Studioblog (n): a blog by Studiobanks about design, marketing, internet, business, Charlotte and more. 

Pretty Loaded

Will 0 Comments

If you haven’t already done so, check out Big Spaceship’s Pretty Loaded.

Pretty Loaded is an archive of preloaders, created and curated by Big Spaceship. So far it looks like Big Spaceship, Firstborn, Odopod and AgencyNet are the only agencies on the site, but it’s all top-notch work and warrants a look. You can definitely spend a lot of time appreciating the amount of detail that goes into all of the work showcased on the site.

If you’re a Flash developer and would like to learning how to create a preloader of your own, Jamie Kosoy (Big Spaceship’s Senior Developer) has a great article on Adobe’s site on creating a preloader with ActionScript 3.0.

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(Review) Learning ActionScript 3.0

Will 0 Comments

Initially, having already read the ActionScript 3.0 Cookbook, I wasn’t planning on reading another book focusing on introductory ActionScript 3, but then I started to hear more and more about Learning ActionScript 3.0 by Rich Shupe and Zevan Rosser. Lee Brimelow is quoted on the cover calling it “The best ActionScript book ever written.” How can you argue with that recommendation?

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FlaCC: Flash C Compiler

Will 0 Comments

Earlier this month Peter Elst posted on his blog about the FlaCC Project. In a nutshell, FlaCC is a way to compile C and C++ libraries to ActionScript bytecode, making code written in the C/C++ languages accessible to Flash. Interpreters for various scripting languages are actually written in C/C++ so this could allow you to port Ruby, PHP or Python into your AIR applications.

This video from Adobe MAX Chicago is enough to entice your imagination:

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(Review) Advanced ActionScript 3 with Design Patterns

Will 0 Comments

Being a predominately self-taught web developer, I’ve slowly migrated towards object oriented programming and, to my credit, made some applications that work but, at the same time, those apps definitely could have been made better and more efficiently.

A couple of weeks ago, I finished reading Advanced ActionScript 3 with Design Patterns by Joey Lott and Danny Patterson and found it quite helpful. Now knowing what the MVC, singleton, proxy, iterator, composite, decorator, command, memento and state patterns are I can better utilize them in my Flash projects and ultimately make better coded apps than I could before.

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Inverse Kinematics in Flash CS4

Will 2 Comments

Today, Aaron Simpson at Cold Hard Flash posted a few videos demonstrating the new Bone Tool and Inverse Kinematics features of Flash CS4.

The Bone Tool basically allows you to group objects together as a flexible jointed object similar to how you’d rig a skeleton in a 3D application. Definitely a welcomed addition for anyone using Flash specifically for character animation.

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(Review) ActionScript 3.0 Cookbook

Will 2 Comments

In order to help my migration to Flash 9, I went ahead and read the ActionScript 3.0 Cookbook by Joey Lott, Darron Schall and Keith Peters.

Overall, I would say that it was helpful and recommend it, but even though my copy was a first edition, it did seem like the book contained way too may typos (both grammatical and in the ActionScript itself). Typos aside, the chapters on the Display List and XML were both extremely concise and informative. If you’re unfamiliar with either, I’d recommend giving them a look.

Like the other books in O’Reilly’s Cookbook series, the ActionScript 3.0 Cookbook works as a quick reference to commonly encountered problems. Focusing on the end results, their problem/solution approach to education works well when you’re already somewhat familiar with their subject.

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Adobe CS File Corruption on OS X 10.5.3

Robbie 8 Comments

A little warning for anyone out there running OS X Leopard 10.5.3 and using any of the Adobe CS products to edit files on a remote or network server: beware of file corruption.

Folks started picking up on this last month when the 10.5.3 update was released. According to AppleInsider:

When users attempt a save command, the file on the server becomes unusable, even when copied and opened locally. The issue occurs regardless of the format and doesn't appear to occur for locally saved files, which can still be uploaded to the server afterwards. The corrupted files appear to have a modified header that prevents them from being recognized properly.

We all work off of a file server in the office. Unfortunately, this bug reared its ugly head and rendered a few Photoshop documents useless. Luckily, we pulled files off our daily backup, so not all was lost. However, we're anxiously awaiting the fix from Apple included with OS X 10.5.4, which should be released in July prior to the iPhone 3G launch. Until then, to all those working with said configuration: copy your files locally before make any changes.

Update: Apple has released the OS X 10.5.4 update, which should resolve the issues described above. Upgrade your OS today.

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9-Slice Scaling in Flash

Will 2 Comments

One of the humbling things about working primarily in Photoshop, Illustrator and Flash is that I've been using these applications for years and I'm still stumbling across new features. My latest discovery is Flash 8's 9-slice scaling.

Down at the bottom of the advanced options of the Symbol Properties window is a checkbox labeled "Enable guides for 9-slice scaling." When enabled, a set of guides will be positioned in your symbol and when you scale an instant of this clip asymmetrically in your published SWF – it will maintain a crisp, clean appearance with undistorted corners and edges.

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Papervision3D

Will 0 Comments

Up until this year actual 3D in Flash has been nonexistent. If you wanted to achieve some sort of faux 3D effect you’d more than likely have to rely on importing an image sequence or vector animation from some third party application – so needless to say, I was really excited to learn about Papervision3D.

Papervision3D is an open source realtime 3D engine for Flash. Basically, it allows you to texture map and render a low polygon object, which you can then affect with Actionscript and any of the other resources in your Flash movie.

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Deep Linking in Flash

Will 1 Comments

For sometime now I’ve been trying to find a more elegant solution to deep linking within a full screen flash site and I think I’ve found the answer with Asual’s SWFAddress.

Basically, the SWFAddress records a history of all of your swf’s “pages” and (through Javascript and Flash 8’s External Interface functionality) enables your browser’s back, forward and reload buttons to affect your swf – while at the same time allowing your swf to affect the browser’s url and page title. This allows the user to have a much more intuitive navigational experience with your flash site.

Just think: users will have the ability to bookmark sections of your flash site and link back into them whenever they want, or use the browser’s back and forwards buttons to navigate through your swf. This is quite a step up from Robert Penner’s back button fix.

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