Flash Image gallery finsihed, overall i am happy with the way it turned out and how it looks. Right now it all works and am happy with it also found a new host to directly hotlink my files to so no more waiting for deviant art to load.
Its been scaled down to fit on blogger so thats why its not so big and hard to view the text but if you look at the picture ones they work quite well.
Click on it to try it out.
Screenshot of it embeded into my website
There were a few issues with size but i think ive fixed most of them now, not looking foward to validating it though...
Taking a break from my website for a minute, i came across this really nice use of 3D using flash. PageTurn 3D is a flash component which allows you to build a book which like a real one. The user can turn the page when reading.
I think its a really intresting use of flash and 3D and just shows the potential of flash for the future. What is really good about it is how the user can interact with the book, Turning the pages like you would with a real book is great. The compent also allows the user to adjust the size of the book/pages increasing accessabilty. The user is also alowed to change the camera angle of how to read the book which is another nice feature.
The down side, This is how people make money with Flash, the website digicrafts sells lots of flash compents. This is alright for big buisness looking for new ways to promote there service/product. But makes it harder for others to learn and use these techniques, also i don't have money to waste on this. So i'll be learning the long way.
Which leads me on to one more point, that there are alot of websites now setup for making compents and then distrubuting them for either a small cost or very expensive. Theres definatly some money in making these compents and alot of the more expensive ones use and have 3D elements to them.
Alot of Modern Toss creative work has very distinct hand draw style to it. However bad you may think it looks it is apprent throughout there work. I knew this from very early on and needed/wanted to include this within my website, if i had made a website similar to alot of websites nowadays i think i would of lost the character that comes with Modern Toss.
To do this i came to a very different soloution one might expect. I have used Google sketch up in the past and know it to be the easist 3d modeling program to use. I also know that Sketch Up allows the user to apply different styles to their work in real time and not have to wait for it to render. (examples below)
Image to the left just shows what can be achieved with very little editing.
Rather than draw the boxes out, on pen and paper or graphics tablet and waste time finding the right brushes. I saved alot of hassle by making it in Sketch Up very easy to edit and everything is porpotional to each other so no one side is bigger than the other or its not aligned.
I have not just used this technique just for the background of the content boxes, when i was thinking about creating the full flash website i wanted different buildings and structures to appear in my work and this is one of the main reasons i looked to Sketch Up. (more examples below)
Start off with a Sketch Up model which am hoping to use in my work.
Apply Style
Looks like its been Drawn!
The great thing about this method is the fact if you create any model you can point the camera at any point in the model, (the examples above arn't the best camera angles) and have the model any way you need it without the hassle of drawing and re-drawing the model everytime etc.
Colours can be added in photoshop, its also posible to texture the model in sketch up by playing around with the styles. I found this really useful when keeping within the style of Modern Toss. Also while browsing youtube i came across one of their videos i'm sure of which is done using Sketch up as well. The animation at the start can be very easily done in Sketch Up.
These are some of my intital Sketches for designing my website,
Design Process 1 : Design
The first image was my intital Design for the website i wanted to make it a full flash interactive website where the user would be able to scroll across the screen and interact with different objects on screen, and each would expalin more about Modern Toss etc. However this plan was to fall short because i did not forsee the lack of tutorials on this idea, moving the screen with the mouse. I played about with some ideas i'll post them aswell soon but i felt by the time it would take me to learn some of them i'd have no time to make the website, so i choose to make a standard looking website keeping within a certain style of Modern Toss.
First ideas for my website, basic layout consisting of pages ive already mentioned in the previous post. This is the best example of the Modern Toss style i wanted to include in my website with the sketchy hand drawn style. The website all keeps in line with the same layout on each page, even though its the same, continuety is best in this case. (i don't think ive seen too many websites where every page looks different - food for thought).
Next page, got tired of drawing the layout so just drew what i would be putting in the main content areas on the other pages. I could write about more but the notes explain the pictures in you click open, and this is becoming more of an evalution.
Havent updated the blog in about two weeks so this post and ones after it will probably flood it over the next week or so making up for the past two weeks.
Website Progress
Starting off with where i'm currently at and how i'm progressing with pictures.
Here is a screenshot of website progress currently the about page is nearly finished just lacking the flash banner at the top.
In the picture below, is basically my finshed layout for the all the website pages excluding the index page which is more of a portal.
Ive kept within the design style of Modern Toss by keeping the sketchy edges around the borders where content will be placed. On all the pages there are links to Modern Toss twitter and tumblr, with the two fly characters take from the show added just to make it more like modern toss.
Website layout without the fancy grapics, very simple and stuff not much to say about it. Except The footer and the navigation bars were 100px but they seem to big and in the later versions i changed it, to better suit the layout and not take up so much room.
The website currently has six pages or seven Index portal, About, News, Characters, Movies, Gallery.
Index Portal - Is the main page from when the user enters the URL which is mainly going to be a portal.
About - A page explaining about Modern Toss.
News - will be a PHP page which takes News articles from the database i have set up.
Characters - A interactive flash page displaying characters and information about them.
Movies - Embedded Youtube movies, with a list style view
Gallery - A flash gallery displaying extracts from the Modern Toss comics.
I hope to Make a indivdiual banner for each page, in flash either telling a small story about a character or just displaying different characters.
More to follow this post like sketches and wireFrame work! and everything else.
Research and identify at least two uses of social network integration not given in lecture. This can include RSS feeds. (research twitter and rss feed scripts)
Social Network Inegration using Twitter, lots of people and buisnesses use Twitter to get their message out there, to promote themselfs. Twitter is becoming more and more popular not only by the celebrity endorsement...
One very intresting use of twitter i found out a few days ago, and could see it actually being used for something good was, twitter posts featuring in LIVE news coverage. With the earthquake in Chillie only a few days ago there was alot of talk from news coverage and scientists about a tsunami heading towards Hawaii.
With a potential Tsunami heading for Hawaii the Hawaiin news coverage was all warning the citizens of Hawaii to get to higher ground. Part of their news coverage was relying on Twitter posts by people from Hawaii telling them what shops were open, roads closed, information like that. The news broadcasters would then select Twitter posts and quote them.
I only know this because i was watching a live feed of the news being broadcast.
I guess with social networking interogration becoming more evident we'll see a lot more natural disasters being updated by Twitter, First hand accounts of the situation.
Identify relevant social networks for your project and discuss pros and cons
For my website, Modern Toss use alot of social networking websites and keep them up to date very regualry. It will be important for me to have these links within my website as they are a ideal form of promotion and allows all the followers of Modern Toss to access recent information.
