and set the desired Top and Left positions (picture 3)

picture 3

10) Each text can be set to freeze for a certain amount of time. To do this, a ctivate the required text line (figure 1), click on the timing tab and set the desired freeze time for each text line (default is 10, which is 1 second).

Finally, we will set the font properties of the text. This is the most complicated part but also one of the most unique features of the application as it allows you to assign different font zones to part of your text or even to each character, with each font style consisting of its own font type, color and size!

11) To assign a Font style to a selection of your text click on the Font style tab:

12) Click on "Font style". Your entire text is automatically assigned the "default" font zone.

13) In the text area, select the part of your text you want to assign different properties by highlighting it (click and drag your mouse over the text).

14) Create a new font zone for your highlighted text by clicking on the green plus symbol "+"

15) Select the font properties you want to assign your new font zone.

16) To confirm, make sure the newly created zone is activated and click on the blue tick symbol " " to assign it to your selected text.

To see the final result, click on "Generate and Display" on the right.

Intro tutorial:

1) Go to the layout tab and set the movie dimensions to 400x 400 or any other dimensions.

2) Select a background color or add your own background picture.

3) Make sure compression is ticked.

4) Set the loop to the desired number of loops which is normally infinite.

5) Go to the Type tab and select Intro.

6) Go to the Text tab (this is where the actual building of the intro should be done).

7) Click on Add Item and enter the desired text in the text 1 area (picture 1).

8) To create a second and third line of the intro animation click twice on Add Item and enter the desired text in the respective text areas.

Picture 1

Now click on Generate and Display and you will see that you have created a rough intro animation without any effect or font properties. The problem is that all the sentences are overlapping each other, as for each line you must set unique X and Y position, incoming time and duration.

9) To set the position of each effect click on the Text positon tab. Make sure you activate text 1, text 2, etc (picture 1).

For text 1 set the position to top=100 left=10
For text 2 set the position to top=200 left=10
For text 3 set the position to top=300 left=10

To set the Text effect click on the Text effect tab. Make sure you activate text 1, text 2, etc (picture 1) and assign an effect for each line.

Click on Generate and Display and you will see your first basic intro up and running.

10) The next step will be to change the time of appearance (now they all appear at once).

To do this click on the Timing tab. Make sure you activate text 1, text 2, etc (picture 1).

For text 1 set the incoming time to 0
For text 2 set the incoming time to 20
For text 3 set the incoming time to 40

Click on Generate and Display and you will see that all sentences appear at a different time.

By setting the Freeze time you will be able to set the number of seconds that the text will be frozen on the screen before it disappears.

To make text 1 freeze for 4 seconds, activate text 1 (picture 1) and set the freeze time to 40.

Click on Generate and Display. Now you will be able to create creative animations without limitations!

11) The last part of this tutorial is to assign the fonts, colors and size to the text.

To do this click on Font styles.

Make sure you have selected the desired text 1, text 2, etc (picture 1).

Click on "Font style". Your entire text is automatically assigned the "default" font zone.

In the text area, select the part of your text you want to assign different properties by highlighting it (click and drag your mouse over the text).

Create a new font zone for your highlighted text by clicking on the green plus symbol "+"

Select the font properties you want to assign your new font zone.

To confirm, make sure the newly created zone is activated and click on the blue tick symbol " " to assign it to your selected text.

Click on Generate and Display to see the font changes. Now assign some different font properties to your text. Note that each character can be assigned different properties throughout the font zones.