An Experiment in Particles

A simple experiment into a particle explosion that I thought would be interesting to create in search for ideas surrounding the project.

View my cursor explosion here.

View my firework explosion here.

Code:

Moon Orbit

This project is in continuation of a tutorial of Flash AS 2.0 using some AS 3.0 practices given to us by Anna.

Essentially the tutorial was to create a moon orbiting the Earth within Flash.

I thought it would be interesting to extend this to being able to play with the settings that determine the orbit trajectory while the file is playing. I allowed the user to change the numbers that govern the trajectory, speed with the inclusion of the Earths own orbit.

Please view here.

This was a fun excursion into some techniques I hadn't before tried. For example the inclusion of the components that Flash offers as default in order to control the settings of the orbits.

Code:

angle = 0;
centerX = stage.width/2;
centerY = stage.height/2;
centerpos = {_x:300, _y:250};
i = 1;
earthSpeed = earthSpeed_com.value;
moonSpeed = moonSpeed_com.value;
earthXRadius = earthXRadius_com.value;
earthYRadius = earthYRadius_com.value;
moonXRadius = moonXRadius_com.value;
moonYRadius = moonYRadius_com.value;
var earthSpeed_com:mx.controls.NumericStepper;
var moonSpeed_com:mx.controls.NumericStepper;
var moonXRadius_com:mx.controls.NumericStepper;
var moonYRadius_com:mx.controls.NumericStepper;
var earthXRadius_com:mx.controls.NumericStepper;
var earthYRadius_com:mx.controls.NumericStepper;
var nstepListener:Object = new Object();
nstepListener.change = function(evt_obj:Object) {
trace("Value changed to "+evt_obj.target.value);
earthXRadius = earthXRadius_com.value;
earthYRadius = earthYRadius_com.value;
moonXRadius = moonXRadius_com.value;
moonYRadius = moonYRadius_com.value;
earthSpeed = earthSpeed_com.value;
moonSpeed = moonSpeed_com.value;
};
earthSpeed_com.addEventListener("change",nstepListener);
moonSpeed_com.addEventListener("change",nstepListener);
moonXRadius_com.addEventListener("change",nstepListener);
moonYRadius_com.addEventListener("change",nstepListener);
earthXRadius_com.addEventListener("change",nstepListener);
earthYRadius_com.addEventListener("change",nstepListener);
var moon_mc:MovieClip = _root.attachMovie("moon_mc", "moon_mc", i, centerpos);
i++;
var earth_mc:MovieClip = _root.attachMovie("earth_mc", "earth_mc", i, centerpos);
earth_mc.onEnterFrame = function():Void {
this._x = 300+Math.cos(angle)*earthXRadius;
this._y = 200+Math.sin(angle)*earthYRadius;
angle += earthSpeed;
earthpos = {_x:this._x, _y:this._y};
i++;
var trail_mc:MovieClip = _root.attachMovie("earth_mc", "earth_mc", i, earthpos);
trail_mc.onEnterFrame = function() {
this._alpha -= 1;
this._xscale -= 2;
this._yscale -= 2;
if (this._xscale<=0) {
this.removeMovieClip();
}
};
};
moon_mc.onEnterFrame = function():Void {
this._x = earth_mc._x+Math.cos(angle)*moonXRadius;
this._y = earth_mc._y+Math.sin(angle)*moonYRadius;
angle += moonSpeed;
moonpos = {_x:this._x, _y:this._y};
i++;
var trail_mc:MovieClip = _root.attachMovie("moon_mc", "trail_mc", i, moonpos);
trail_mc.onEnterFrame = function() {
this._alpha -= 0.75;
this._xscale -= 2;
this._yscale -= 2;
if (this._xscale<=0) {
this.removeMovieClip();
}
};
};

The Big Box

The 500x500 banner was always the one I dreaded the most. My first plans for it were lending towards a dress up droll style game. However during the time I spent creating the other two banners I came to realise that I didn't think it was a worthy exploration. So instead I turned my attention towards a mini version of the Marvel digital comics comic viewer. A mini flash application that lets you read a sample comics. Roughly about 5 pages long each page is 100k and loaded as and when the user requests the page. I can't show you how it works here so you'll have to make do with some screen shots. It's unfortunate but I just don't have the web space that is required in order to uploaded the various different files that this banner uses.

