Archive for the 'animation' Category

Flickr + Video

Hey just a quick FYI for you Flickr users they now are allowing us to upload videos. Only downside is the 90 sec max time stuck to it. Here is the first video I saw on Flickr and its some Flash art by Eric Natzke. If you are not familiar with Eric Natzke I think its time you start watching his work in Flash, it will inspire anyone.

GO!! No really… goasap.org

Hey I was browsing my mailing lists just now and ran across an email Moses Gunesch sent out to the GO mailing list. It's a video tutorial on how to use GO! He said he is probably going to have to redo it cause of some audio issues but hey its pretty cool to have some info from the source on using GO. Its kind of a big file but, enjoy!

Anyway I'm not sure if any of you guys are following this closely but if not you should be. GO is Moses' new animation engine for AS3 and its supposed to be super fast! Most of you know I haven't made the jump to AS3 yet. But for those of you that have this will be great intro to using GO! And for more info check out the GO blog or Moses's blog. Cheers!
go_home.jpg

Update: The video has been moved and is now in an FLV format! Much nicer! Thanks moses!

Dear Adobe… Recap and insight.

Wow, what a whirlwind of a week has it been since my little Dear Adobe letter. So many of you have responded from around the globe, giving me and Adobe feedback on so many aspects of the topic. It's been really great to get this boiling in some of your minds and to see how many people from all backgrounds care about flash intimately and how they envision flash growing. Well, I wanted to try and clarify some things about my letter, so let me just kinda recap somethings since the dust is starting to settle.

Am I upset Adobe has created AS3, MXML and a tighter programming environment? NO! That would be ridiculous. I know that AS3 is the step in the right direction for Actionscript and the player. It is cleaner, faster, stronger... everything that a new iteration in a language should be. It helps give developers the freedom to tighten down their apps and provide a much better product to the end user. The flash 9 player has given older machines new life by running these larger apps faster than ever before. And that means a lot to all of us, since it's broadening the audience of flash sites and apps all together.

What else has AS3 done? Well, besides the player and scope improvements, it has brought on a much larger scripting engine. One that has improved everything, with better event handling, methods, properties and functions. So why was I saying it's so much harder? Imagine you are a designer and you want to jump into flash, action script and flash animation and start building a website or some type of interactive experience. In the AS1 and AS2 days it would be EASY. Throw some buttons on the stage, put a few mouse events with gotoAndPlay's on them and viola! You're starting to build something. Granted the options were smaller than what we could do but hey you were building a FLASH site/animation!

Now move yourself forward in time a little. Flash is using the AS3/4 engine. It's code driven and can build the best apps in the world! But what happened to all the fun of flash? It's gone. Designers can no longer go hey it would be great to build "X". They can't write a site on one frame. They don't have a clue what an object is and hardly know that actionscript is. But they want to build something in flash. Their minds don't and will not ever work in code. Some of you "devigners" are the exception and are the ones TRULY pushing flash to the edge of its boundaries. But if you weren't ever given the opportunity to start building something with flash in its early years you are never going to find out you are a "devigner". You will always remain a "designer", lost trying to understand what you can do with flash and actionscript. This is what I was trying to truly get at in my previous letter to Adobe.

Was I trying to get Adobe to keep AS2 around forever? No! I was just trying to get us all and Adobe to think about what Flash has done to the design/interactive world! And how this tool is used to not only create apps (which I hope is what Flex will be for, not Flash) but to create engaging animation-driven websites. That engage our end users and "had" made it easy for designers to pick it up and start engaging our users in ways most developers never would of never thought of. This is what made flash magical. All I am asking Adobe to do is look at the product and again think about how to leverage Flash and all the technology behind it back to the designer some again. And not to run off into the sunset of the online application world too fast. But to maybe keep progressing the scripting language to give both worlds the ability to create!

