The Phillip Newsletter (Winter ‘98 - ‘99)
Semi-annual report to Clients, Colleagues, and Prospects of Phillip Kerman
www.teleport.com/~phillip/                                                                                  Volume  2   Issue 2

Projects: I can sincerely say that 99% of these projects are really fun!
 

I think it’s important to always have at least one job you’re doing for fun—not money. My "BeastCDBoys Player" is just that. (And there’s no rule against making money off it indirectly.) Ever wonder what indistinguishable lyrics the Beastie Boys are busting out? Eyes strained from reading tiny liner notes? Well, download my free player and you’ll see the fresh lyrics in perfect synchronization (you’ll need the Beastie Boys’s CDs—but who doesn’t?). Plus, each album module has a dope interface that gives you a fly way to select tracks. Check it out: www.teleport.com/~phillip/oldindex.html

Jobs for fun not profit can pay back later. My BeastCDBoys Player, for instance, was the central focus of a technical article I wrote for the Macromedia Users Journal in December. Sort of a case-study of making the player—but with details of the Xtras used (CDPRO and Buddy API). Another article used the same technique—I leveraged my localization projects with "Worldwide Lingo", appearing last September. And while I was trying to learn how Knowledge Objects worked, I wrote another article for the January ‘99 issue. I don’t mind working, I just don’t like doing it twice.

From Beastie Boys to "Bad boys… whatcha gunna do?" That’s right "COPS"—not the show, the real thing. Soon, Police Officers in California will be training on computer. It’s a joint project between several Oregon and California developers—and we’re creating some cool QuickTime VRs too.

Nathan Lucas’s Side Effect project is just about done and it turned out really nice. It’s a thesis project on which Craig Hickman (creator of KidPix) is advising—so you know it’ll be fun.

I’ve had my share of mini-consulting jobs too: New Interactive, The Belgard Group, Function Digital Design, and Elvis and Bonaparte… could all have their questions answered or problems solved in a few hours. Sometimes former Authorware students have big projects with which I can help—Tektronix and KATU both fit that description.

In the "back from the dead" category… a job I started more than 4 years ago is finally going to be finished! I abandoned the joint project from the Indian Health Service Dental Program and Salish-Kootenai College years ago, but Leigh Roberts of Aartvark Studio has stuck with it and now they need me for some finishing touches. It actually feels good working on a project that you know is coming to a close.

I’m not really Mr. Flash, or Mr. JavaScript for that matter… but I think that may become my name. KVO Public Relations has me cranking out some pretty fun audio navigation for a "top secret" site (which will should be public by the time this is published—what’s the point of a website anyway?—usually you want people to visit it). Also CKS Partners gave me a chance to go hog-wild with a website prototype… Flash, layers, style sheets—no practical limits, it only had to work under IE4.0. This was just a prototype, but it reminded me of how much more you can do when you don’t spend 90% of your time making sure your project will work flawlessly for the bottom 5%.

Talk about no limits… Intel had me create a simulation of a product yet to be built and it only had to work on one machine! (Okay, I was limited to Win98, 350Mhz PII, DVD drive, MPEG card… oh and it couldn’t exceed 6 Gigabytes!) I got to play with MPEG II and DVDs for the first time. Who knows if the real product will ever be built—it depends how the consumer testing goes with my simulation.

Although people don’t often ask me to create animations… I am pretty handy with After Effects and Flash. I’ve also found the best way to learn: teach a class. I’ve taught a couple courses now in Flash at the Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA). The class worked out great (I say this based on what the students have gone on to do) and I can truly say I’ve learned Flash. I’ve got a similar one-day seminar planned at Portland Community College in February—though it’s more an exposure to lots of software than concentrated exercises. Also, I’ll be teaching my Authorware course at Portland State University. Although it wasn’t a formal "class", two folks from Multimedia Marketing Group in Bend came up for a "Day of Director".

All these jobs required almost no travel… but there is a potential on the horizon to do some "Advanced Authorware Training" in Oklahoma. "Oh what a beautiful morning…"

Waggener Edstrom is growing a New Media department—including a few talented people with whom I’ve worked at other companies. This gave me an "easy in" to provide the Director programming skills to crank out a really nice "connected" CDROM. Believe it or not, some of the techniques used in my BeastCDBoys player came in handy for making an animation using a "ticker tape" of moving words that would highlight in sync with narration.

Since there’s still work coming from the Multnomah Health Department as well as ADP, I don’t want to forget to mention them.



Editorial: The credit you deserve…
 

Let’s ponder a question: which person will put the most effort into a project? Person A—an anonymous cog in the great multimedia machine, or Person B—who gets their name put on the very project on which they work? If you picked B you’ll agree that everyone creating multimedia should be getting credit for their work. Not only do I believe this will benefit everyone, but as you’ll see I’m willing to put money behind the cause!

The history behind why creative advertisements, CDROMs, and websites rarely have credit screens is unknown to me—but I really don’t care for the excuse "it’s just that way." Putting credit on work helps everyone—probably the person getting credit receives the least benefit. If your name is on a piece of work, you’ll assure it comes out well. Conversely, if no name is on it—no one can be blamed if it sucks… and few people will care to put in the extra effort to make it good.