This was a good project, even if it didn't entirely succeed, which can be read about in my evaluation (to follow sometime shortly).

The reason I'll label this as a decent attempt is simply that it taught me some incredibly useful techniques that I just hadn't grasped before, in particular setting off functions in a different manner and the use of XML within Flash.

 

Code:

//xml
function loadXML(loaded) {
    if (loaded) {
        xmlNode = this.firstChild;
        image = [];
        description = [];
        total = xmlNode.childNodes.length;
        for (i=0; i<total; i++) {
            image[i] = xmlNode.childNodes[i].childNodes[0].firstChild.nodeValue;
            description[i] = xmlNode.childNodes[i].childNodes[1].firstChild.nodeValue;
        }
        firstImage();
    } else {
        desc_txt.text = "unable to find file!"
        content = "file not loaded!";
    }
}
xmlData = new XML();
xmlData.ignoreWhite = true;
xmlData.onLoad = loadXML;
xmlData.load("images.xml");
//variables
//listeners
listen = new Object();
listen.onKeyDown = function() {
    if (Key.getCode() == Key.LEFT) {
        prevImage();
    } else if (Key.getCode() == Key.RIGHT) {
        nextImage();
    }
};
Key.addListener(listen);
//buttons
reAlign_btn.onRelease = function(){
    reAlign();
}
previous_btn.onRelease = function() {
    prevImage();
};
next_btn.onRelease = function() {
    nextImage();
};
sizeInc_btn.onRelease = function() {
    sizeInc();
};
sizeDec_btn.onRelease = function() {
    sizeDec();
};
panRight_mc.onRelease = function(){
    picture._x += 20;
}
panLeft_mc.onRelease = function(){
    picture._x -= 20;
}
panDown_mc.onRelease = function(){
    picture._y += 20;
}
panUp_mc.onRelease = function(){
    picture._y -= 20;
}
//object functions
p = 0;
this.onEnterFrame = function() {
    filesize = picture.getBytesTotal();
    loaded = picture.getBytesLoaded();
    preloader._visible = true;
    if (loaded != filesize) {
        preloader.preload_bar._xscale = 100*loaded/filesize;
    } else {
        preloader._visible = false;
        if (picture._alpha<100) {
            picture._x = (Stage.width / 2) - (picture._width / 2);
            picture._alpha += 10;
        }
    }
};
//functions
function beginDrag() {
    picture.startDrag(true);
}
function endDrag() {
    picture.stopDrag();
}
function nextImage() {
    if (p<(total-1)) {
        p++;
        if (loaded == filesize) {
            picture._alpha = 0;
            picture.loadMovie(image[p],1);
            desc_txt.text = description[p];
            picture_num();
        }
    }
}
function prevImage() {
    if (p>0) {
        p--;
        picture._alpha = 0;
        picture.loadMovie(image[p],1);
        desc_txt.text = description[p];
        picture_num();
    }
}
function firstImage() {
    if (loaded == filesize) {
        trace('done');
        picture._alpha = 0;
        picture.loadMovie(image[0],1);
        desc_txt.text = description[0];
        picture_num();
    }
}
function picture_num() {
    current_pos = p+1;
    pos_txt.text = current_pos+" / "+total;
}
function sizeDec() {
    picture._xscale -= 15;
    picture._yscale -= 15;
}
function sizeInc() {
    picture._xscale += 15;
    picture._yscale += 15;
}
function reAlign() {
    picture._xscale = 100;
    picture._yscale = 100;
    picture._x = (Stage.width / 2) - (picture._width / 2);
}

The Final Landscape Banner Design

After the excessive amount of time wasted on making lightning (as far as the progress of this project goes) I finally came up with this small and efficient little banner. It does the job, which is all I think in the end it needs to do. I'm glad I looked into the lightning since I feel it pushed my knowledge of Action Script forward but in the end I'm more pleased with this than any other attempt.

Please view it here.

Lightning

This is going to be the hardest. My intention is to have the lightning striking outwards from the finger tips of the users flash cursor and for the lightning to strike areas of the stage. However, in practice I've come to realise this to be far too hard.

