February 2nd, 2010
So, it’s 11pm last Sunday. I’m watching a Dr. Who episode I’ve seen before and it suddenly strikes me that the PRF songwriting challenge is due in one hour.
So, I whipped out the ‘ol baritone uke and wrote a simple, little ditty in about 20 minutes, recorded in 2 takes , with 1 mic and ended up tying for first place. Woo hoo! I’m kind of a winner!
The challenge was the write a song that somehow has to do with vegetables. Here is a link to the whole week’s entries:
http://www.purevolume.com/PRFWeek71/albums/Call+Any+Vegetable
Mine is titled: Iamnotavegetable
Posted in music, songwriting | No Comments »
December 8th, 2009
THE PROBLEM:
So, I recently created a showcase reel that involves several flvs with transitions between. For various reasons, I had to make this a timeline based animation. I was running into a problem with latency because of download times and the flvplayback component. The flvs would play and the transitions between the flvs would occur really late.
THE SOLUTION:
Add an event listener to the flv instance and listen for COMPLETE.
Step 1: Import your FLV files and place on stage with the correct # of frames between them. (Take the length of your FLV file, multiply by the FPS of your FLA file: that is how many keyframes that particular FLV should have on the timeline.)
Select File > Import to Stage > Your FLV file name
(There are lots of options when importing FLV files. Select what is appropriate for your project.)
Step 2: Give your flvs instance names ( for the first FLV, I chose the very creative instance name flv1)
Step 3: Create a new layer, name it labels
Step 4: Set a keyframe on for the first frame of each flv file and give a label name on the properties tab
Step 5: Create an actions layer, create a keyframe for the first frame of each flv file (just like you did for the label names)
Step 6: Import the VideoEvent.
On the first frame of the Actions layer place this code:
import fl.video.VideoEvent;
Step 7: Add this code to each key frame, changing the instance name, function name and gotoAndPlay() label name.
flv1.addEventListener(VideoEvent.COMPLETE,videoOver1);
function videoOver1(e:VideoEvent)
{
gotoAndPlay(”part2″);
}
VIEW THE TUTORIAL : On FLV Complete gotoAndPlay()
READ MORE ABOUT the FLVPlayBack component
Posted in flash, tutorial | No Comments »
November 30th, 2009
THE PROBLEM:
I encountered a super annoying error message in flash today:
5005: Unknown Error optimizing byte code
I received it when trying to publish a flash file that incorporates several FLV files.
Apparently, Adobe says this error can occur when publishing really large files (http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=kb405257), but my FLA is only 1.6 mb and the published SWF is only 345 k. I’m guessing it has to do with the FLVs that are being loaded in.
THE SOLUTION:
Thankfully, I found a concise and easy to use solution here (THANK YOU, Stefig Design! You’re the bestest.):
http://stefig.blogspot.com/2009/04/5005-unknown-error-optimizing-byte-code.html
Posted in flash, web design, web development | No Comments »
June 25th, 2009
I’m a podcast lover, fiend, addict, whatever title you want to slap on. I just can’t get enough. They are an intregal part of my workflow and one of the primary ways I keep up with news, entertainment and business stuff. Long live the podcast.
The Fader magazine podcast is my new favorite addition to the podcast collection.
It features great new artists from a variety of genres. I can already see many more CD purchases in my future.
Posted in music | No Comments »
June 24th, 2009
I love Nettuts. They’ve brought us another lovely article here:
http://nettuts.com/tutorials/other/the-golden-ratio-in-web-design/
I remember being fascinated by the concept of the golden ratio as a kid. Good design explained by math?!? What?!?! It suggests a greater organization to this wacky beautiful world we live in.
To me, that’s comforting.
Tags: golden ratio, tutorial, web design
Posted in art, inspiration, web design, website | No Comments »
June 24th, 2009
Hurray~! A smart phone that supports flash! Thank you, Android. Again, you are leading the pack.
Personally, I’m thrilled by this. It’s one step closer to being able to extend interactivity to new input devices. Can you imagine playing a game on a touch screen? Or experiencing an interactive art piece with your hands? The possibilities are endless and exciting. One small step, one giant leap.
You can see a demo of flash on Android here:
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/devices/articles/htchero.html
If you are a web developer, you can learn more about making flash work on Android here:
http://www.adobe.com/mobile
Tags: adobe, android, flash, smart phone
Posted in flash, technology, web development | No Comments »
June 17th, 2009
Woohoo! That only took 2 years… (really 2 weeks once I sat down to do it.)
If you find any bugs, please just email me.
Tags: new site, portfolio site, web design
Posted in freelancing, web design, website | 1 Comment »
May 29th, 2009
Websites these days are simply layers of technologies stacked on top of one another. Every member of the digital sandwich doing what they do best. HTML structuring, CSS styling, Flash flashing, etc, etc…
Sometimes they all play well together and sometimes it’s an alley way knife fight.
I recently completed a project that involved creating little flash widgets that would call a pop up using some sort of js lightbox library. Turns out this is not as simple as I thought it would be. After auditioning 10 (that’s right 10) lightboxes I finally emerged with a winner: Shadowbox.
The issue:
Most lightboxes use the rel attribute to call the popup function. As far as I can tell, there is no way to insert a rel attribute inside of a getURL() in Actionscript. To be honest, i had lots of other issues with the lightboxes I tried: browser capability, conflict with other js libraries I was using (jquery), inconsistent behavior, inability to load html pages (vs just images), etc.. etc..
The solution:
Shadowbox allows you to set up a custom function for opening an instance of the popup. You simply feed that function name, proceeded by javascript: into the getURL() and voila!
Step 1:
Download Shadowbox and buy a license! if you intend to use it for commercial purposes. Come on, y’all. It’s 20 bucks. Let’s support our awesome open source developers.
Step 2:
Embed the scripts properly in your header:
<link rel=”stylesheet” type=”text/css” href=”scripts/shadowbox/shadowbox.css”>
<script type=”text/javascript” src=”scripts/shadowbox/shadowbox.js”></script>
Step 3:
Initialize Shadowbox (with the required players – read more here) and then create a custom function in javascript in your html document. :
<script type=”text/javascript”>
Shadowbox.init({
players: ["html","iframe"]
});
function abrirSB(url)
{
Shadowbox.open({player: “iframe”, content: url, height: 570 , width: 850});
};
</script>
Step 4:
Create a flash piece with a getURL function applied to a button.
Step 5:
Feed the properly formatted URL with the custom function name into the getURL:
button_btn.onRelease = function ()
{
getURL(”javascript:popUpFunction( ‘hello_world.html’);”)
}
Step 6:
Embed your flash object. I generally use SWFObject.
Step 7:
Jump up and down and do a little dance when it works.
I’ve even created a working sample for you, just to make it that much easier.
DOWNLOAD A COMPLETE TUTORIAL
FYI: If you run it locally, Flash will try to verify that you have security clearance for that file. It’s not an error. It’s a security measure.
Tags: custom function, flash, getURL, javascript, lightbox, shadowbox, tutorial
Posted in flash, javascript | No Comments »
May 10th, 2009
Hate IE6? You’re not alone.
Find support and comradery. One day this bad dream will all be over.
Tags: browsers, web development
Posted in technology, web development | No Comments »
May 6th, 2009
Dearest AJ,
Your use of color, texture and detail have started a fire under my sculpture loving ass. Thank you.
Most sincerely,
Heather Smith
Tags: AJ Fosik, art, color, design, sculpture
Posted in art, inspiration | 1 Comment »
