Projects: More work than
I’ve ever done in 6 months!
Shawn Osinski’s New World Multimedia provided Travelers and MetLife a sales support CDROM created in Authorware 5 with animations from 3D Studio Max and After Effects. Okay, so it was a nice job—but what made this the best job all year was that when the project was over Shawn treated everyone involved to a fancy dinner! What a great way to end a project—did I mention I like NW Cuisine? Side Effects It’s finally done… Nathan Lucas’s thesis project programmed in Director 7 with "web connected" features (users can share the creations they make). Come to June’s Multimedia User Group Meeting (the 16th of June at PCC) for a presentation on the making of this project. In my part of the presentation, I’ll show how some of the same code for this project has been useful in commercial projects. Oswego Group has produced many collateral CDs in the past, but this time Reebok wanted something with a multimedia interface. I programmed an extensive Director front-end to thousands of high-resolution and low-resolution images which sales people can layout on a page to print. The high-resolution printing was the easy part, thanks to Print-O-Matic (see Reviews, below). I’ve taught my Flash class at PNCA three times now, and have a Flash 4 version coming up in July. I’ve said it before—the best way to learn is to teach a class! PNCA is also offering a "Survey of Multimedia" (which I’ll teach) covering general techniques, concepts, and concerns in creating multimedia (…for the web… as if anything isn’t). PCC offered a one-day web animation class which I taught—kind of impossible to do everything in one day, but we covered a bit of Dreamweaver, Flash, Fireworks…and touched on concepts which apply to animation generally. It worked out pretty well, even though we were all a bit burned out at the end. Talk about getting burned out… I jetted out to Oklahoma to conduct 40 hours of Advanced Authorware training for the Army base in McAlester. Just in time for the Tornado of the century—it missed me by 100 miles. The Grapes of Wrath is probably not the most accurate representation of Oklahoma—the distance learning set up I saw, for example, was the most advanced I’ve ever seen. I walked down the street to Cleveland High School for a little demo on Authorware (which the students have been using successfully for some time now). They were most impressed by the pay scale for multimedia in Portland. |
Waggener Edstrom is a great client because they have such a high standard. This time, they wanted a "localizable" version of a sales support CD with some really nice features. Alpha channels for semi-transparency…custom animated pop-up menu available any time… and all language-specific content easily modified. It certainly could have been completed in Director 6.5, but with version 7 it took about 30% less time to program. Although this might be an "apples to oranges" comparison, I can safely say Director 7 is much faster to program. If you haven’t heard me rave about Buddy API enough, you can check out the article I wrote for Macromedia User Journal in April. In addition to my ravings, I included sample code files for Authorware and Director… as well as a listing of other competitive products. I did some work for OakTree.com right around the time of the last newsletter, so I almost forgot to include it this time. It was cool because the job involved demonstrating software which hadn’t been released yet. Check out this great (and informational) site at: www.oaktree.com/december/ (By the way, this was created entirely by two Oaktree’ers who took my Flash class—so I’m even more proud than if I had created it myself.) New Interactive wins my award for the most substantial updates to a single project. Often companies say, "we’re going to update this thing every quarter" and then never do. New Interactive has had me work on revisions for a training project every year since 1995! And here’s something you probably couldn’t do with Director, we’ve converted the code base through every version of Authorware since 3.0! Tonic Design had me come in to put the final touches on a simple Director project. Joseph Morris Design had me do a Mac>Win conversion. Greets hired me for some advice. I casually mention the Multnomah County Health Department and ADP in every newsletter, but it’s important because they keep creating more training. Sometimes it’s tough for me to get excited unless something new is added. However, I find the best way to get re-excited is to look back at what I’ve done—try to look with fresh eyes and maybe then pride will generate some excitement. U of O - Portland had me jump-in in a flash to teach a two-day course in Flash 3. It was interesting because I had just received the first beta of Flash 4 (see Software Reviews, below) and wanted to both honor Macromedia’s confidence as well as not teach information soon to be obsolete. As amazing as Flash 4 is, it really wasn’t hard to accomplish both goals. Last but not least, I co-authored an Authorware book (see Reviews, below). Also, I did a few presentations (see Presentations, below). |
The Macromedia User Conference in May was pretty exciting (see UCON 99, below)… for me, the most excitement came when I gave a technical presentation on how JavaScript and Flash can communicate (A Meaningful Conversation Between JavaScript and Flash). The fully annotated Shockwave version of my presentation (and handout) is available at: www.teleport.com/~phillip/ucon99/presentation/ The concept is simple: JavaScript can "talk" to Flash (control the movie or get information from the movie) and Flash can "talk" to JavaScript (invoke any JavaScript function). I originally proposed the topic before seeing Flash 4. On first look at the beta I was afraid my topic was obsolete—it wasn’t. There’s just as much need as ever to know JavaScript. Besides the extensive control of Flash…Dreamweaver objects are authored in JavaScript, and yet to be announced Xtras for Fireworks and Director will support JavaScript. All this, plus the popularity of Flash overbooked my session. There were seats for 120, but no fewer than 220 were present! |