The following are some of my attempts, and some of my failures. However, this has been one of the most rewarding experiments I've ever attempted. This is AS that I've never attempted before and the results were actually quite pleasing, if not what I'd attempted for at first.

It has to be said that I spent far too much time on this aspect of the project getting far too involved with code that I knew from the offset would ultimately be too far from reach.

The actual design I went with for this landscape banner is entirely different, simpler and after much deliberation, preferable.

The following are links to the hosted SWF files. At the very end of the post will be listed the code I used to get this effect.

Working lines.

Creating a moving lines.

The final attempt with some effects thrown in for good measure.

//////////////////////////////////////////

//Sorry for the formatting, Flash won't format my code properly.

//the simple code

i = 0;
fscommand("allowscale", "false");
onEnterFrame = function () {;
var line_mc = attachMovie("line_mc", "line_mc", i);
i++;
xpos1 = _root.circle1_mc._x;
ypos1 = _root.circle1_mc._y;
xpos2 = _root.circle2_mc._x;
ypos2 = _root.circle2_mc._y;
xscale = xpos2 - xpos1;
yscale = ypos2 - ypos1;
line_mc._x = xpos1;
line_mc._y = ypos1;
line_mc._xscale = xscale;
line_mc._yscale = yscale;
};

//the more complicated code

i = 0;
xPlace = 90;
yPlace = random(160);
bolt = function () {;
p -= 5;
p = 50;
glowXScale = 200;
glowYScale = 200;
for (i = 1; i < 70; i++) { ;
circle1_mc.removeMovieClip();circle2_mc.removeMovieClip();//line_mc.removeMovieClip();
circle1Place = {_x: xPlace, _y: yPlace};
var circle1_mc = attachMovie("circle_mc", "circle1_mc", i, circle1Place);i++;
var glow_mc = attachMovie("glow_mc", "glow_mc", i, circle1Place);i++;
circle1X = circle1_mc._x;
glow_mc._xscale = glowXScale;
glow_mc._yscale = glowYScale;
glowXScale -= 15;
glowYScale -= 15;
newPos = {_x: xPlace+p, _y: random(40)+10};
var circle2_mc = attachMovie("circleblue_mc", "circle2_mc", i, newPos);i++;
xPlace = circle2_mc._x;
yPlace = circle2_mc._y;
var line_mc = attachMovie("line_mc", "line_mc", i);i++;
xpos1 = _root.circle1_mc._x;
ypos1 = _root.circle1_mc._y;
xpos2 = _root.circle2_mc._x;
ypos2 = _root.circle2_mc._y;
xscale = xpos2 - xpos1;
yscale = ypos2 - ypos1;
line_mc._x = xpos1;
line_mc._y = ypos1;
line_mc._xscale = xscale;
line_mc._yscale = yscale;
//
p -= 5;
xPlace = 1;
yPlace = random(50)+25;
p = 50;
glowXScale = 200;
glowYScale = 200;
};
for (i = 1; i < 50; i++) { ;
circle1_mc.removeMovieClip();circle2_mc.removeMovieClip();//line_mc.removeMovieClip();
circle1Place = {_x: xPlace, _y: yPlace};
var circle1_mc = attachMovie("circle_mc", "circle1_mc", i, circle1Place);i++;
var glow_mc = attachMovie("glow_mc", "glow_mc", i, circle1Place);i++;
circle1X = circle1_mc._x;
glow_mc._xscale = glowXScale;
glow_mc._yscale = glowYScale;
glowXScale -= 15;
glowYScale -= 15;
newPos = {_x: xPlace+p, _y: random(40)+10};
var circle2_mc = attachMovie("circleblue_mc", "circle2_mc", i, newPos);i++;
xPlace = circle2_mc._x;
yPlace = circle2_mc._y;
var line_mc = attachMovie("line_mc", "line_mc", i);i++;
xpos1 = _root.circle1_mc._x;
ypos1 = _root.circle1_mc._y;
xpos2 = _root.circle2_mc._x;
ypos2 = _root.circle2_mc._y;
xscale = xpos2 - xpos1;
yscale = ypos2 - ypos1;
line_mc._x = xpos1;
line_mc._y = ypos1;
line_mc._xscale = xscale;
line_mc._yscale = yscale;
};
};
setInterval(bolt, 500);

Jumping to the End

Due to lack of documentation on the between effort this is the end design. Sorry for the leap. I find it very easy to get caught up in the creation of a thing and forget to actually record the progress I make.

