Custom Cursor Code

Hey guys, this is the directions for making a cursor for your animations, like my monster hand:

1.  draw your cursor and make it a symbol -->movie clip, making sure the registration is the upper-left hand corner box so your mouse orientation will be correct.  NOTE: the higher your fps, the smoother your cursor will flow.  I kept mine at 12 fps and it seems fine, but the tutorial recommended 30 or higher which seems kinda overkill.  Your call here.

2.  give your movie clip an instance name.  The code below uses "cursor_mc" as the instance name. 

3.  on a new layer inside your movie clip, insert the Action Script code:

cursor_mc.startDrag(true);

Mouse.hide();

And that's it!  Hopefully you get it to work. 

Snowfalling/particle scene

the code i used to make a snowfalling scene
took me about 4-5 hours to figure it out but meh.

stage.addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, snowflake);
function snowflake (event : Event ) : void// function to create snowflakes
{
var _Snowflake:mcSnowflake;

_Snowflake = new mcSnowflake();
addChild(_Snowflake);
_Snowflake.x = -350 + Math.random() * 900;// placement of snowflake
_Snowflake.y = Math.random() * 40;//placement of snowflake
_Snowflake.scaleX =_Snowflake.scaleY = Math.random();//size of snowflake random
_Snowflake.alpha = Math.random() * 1 ;//transparency of snowlake random
stage.addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, snowfall);

function snowfall(event:Event):void
{
if ( _Snowflake.y> 400 || _Snowflake.x> 550)//to keep em moving just off the stage
{ stage.removeEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, snowfall);
removeChild(_Snowflake);
}
else
{ _Snowflake.y += 5; _Snowflake.x += Math.random() * 10; }
}


}

STOP & GO in actionscript...

Here's the actionscript to STOP a flash movie, then start it back up at a desired FRAME after clicking a button... Since Nathan was asking me for this, I decided to post it for everyone.

stop()
play1.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_DOWN, mouseDownHandler);
function mouseDownHandler(event:MouseEvent):void {
gotoAndPlay(61);
}

replace "play1" with the name of your button's instance and the "61" with the frame you'd like to it to go to...

simple animation about life.....

this is a simple animation i saw a long time ago that i really liked. this class made me think to look it back up. it says alot.........

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZAItPJshOo

i dont think the embedded link is working so here is the URL:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZAItPJshOo

Learn how to ActionScript!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U49_tSB_HrE

New Actionscript Code References

Here are some more links to help you along.

Drag and Drop Tutorial

Controlling the Timeline with ActionScript

More Drag and Drop

...and some more

I will post more later...

Some maze code

http://www.webwasp.co.uk/tutorials/b32-collision-detection/tutorial.php

Tutorial on button action script

http://www.flash-applets.com/tools/buttonactionscript.html

Making a Aqua Gel Button for Flash

CLICK HERE: WEBDESIGN.ORG

It's coming...

...CS4! New flash features include motion presets, 3d object transformation, and many more. Let's hope GSU wants to get it for us.

Check out more new flash features here.

cute flash sites

http://www.nadasurf.com/

http://www.decemberists.com/index.html

Sharpie Design...

This isn't really multimedia related, but I just ran across a link where a guy decorated the walls of his entire basement with a one sharpie! And the link has a great panaoramic image. Check it out

Flash Inspiration

There are some pretty cool flash animations on YouTube. I really like these.


YouTube

A few related links...

I thought some of these links might be helpful in your projects, for code and inspiration.

Holiday Themed Flash Lessons

Vertical Shooter Tutorial

Drag and Drop Methods

Hit Test (see comment about snapping)

Flash Game U Tutorials (exercises correspond to those in companion book)

Mad Libs Tutorial Using Components

Moving a Movie Clip with Arrow Keys

Create a Quiz Tutorial

Interesting design concept...

Zach reminded me of the album cover for T.I's new album which is pretty dope.. I just ran across this link... it shows a few shots of the artist's composition... creating a portrait from scraps of paper is pretty cool. Take a look... HERE

all beer sites are pretty amazing

http://www.corona.com/

Lots of source code and tutorials for Actionscript 3

http://www.monkeyflash.com/

Flash Animation Tutorials!!!!