Just ask Edward Tufte how he figures the Challenger disaster could have been averted had the engineers’ warnings (including graphs with no name) had been created more thoughtfully.

Try this: tell everyone working on your project you want to get their name right for the credit screen—then watch everyone perk up.

I don’t care if you’re working for a company, working as a contractor, or working on a "top secret" ad campaign for a better widget—all the reasons why you shouldn’t have a credit screen are bogus. I know it’s not an easy pitch to make when others are footing the bill… but how about if they get a discount to include a credit screen? I regret this "bottom line" argument is the only one I think will ever work… so in that light let me formally offer a $50 discount (including the time required to program) for every project I’m hired to do which includes a credit screen. Just imagine how much savings could add up if several contractors made the same offer! Also don’t forget the real reason for credit—the job will come out better!

Eventually the idea of a "web credit" screen won’t seem all that funky… you might even see a frame or two "credits" at the end of a 10 second TV ad. Laugh if you want, but when you’re chatting with your great grand kids and they don’t believe what you used to do, don’t blame me.


Software News & Reviews: One thing’s for sure—there will always be new software to review…
 

Director 7 (www.macromedia.com/software/director/)
It used to be 24, then 48… who could ever want more than 120 channels? Okay you asked for it—1000 channels! Oh, and 999 frames per second for those of you who thought 500 fps was just too jerky (okay, I know that’s not the point… but what if you need 1000fps?). I suppose I’m glad they added all that (I guess no one’s suggested more than 32,000 members per cast). I think of these as headline grabbing, "because we can" features. The new "Quad" feature (where you can stretch the corners of bitmaps) is neat looking, but has limited practical use. The following comments are what I think is cool about D7… as I haven’t had too much time really using it. Vector members! (Not just Flash members—which finally support Flash 3.) There’s a paint window and a draw window. Anti-aliased editable text! Rotation of any sprite—now this looks really great… I hope it’s not riddled with performance/crash problems—not that I have any reason to believe so, but you figure the rotating is done by the user’s machine so it’s probably a hog. Anyway, Lingo has really been updated… you don’t need "set" anymore! Now there’s "dot notation" (like VB or JavaScript) so you don’t need "the" or "of" anymore. CGI Post commands can be generated directly from Lingo lists… plus support for "HTTPS" (secure web transaction). The way HTML is supported is through XML (you kind of "do it yourself"). There’s a lot more—I’d say it’s as big a change as version 5 to 6 was. I should also note, the included behavior library was created by a team of the world’s best Lingo-ists including Portland’s own Darrel Plant!

CDPRO Xtra (www.penworks.com) Gives Authorware and Director the ability to control Audio CDs. Only cost—conforming to a copyright graphic (like the "Made with Macromedia" logo). Anyway, if it weren’t for this Xtra my "BeastCDBoys Player" would be wacked. It’s pretty fun to use the "eject" or "inject" functions to give your applications physical power… but even basic functions are useful. Like, playing CD Audio tracks (while allowing users to use such disks in regular compact disc players. Check out my article in December’s Macromedia Users Journal for more.

Authorware Attain — AKA Version 5 (www.macromedia.com/software/authorware/)
The fact "Attain" is only available for Windows is not too interesting, I can’t remember my last Macintosh Authorware project. There’s a "player" for Mac coming, but I shudder to think how that’ll work (Director veterans only need to hear one word to cause instant hysteria –Gaffer).
Some really great advances have finally been added! The batch property change feature is a carpal-tunnel saver (my wrist has been suggesting it since version 2!) but the implementation is a little goofy. For instance, the design has forced them to name fields that previously had no names—that’s fine, but each property should have only one name, not several. Most features are really great—anti-aliased live text, alpha-channels, and QuickTime 3 support (okay, that’s just a matter of evolution). The big thing is "Knowledge Objects"—a much more advanced version of models. Remember you can use others’ KOs, or you can make your own. New ones are released monthly. If you want to make them yourselves be prepared for some time investment—if you have a useful KO, though, it’ll be worth the investment. (See my article in the January issue of Macromedia Users Journal.)

MUI Maker (www.updatestage.com) Remember my glowing review of "Buddy API"—how I said I always use it? Well, MUI Maker is almost that great! It actually doesn’t do anything you couldn’t do by hand—it simply creates scripts to use with Macromedia’s MUI Xtra. If you don’t know about MUI Xtra, now you do (it’s a script Xtra for "rolling your own" system dialogs). If you already knew about, you also know how much depth there is to it… and how tough it is to use. MUI Maker uses a really well designed interface for you to layout a dialog visually. You can make all kinds of system dialogs: drop down lists, sliders, etc. MUI Maker simply spits out the scripts that you copy into your Director application. It even includes all the "callback" scripts so Director can "hear" everything the user is doing on your dialog, while they do it! (Psst—while you’re at "updateStage.com" check out their other cool Xtras.)