The SWF can be viewed here

Hot Fingers

The flame is initially going to be burning from the tip of the hand in this banner and so I needed a finger from which to burn. The following are just my experiments towards this end.

This is the finger I went with. The flame will emanate from the top of it. An idea posed in class suggested that I should also turn the hardware mouse into the button press finger icon but after many attempt and searches I couldn't work out how to do this and instead went with the simple pointer.

Burning Ring of Fire

Creating the flame that the hand holds. Just some basic attempts to get it looking the way I want.

First attempt, far too chunky

Second attempt, too skinny.

Third attempt, just right!

I wanted to get the flame to touch the logo on the screen and set fire to the logo text but after hours and hours of trying and failing I decided to just encase the code that causes the burning in quotes and leave it be. As can be seen below.

As far as I can tell the code that does cause the burning 'should' work, but instead of catching fire to the text it just seems to warp the original fire and cause excessive amounts of lag due to (I'm assuming) a bad loop somewhere down the line.

onEnterFrame = function () {
if(firstRun == "go"){
fadeInText_mc._alpha += 4;
hand_mc._y += 4;
arrow_mc._alpha -= 6;
}
var flame_mc = attachMovie("flame_mc", "flame_mc", i, decalpos);
i++;
var spark_mc = attachMovie("spark_mc", "spark_mc", i, decalpos);
i++;
flame_mc.speed = (Math.random()*(5-2)+2);
flame_mc.scaleDown = (Math.random()*(6-4)+4);
flame_mc.startScale = (Math.random()*(500-400)+400);
flame_mc._x = _root.xmousepos+(Math.random()*(3))-(Math.random()*(3));
flame_mc._rotation = random(360);
flame_mc._xscale = this.startScale;
flame_mc._yscale = this.startScale;
flame_mc._alpha = this.startScale;
spark_mc._alpha = (Math.random()*(90-20)+20);
spark_mc._x = _root.xmousepos+(Math.random()*(10))-(Math.random()*(10));
spark_mc._y = _root.ymousepos - 9;
spark_mc.speed = (Math.random()*(5-2)+2);
spark_mc._rotation = random(360);
spark_mc.scaleDown = (Math.random()*(3-2)+2);
spark_mc.onEnterFrame = function() {
this._alpha -= this.scaleDown;
this._y -= this.speed;
this._xscale -= this.scaleDown;
this._yscale -= this.scaleDown;
if (this._xscale<=1) {
this.removeMovieClip();
}
}
flame_mc.onEnterFrame = function() {
this._alpha -= flame_mc.scaleDown;
this._y -= this.speed;
this._xscale -= this.scaleDown;
this._yscale -= this.scaleDown;
/*if (this.hitTest(_root.marvelLogo_mc).hitTest(_x, _y, true)) {
this.removeMovieClip();
thisPosX = this._x;
thisPosY = this._y;
trace("hit "+p);
p++;
burnpos = {_x:thisPosX, _y:thisPosY};
var burn_mc = attachMovie("flame_mc", "flame_mc", i, burnpos);
i++;
burn_mc.speed = (Math.random()*(3-1)+1);
burn_mc.scaleDown = (Math.random()*(7-5)+5);
burn_mc.startScale = (Math.random()*(50-20)+20);
burn_mc._alpha = startScale;
burn_mc._xscale = startScale;
burn_mc._yscale = startScale;
burn_mc.onEnterFrame = function() {
this._y -= this.speed;
this._xscale -= this.scaleDown;
this._yscale -= this.scaleDown;
this._alpha -= this.scaleDown;
};
}*/
if (this._xscale<=1) {
this.removeMovieClip();
}
};
};

Initial Banner Creation Attempts

The first banner I intend to create is the flaming hand skyscraper banner.

The following is my collection of images taken from Marvel sources that I felt could be used as inspiration or assets when creating this comic. Since the aim is based around fire it seems I'll be focusing quite a bit on the Human Torch from the Fantastic 4.