Here's some lessons for some actions you may need for this e-card in Flash. Check it out~

~~~~Link~~~~~

A very impressive music video

So I went to a bar this past Saturday to watch some college football, and after all the games were over this bar played music videos on the big projector screens they had setup.. The played this new video by T-Pain... I know many of you would probably rather stab yourselves in the face with an unsharpened pencil before listening to T-Pain, but seriously this video has some really cool sequences... This concept seems like something put together more by an artist than an everyday music video director... I bet you could even do a lot of this stuff in After Effects... 

Anyway, if you hate the music, put it on mute but definitely check out the sequences at 1:05 and the best part at about 2:30.

Flash Tutorial

Flash tutorial:
http://www.kirupa.com/developer/flash/index.htm

A website with so many ecards:

http://angeleyes2.com/

Cool Interactive Agency

This is a pretty cool interactive agency.


Check it.

The Most Interesting Site On Earth...

http://dosequis.com/

interesting flash portfolios

Bogdan Pavel

The Cafcat

flash animations

This is an award wining animation made by flash which is fantastic to look at.
http://www.ianwharton.com/

And, Here are some links of the flash websites.
http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/best-flash-sites

Banner Compression

Here are some tips for reducing files sizes if you are having issues with that aspect of the project.

http://www.grantasticdesigns.com/flashcompression.html

The site design is not great, but the information provided offers some good tips for keeping file size low.

While, I definitely am looking for file size to be 40K (or really close to that, at least), the file size requirement is not as high a priority for your grade as the design portion is.

As I mentioned in class, if you are importing bitmapped images, compress them in Photoshop or Fireworks to reduce file size, but try to do that without sacrificing image quality. JPGs work best for photographic images, while GIFs are usually used for graphics with areas of solid color, such as logos. You can also import your AI files into Flash, since (generally speaking), vector graphics require less processing than bitmapped images (such as JPGs or GIFs). Another hint is to scale your images down to the size you need for the banner before saving and importing them, so Flash doesn't have to spend time processing that transformation.

I saw a lot of creative work in these ads on Thursday, so I am looking forward to seeing what you come up with for Tuesday! See you then.

Adobe is at it again!

It's coming...

And check out their flash tour

(Probably Stupid) Project Question

Hello,

At the risk of sounding like an airhead, Paige or anyone help me out here.  So, I checked my completed banner ad file size and it says "308 KB", or 313, 344 bytes.  And the maximum for the leaderboard on our sheet says "40K"....so, am I okay or is my file way huge?  Sorry I should probably know this but I just want to make sure... I tried very hard to compress everything and keep it simple so if my file is too big I don't know what to do...thanks guys

Banner Ad Tips and Ideas

10 Tips for Successful Banner Ads

Tips for Facebook Banners

Ten More Tips for an Effective Banner Ad

So the general gist...keep it simple! Yoou don't need crazy amounts of animation to communicate your message. Work to make it clean, concise, and succinct. Plus, the simpler it is, the more chance the file size will remain low. Keep in mind the things about banner ads that really get on your nerves. Make it a banner ad that YOU would click on!

flash button tutorial

it's a movie tutorial and it goes step by step. this helped me understand the action script code.

http://www.flashvideotutorials.info/

to find the tutorial clip,click........

->tutorial
->skip to tutorial
->BUTTONS
->Button Code CS3

And another one

http://flashthusiast.com/2008/02/25/making-a-button-work-in-flash-cs3-with-actionscript-30-its-not-too-bad/

And another one

http://flashthusiast.com/2008/02/25/making-a-button-work-in-flash-cs3-with-actionscript-30-its-not-too-bad/

some action script 3 stuff with buttons (tutorial stuff)

www.flashandmath.com/basic

flash button tutorial!!

this would help somehow~

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/buttons

Actionscript for navigateToURL

For your button:

animateRed.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_DOWN, mouseDownHandler2);
function mouseDownHandler2(event:MouseEvent):void {
navigateToURL(new URLRequest("http://www.youtube.com/"));
}

DRUM MACHINE

DRUM MACHINE

One of my favorite flash animation!!!

Honkbarn

This is RIDICULOUS.

As if there aren't enough ways to procrastinate already...

http://www.freetheflash.com/games/ultimate-flash-sonic.php

This is a fun sonic the hedgehog game to waste some of your time. I hope to eventually learn how to make flash animations interactive like this one.

Taking typography a little too seriously

I came across this article where some people were talking about typography errors in movies. (i.e. using Helvetica in a period piece before the typeface was invented.)  I sure hope I never take type this seriously... this seems pretty absurd..ha

Good Film, Shame About the Helvetica

Comm Art recommendation

Comm Arts suggested this site for it's interactivity.

You be the judge.

Awesome Flash animation series

http://www.newgrounds.com/collection/xombie.html

Great animation...I first saw these years ago

How..

What's the best way to upload our Flash animations to our blogs? I tried uploading a .mov, and it was lagging really bad...

funny banner from Mac

Mac/PC Flash web banner ad on CNN.com

Banner ads samples

Flash banner ad samples for everyone to think about...

SITE ONE (banner ad portfolio)
SITE TWO (bannerite.com)
SITE THREE (with lots of different company)
SITE FOUR (by Wendy Robbins)

cold hard flash

lots of animations

http://www.aniboom.com/

this is a site with a ton of animations on it!

ljudbilden & piloten

Take a look. He does a lot of a really cool flash loops... and some amazing stop motion. Enjoy!

some stuffs...

Yes, we are used to Flash animation being ...well... flashy.
I found a site where Flash is used to explain concepts in Physics. Boring to some yes, but just another approach to using the software, I think.

www.upscale.utoronto.ca/GeneralInterest/Harrison/Flash

And an entertaining simple flash animation about the end of the world


www.endofworld.net

i dont think this is flash but its still really cute

banner ad tutorials

tutorials:

http://www.lukamaras.com/tutorials/banners/banners-tutorials.html

some flash banner examples:

http://www.idealstudio.com/showcase/main.php?g2_itemId=23

It may be 10 years old or so...

Mind you this was 10 years ago, and while Duran Duran may be considered old and such they have done some innovative things.
This video was done in all Flash. Of course looking at it some may sneer, turn their nose up, etc..but it was 10 years ago, and I don't think I could pull off this caliber of stuff just yet. Look at the colors...
HERE.

Spore

I thought this was a cool game as well as an interactive flash site.


Spore

question about project

does anyone know if we can have music playing in the background of our animation?

Books!

If anyone is looking to purchase any design related books.... here's a list of books I've found that are supposedly pretty good... 30 books are listed... take a look

http://www.youthedesigner.com/2007/12/10/30-delightful-graphic-design-books/

Jackson Pollock by Miltos Manetas

Original Design by Stamen

http://www.jacksonpollock.org

Flash site where you can doodle!

Geek humor: Funny article about "NEW" Flash Tech

http://blogs.computerworld.com/a_new_technology_called_flash_memory