I just want to make sure the designer doesn't lose control and the ability to design with Flash. The word design is funny in today's interactive world. It can mean MANY things. But it still has its roots and whether you are designing with code, photoshop or with the Flash animation tool you can still design! That's what made flash so great. It divided the gap and also made the impossible possible for a designer. That is what was really amazing! And it made it all possible on the web! I REALLY can't wait to see where the product goes! But I also don't want to see it run off too far from all of the designers that are engaging our end users with their magical minds! So I just want to say I know Adobe can still keep moving in the developer direction but I think with the right tools and additions to the product it can also keep the designers interested and keep their hands in the product evolving the web.

I haven't sat down and thought directly about what these changes may be. But I will! I know that my opinions about these tools are not everyone's opinion. But that's not why I have been blogging about this. It's to hear the rest of the community's opinions and open the door a bit more for the designers and everyone to speak! Thanks for listening again!

Update: Sorry for the eariler miss hap on the title of this post. I promise that was not on purpose.

Flickr Slideshow - Take 1 (swx+fuse)

Ok so, 1, remember going into this... In no way did I ever say I was a programmer. I am a scripter at heart. Quick down and dirty, rapid development is my game and its worked well so far. There are plenty of better was to build this and extend it. All of which I would like to hear about! So here goes my version of an incredibly quick build of a simple swx+fuse image slide show! Enjoy!

So this is a simple copy, paste and your ready to go! But that's not why I am sharing the code. This was built to show whats possible and to get you started on building your own bigger, faster and stronger version of the same thing. I really encourage all of you to share with us what you have done with this code and how we can all become better coders ourselves from sharing and collaborating.

The following code will allow you to pull recent public photos or even photos from your favorite user and just the change of a methodType. Also please be sure to have the SWX class files in your project folder when running this code. Enjoy!

Update: some of the color coating is off on my style sheet. I will be updating later. Sorry. :(

Update 2: I had some requests for people to see it working. So here you go! Enjoy!

flickrgallery.swf

 
/*
 
SWX + Fuse - Take 1
 
by: Corban Baxter
 
url: blog.projectx4.com		This was written to give some developers simple a quick fix and insite
 
into rapid flash development with some great tools such as swx and fuse.
 
*/
 
import com.mosesSupposes.fuse.*;
ZigoEngine.register(Fuse, FuseFMP, PennerEasing, FuseItem);
 
import org.swxformat.SWX;
//setup the SWX object please see swxformat.org
var swx:SWX = new SWX();
swx.gateway = "http://www.swxformat.org/php/swx.php"; //please change to your domain running swx.
swx.encoding = "GET";
//swx.debug = true;
swx.timeout = 2;
 
var userName:String = "yourUserNameGoesHere"; //used for getUserPhotos method
var photoStyle:String = "small";
var numPhotos:Number = 100;
var page:Number = 1;
var myPhotos:Array;
var currentImage:Number;
var img:String;
//var methodType:String = "getUserPhotos"; //get specfic user photos
var methodType:String = "swxPhotosGetRecent"; //get public photos
var extras:String = "tags"; //comma delimited for getting extra photo info, see service for options
var images:MovieClip = this.createEmptyMovieClip("images", this.getNextHighestDepth());
var back_mc:MovieClip = images.createEmptyMovieClip("back_mc", images.getNextHighestDepth());
var front_mc:MovieClip = images.createEmptyMovieClip("front_mc", images.getNextHighestDepth());
 
function getPhotos():Void {
if(methodType == "getUserPhotos"){
 
var callParameters:Object = {
serviceClass:"Flickr",
method: methodType,
args:[userName, photoStyle, numPhotos, page],
result:[this, resultHandler],
timeout:[this, timeOutHandler],
fault:[this, faultHandler]
};
 
}else{
 
var callParameters:Object = {
serviceClass:"Flickr",
method: methodType,
args:[photoStyle, extras, numPhotos, page],
result:[this, resultHandler],
timeout:[this, timeOutHandler],
fault:[this, faultHandler]
 
};
 
}
 
swx.call(callParameters);
 
}
 
function resultHandler(event:Object) {
 
//callback to run when app has loaded the flickr image array requested
 
//trace(newline+newline+"RESULT: "+event.result);
 
myPhotos = event.result.photo;
total = myPhotos.length;
currentImage = random(total);
 
loadImage(currentImage);
 
}
 
function timeOutHandler() {
 
//do something when call fails to respond in allowed timeout period
 
//getPhotos();
 
trace("timed out");
 
}
 
function faultHandler(event:Object) {
 
//user or system error please give feedback to the users
 
//this would need to be some php call but you understand the point...
 