Body By Milk

bodybymilk.com

What an advert for simply milk. This is a large advert that could be quite misunderstood to be a fully fledge website. This website is aimed at kids and teens and attempts to encourage them to drink milk with some good old fashioned and blatant whoring out of teen idols with milky mustaches. I can't say I like this website what so ever, while thumbing through it you just get the overwhelming sense of sly intent. The advert has all the hall marks of a McDonalds advert with it's 'funky' and 'cool' layout and cheesy music. This advert has nothing to offer on a content front other than it's impressive construction. However impressive it is the overpowering smell of corporate misunderstanding of youth interest put me off actually venturing too deep inside and even though I did to more extent than I would have usually for the sake of research I found little to keep me there.

When it comes to these large and very interactive adverts it almost always pays to just be simple and direct in my opinion. Very often as soon as anyone realises that it's no more than a cruel attempt at peddling an idea at you using bright colours and flashy images you'll immediately try and look for faults unless the subject matter is already a subject of interest to you. In this case, being it milk, I don't think many will stick around just to listen to the lyrics of one of the worst bands I've come across.

Humanitarian Aid

Demonstration of this advert can be found here.

This is a very impressive advert. As you can see from the demonstration link above, the plane flies in over the page content and drops aid bags on the website and then in the centre of this the main advert appears. The entire sequence doesn't take long, it looks very pretty and certainly grabs your attention while at the same time offering you little information other than a single line of text and a link to find out more. This appears to be a favourite with the military at the moment, inviting you to find out more and giving you very little to go on in terms of initial information. I have no intention of ever joining the army or even entering conflict but some of these arm recruitment banners have taken me, quite willingly, to the recruitment site just to find out about the rest of the advert.

In particular I think it's worth noting the British Army's current advertisement campaign which presents you with footage from what appears to a real recording. The video will always start off with a simple recruitment appeal of sorts (even if it's just someone explaining the good work they do) but then take the video very suddenly to a crisis which doesn't quite resolve itself before the advert ends. In order to find out what happens you have to follow the link and find the ending, very effective form of advertisement.

Also worth mentioning is the U.S. Military and their recruitment through free online games. It's this form of advertisement that seems to most win over the viewers interest. U.S. official claim the game "America's Army" which was created with the intention of boosting recruitment has increased the recruitment of young adults by up to 17% since it was first released. Statistics indicate that 28% of all persons visiting the America's Army website with the intention to play a first person shooter actually visit the U.S. military recruitment website via simple and small advert banners nestled within the games website.

America's Army

It may even take you a few careful looks to find these adverts, but it just goes to prove a well placed advert no matter how small and unobtrusive can be a powerful tool.

Researching banners

Shrek Interactive Advert

This interactive advert uses the highly popular overlapping advert technique that seems to have become incredibly popular all of a sudden. It's a well polished advert that offers interaction, exploration and pleasing visuals. However like with all these adverts it can quickly draw your irritation as well while it overlaps onto web page content that you need to see or use. These adverts are only becoming more of a nuisance the more they become popular and start to obscure more and more of the website. My casing point for the annoyance they cause me really stems from the Pandora website that features such adverts appearing in various locations around the outer edge of the media player and can get stuck enlarged over the buttons that control the player. I would try and link to these adverts but the Pandora site loads random adverts each time your visit the website so finding an example would be down to shear luck.

Despite my hatred of the advert I do find they work, they always attract your attention. Even if my attention is mostly livid disgust.

Initial sketches

Sorry about the poor quality and visibility but they were only pencil sketches.

 

These sketches were all to be based on the idea of discovering your own power through the use of the digital comics website. It would imply that by using the website you could effectively have at your finger tips your own digital super power. Or at least as far as the super power of reading high quality and unlimited comics online goes.

 

First sketch: the landscape banner.
Initial plans are for a hand that's controlled by the user and on press will emit lightning bolts form the fingers to singe, burn and strike the MARVEL logo text.

 

Second sketch: the skyscraper banner.
It was my intention to make another hand controlled by the user, only this time it would emit flame and this would catch the MARVEL logo text on fire.

 

Final sketch: the 500x500 popup window.
Here I plan to create a fairly simple dress up doll but in the style of a super hero. Using images taken from the digital comics website to create a digital dress up doll in super hero fashion. A sort of pick and mix make your own super character.

