Anfy Java and Anfy Flash: Enticing Visual Effects for Your Web Site Anfy Java Applets and Anfy Flash Effects Scott Koegler
Adding visual interest to your Web site can increase your site's return traffic, but if all you add is blinking text you're likely to do just the opposite and drive visitors away. Anfy Team's Java applications and flash creation site let you create complex and compelling effects without doing any programming, and without spending any money.
Anfy 2.1, the Java application set, includes 52 different applets packaged in a simple user interface. You can download the package at www.anfy.com and have full use of all the applets, albeit with an Anfy logo displayed with the applet. Although the logo is unlikely to be objectionable for most uses and doesn't interfere with any of the applets, if you want to remove it from the applets you'll need to purchase a license for $20 (and up).
Anfy Flash, on the other hand, is an online service that lets you access over 150 Flash-generated effects. Many of them are the same as the Java effects. You'll need to register on the site for a free account; a commercial version that includes an online workspace, additional fonts, and a few extra effects is also available at a cost of $39 per year.
You've probably seen the "rippling pool" effect online. It is usually used with a picture of a lake and background, and, when applied correctly, the surface of the lake looks like it has small waves on it. The "lake ripple" is one of several similar effects that Anfy Java offers. There are also several different kinds of distortion effects that you can apply to images to create interesting animation and movement.
A couple of the applets let you play Mother Nature by giving you power over a variety of weather conditions. It's possible to make snow fall on a scene, or rain, fog, or clouds in place of snow. All the applets are parameter driven, which makes it possible to show anything from a gentle snow flurry to a blizzard, a light mist to a pea soup fog.
Another interesting image treatment is the 'book flip' applet that displays a sequence of images in a very fluid "page turning" motion. As with the other applets, you can change the parameters of the display to change which corner peels down, the speed of the change, and the size of the image.