While you’re scrambling to find out what you may have already missed with Buddy API, he’s got a new application worth a try—"Buddy Saver". Turns your Flash or Director Projectors into true Windows (".scr") Screensavers (check out: www.mods.com.au ).

 

Special Interests: A SIG for every single interest going…

TAAC started as an "alternative" to Macromedia’s big User Conference, now in its third year TAAC ’98 might need to change its name from "The Alternative Authorware Conference" to simply TAC because there’s nothing "alternative" about it—it is the definitive Authorware conference. About 150 people from around the world came to sky-high Snowbird ski resort in Utah for three days of geeking out with Authorware. There was significant support and openness provided by Macromedia. It was neat to see the range of stuff people do with Authorware… all the way from crappy looking functional training (created by amateurs) to true software products. Though it may sound like a criticism when I say something is crappy—the point is, you can’t crank something out as quick (with little or no previous knowledge) in any other tool. If you know what you want to create, you can create it with Authorware—no matter your skill. With such a broad base of users and new improvements in functionality, Authorware has a bright future.

You could travel 800 miles South East and 6000 feet up to find a convergence of Authorware users. If you live in Portland you might feel alone "doing Authorware", not because nobody’s using it—just no resources for us to network. A SIG is born: The Portland Authorware Users Group (PAUG). Come to our first meeting: the 12th of January, 1999 (then every month on the 2nd Tuesday). Call or visit www.aaiweb.com/paug.htm for details.

Although I’ve mentioned it before, the "Portland Multimedia Developers Group’s" recent development has been significant. We meet the 3rd Wednesday every month at the plush Auditorium 104 in PCC’s "Workforce" site (near OMSI). Brad Smith has been the dedicated host since its inception in his apartment 4 years ago. Not just a hang out for Director geeks anymore—the group has grown to include a good representation of graphic artists, audio, video, and web-heads. Over the years, it has remained casual—a place where if you have a project you want to show you can; if you want to bring in something you saw on the web you’ll find real live people with whom to share it! Anyway, it isn’t the same old people, and that’s good—come check it out. Consider being a host for a future meeting. Contact: bsmith@hotpepper.com

With the only conflict being Melrose Place (good thing for VCRs), another SIG has caught my interest, the Instructional Design for New Media SIG. Created as more of a "study group", this SIG has a real academic feel to it. For example, in advance of each meeting we are assigned to read a paper—then we meet to discuss the material contained. I got to host the third meeting (comparing Web-based training to Computer-based training). I mention this SIG not because they’re looking for a big influx of new members (though new members are welcome), but because it’s interesting and unique—maybe this will inspire similar such groups. Contact: mrubin@cmdpdx.com

 
Tech Tips: To insure productivity…

I’ve mentioned "Proofing scripts" before—that’s when you do some programming that isn’t actually used in your product, it’s used simply to check your product for bugs or completeness. This time, I’ll point you in the direction of some techniques which can increase your productivity—scripts that only get used at "author-time" not "run-time".

Ever do a Director project that includes audio… then someone wants to make a silent version (maybe for da web)? Just pull out the audio files and write a script for the delays… but how do you determine the length of each delay? Don’t pull out a stopwatch and pad of paper and start timing each audio clip! Write a productivity script which calculates the length of each sound.

Using the properties size, sampleRate, sampleSize, and channelCount along with a little math you can determine the duration of each sound file. When you think about these built-in properties—they don’t have much use during runtime. (Get the finished script from my website.)

The Authorware functions to check out are ChildNumToID and setIconProperty not to mention the whole new "Target" category. I personally like the catalog function to make a list of all the files in a folder. Okay, I’m not giving you too many applications for these, but if you get the concept then this should get you started.

I think I’m at the point where I can share some tips for Flash. I’m competent, but really haven’t been using it too long (who has?—it’s only been out a short while). Maybe you’ll find these tips helpful. No doubt you’ve figured out "paste in place"—without it everything gets pasted in the center. But I take advantage of that fact. Every time I’m editing an element of a symbol (graphic or another symbol)… I immediately cut it, then paste so it registers perfectly! Keep in mind, the rotation axis will be off center—but for most cases that’s not an issue. Another tip—don’t make complicated animated buttons… make one invisible button (blank key frames except the "hit" state) and use "tell target" to control complicated movie clips. Seems to me, this gives you more control.

 


The Phillip Newsletter: is published twice a year by Phillip Kerman with editing services from Diana Bauer. Phillip is an internationally recognized expert in creating multimedia for training and entertainment. Specializing in Macromedia tools for six years, Phillip has produced rapid prototypes, adaptable templates for large projects, and software which enables easy-localization. While he’s not re-writing his biography, he’s either writing a technical article, teaching a class, learning some new web thing, or playing around with Director, Authorware, or Flash.

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Please distribute this freely to anyone interested in or involved with multimedia—including computer based training, sales
presentations, customer demo software, programming, graphics, video, audio, interface design……and the web.
 

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Last update: 21 December 1998