Speaking of overbooking… the Internet Professionals Northwest (IPN) invited me to present this May… and about 80 people attended. I had originally proposed the topic "Browserless Web Applications". Somehow the title changed to "Overcoming the Limitations of the Browser". Of course, by avoiding the browser you’re overcoming the limits… but regardless I think it’s an important topic (maybe even a bit ahead of its time). If you still think the future of the web is more stuff that goes in the browser—you’re wrong! The browser is a great way to reach almost everyone today…but it’s a compromise to communication (both aesthetically and technically). The connection to the web will be much more transparent. As proof look at QuickTime 4’s player (with the "favorites drawer"), the RealAudio player, the new Shockwave Remote and Shock Machine from Macromedia, as well as a large selection of custom applications (like the ones I presented to the IPN). The challenge with this topic, I find, is that people don’t think it’s on the web unless it’s in a browser. My presentation disproved that notion. In addition I introduced some of the tools which provide creative solutions. |
Flash 4 (www.macromedia.com/software/flash/) |
Print-O-Matic 1.6 (www.printomatic.com) A pretty common Xtra, I know, but I thought it was worth mentioning. I used it extensively to print high-resolution EPS files (see Projects, above)—it’s been working great! Also, it’s now "safe for Shockwave". The Ultimate Authorware Attain Tutorial QuickTime 4 with Flash 4 |
UCON 99: Macromedia User Conference Report…something for everyone (especially Flash-heads)
The items with asterisks* were only demonstrated—and may never be included in actual products…I’ve included them because I think they’re cool enough to actually happen. Authorware. From the people who brought you the watch cursor which spun at a million miles an hour in the Mac Authorware 3 start up, now… get ready… scroll bars* in Authorware! (It’s about time.) If that was it, the UCON would have been a big waste—there was more. I was happy to see Authorware promoted to a more prominent position… but the only new stuff I recall was how version 5.1 (a free patch) will support QuickTime 4 and Flash 4. Also, there’s a new tool palette* similar to a library window but not tied to a particular file. Finally, they showed some Xtra to allow for "Director-like" animations* (don’t ask me how it works, they just showed it briefly). If Authorware is the neglected step-child, Flash is the darling. One announcement was a "free" license for the Flash player (not just the file format which has already been published). Besides the demonstration of .swf files playing on a Palm V*, they suggested .swf files would soon play everywhere including your microwave. (This is true!) Fireworks 2 is a pretty cool program that’s getting better. A new feature might be browser previews* without launching the browser. And .swf (pronounced "swif") file export from Fireworks*. In a much more confirmed way, they announced an architecture for extended scripts and objects for Fireworks written by users in JavaScript. Talking about JavaScript… it seems that’s the de facto language for Macromedia. Dreamweaver objects already support it… and a new sprite Xtra* for Director executes JavaScript within Director! (Maybe my presentation will convince a lot of people as to the value of learning JavaScript.) Dreamweaver. The import of .csv files directly into tables seems so useful, I can’t imagine it won’t be available soon… but this was during the "sneak peeks". They showed generator previewing* within Dreamweaver. And more Attain ‘objects’ which will work directly in Dreamweaver 2 (instead of the goofy idea of two versions of the product). |
As Macromedia morphs into an entertainment company, they’re introducing
a new vocabulary: persistent presence (which your Shockwave
sites will achieve via the Shockwave Remote), sticky websites
(maybe it’s not their word, but I like it anyway), viral marketing
(to describe how software spreads)… and branding which,
of course, is nothing new—but what’s amazing to me is that Macromedia
want’s to associate themselves with South Park! One thing that
struck me as profound was that the "shockwave.com" folks are predicting
a new "killer brand" will emerge in the next several months—let’s hope
it’s something more interesting than a rude cartoon. Director 7.0.2 was just released and already includes one fancy
feature. |
Director 7 Maybe I should call this a non-tip… the best tip I
can give you is use the new features. Most significantly, the Lingo
dot-syntax. The same basic concept works for lists as well, say you want
to retrieve a value from "aList" which looks like this: |
Flash Most of these tips are obvious once you know them… and many came from my students. View>Work Area in order to move items off stage. Ctrl-drag a keyframe to move it. After changing a value in the inspector, click "enter" on the number pad to apply the value (enhanced in version 4). Onion skin "edit multiple frames" to move an entire frame-by-frame animation to a new location. The eye-dropper picks up more than just color—it samples other attributes as well. Finally, from the "Optimizing Flash" session: don’t compress sounds or bitmaps (jpgs) before importing (let Flash do the compression), Fills display faster than lines, ungrouping is smaller (if there was a lot of overlap) but larger if many more intersections were created. "Create size report" to judge each change you attempt. Oh, here’s my all-time favorite tip: |
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Last update: 1 October 1999