//getURL("mailto:hello@yourdomain.com?subject='were having flickr gallery issues'");
 
trace("critacl error");
 
}
 
var mclListener:Object = new Object();
 
mclListener.onLoadComplete = function(target_mc:MovieClip) {
 
target_mc._alpha = 0;
 
};
 
mclListener.onLoadInit = function(target_mc:MovieClip) {
 
trace(target_mc._height);
 
//fade up image and rerun the loop
 
var f:Fuse = new Fuse();
f.push({ target: target_mc, ease: "easeOutQuad", time: 1, _alpha: 100 }); //fade up front_mc
f.push({ func: setBackImage, args: img }); //places loaded image in back_mc to create a cross fade look for next iteration
f.push({ delay: 2 });
f.push({ func: loadImage, args: currentImage });
f.start();
 
};
 
mclListener.onLoadProgress = function(target:MovieClip, bytesLoaded:Number, bytesTotal:Number):Void {
 
trace(target + ": " + bytesLoaded + " bytes of " + bytesTotal);
 
}
 
var image_mcl:MovieClipLoader = new MovieClipLoader();
 
image_mcl.addListener(mclListener);
 
function loadImage(num:Number):Void {
 
var total:Number = myPhotos.length;
img = myPhotos[num].src;
image_mcl.loadClip(img, images.front_mc);
currentImage++;
if(currentImage == total){
currentImage = 0;
}
 
}
 
function setBackImage(img:String):Void{
trace(images.back_mc);
images.back_mc.loadMovie(img);
}
 
getPhotos();

Feeling the rush!

How great has this month been! A brand new year and brand new blog for me! CES 2008 and now MacWorld. Its feels like the month has just flown by! And it doesn't look like its slowing down anytime soon!

So tonight my friend is going to stop by and I'm going to try and give him my quick 411 on fuse and how I have been using it the past 6 months. While we work I am going to build a tutorial to share the knowledge with all of you guys! So it should be a really fun post and my first try at sharing some of my knowledge. So bare with me but it should be lots of fun. For those of you not familiar with fuse you should first check out the fuse site, also look at gotoandlearn.com where lee brimelow has a great fuse tutorial and then download the cheat sheet that has been put together by ewaon.com. I keep one in front of me pretty much at all times along with a few other cheat sheets. They are very handy to get a quick look at the methods and properties we have available in flash and fuse.

I also wanted to say thanks to all the new visitors and I hope I can entertain you all enough to keep you coming back!

Update:
I haven't had time yet to write theĀ  post on our quick fuse session but I will try to put it together later!

So close. Yet so far!

So I did some work for Uniden GPS, and cordless phones for their booth at CES this year. Supposedly some of my animations were going to be in the interview they were doing with FOX 4 but they didn't quite get the spot I was hoping for! Errrr any way its kind of funny. Here is the link http://tinyurl.com/393sf9. Once there you have to click on 'North Texas Company Leads in Phone Industry'. Its seriously WAAAAAY in the background. Grrrrr so so close. Oh well maybe next year but for those of you that made it to CES maybe you got to see them! They were all built with Fuse and they run really smooth. Its great to be able to animate with Fuse it makes creative changes quick and painless. Thanks Moses!

Go + Adobe Animation Standard

Thank god for incredible flash developers and there forward thinking!

http://go.mosessupposes.com/?p=14

This is a quick post in hopes that some other developers will show there support for this great movement by Moses Gunesch. All I can say is Go.. no really GO! Go show your support of this to help all of us!




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