 

These three different ideas would all have included slogans to match the discovery of your powers theme that I was trying to create.

In theory the hardest idea I have here to create will be the lightning power landscape banner. This will require me to explore and research deeply how to create dynamic lightning effects as this is something that I've never attempted before.

Military-Industrial-Entertainment Complex

While researching hyper reality I came across a woman who started a group called “Velvet Strike”. The idea behind Velvet Strike is to create awareness at the level of violence inherent in today's entertainment industry while at the same time denouncing war. This is achieved (or at least attempted) via the game Counter Strike, a Half Life modification that boasts a more military realistic form of game combat. This game features Counter Terrorist and Terrorist groups fighting against each other in small scale multiplayer action. Members, followers and fans of Velvet Strike will infiltrate Counter Strike matches and spray anti war propaganda onto the walls of the game environment. Other forms of protest include entering a game and refusing to fight. While following various links and articles relating to this movement I found that while most researchers weren't necessarily against video game violence they did acknowledge a dire need for the game consuming public to realise just what it is they are doing when playing these games. More than this there seems to be a growing need to confront the ever increasing military recruitment application on the entertainment industry. Reading on through various blogs, articles and papers on the subject it has come to my attention that not only do the military fully endorse the violent games industry but they also directly fund the creation of games titles with the intention to create interest and thus recruit players to the (in particular U.S.) military. This might not seem too disturbing at the heart of it, but until forms of 'entertainment' such as games reach a stage where the full horror of war can actually be portrayed to the player this form of recruitment is without a shadow of a doubt false advertisement and forcing of government doctrine on an impressionable youth through their misguided innocence. The prime example of this form of military recruitment is through the game “America's Army”. This first person shooter takes you as a player to the U.S. Military boot camp to get you ready for combat in a fictional country called Tazikhstan, situated between Afghanistan, Pakistan and China. In order to play this game you must register and visit frequently the official game site which is riddled with links to U.S. Military recruitment sites. You must be 17 to be officially recruited to the U.S. Military but this game is directly marketed at the 12 – 16 year old. The military has now a massive string of game projects both released and in development to increase the pressure put on those who would play these games. It seems strange to me that we wouldn't consciously let our children bare direct witness to physical forms of violence but the government find no issue with the imprinting of this culture of hatred and violence into the younger generations.

Art Steiber Photography

Ok so the subject matter isn't very interesting but as far as the web design of it goes I find this website quite something to look at. It's not overly flashy, it's not overly smart, but it is created in such a way that it loads superbly fast (something that I think we're taking the wrong route down at the moment with websites that takes minutes and not seconds to load). It really is just a platform to display images, being that it is a photography website that's no bad thing, and is does this with a very simple to use slide show style interface. I've always been keen to make Flash websites with independently loading elements with the intention of keeping overall load times to a minimum before the user can enter the site whether or not the site continues to load content while the user explores. Anyway, this website is a prime example of how we can incorporate rich Flash content without sacrificing too much time waiting to get to the website while it loads the large MP3 music file and downloads all the flashy images.

http://www.artstreiber.com/

Zoom Quilt

OK we've all seen this before, and many similar too it, but I think it's worth another look. Zoom Quilt is for me just a collection of interesting art displayed in a new form. This was the first I saw of this type of image display, I'm sure it won't be the last.

Musicovery

This project is very similar to last.fm and pandora.com but instead of finding music you like through genre's and artist's relating to other artist's and genre's and people with similar interests you select the sort of mood your in and the Musicovery finds music that fits these parameters.

I doubt this project will ever take off but it's been nicely created and to some extent I find it quite enjoyable, although I think perhaps more based on an interest in the program than finding the music it selects for me that enjoyable. Anyway, it's quite and easy to use Flash stuff that's worth a brief look.

http://musicovery.com

Face Distortion

This is probably one of the best illusions ever! Please do the following: look at the above images from your seat in front of the computer; Mr. Angry is on the left, and Ms. Calm is on the right. Now, get up from your seat, and move back 10 or 12 feet. Who’s the angry and calm now?

Man in the Dark

This little thing has been created in Flash and is quite simply a modification of that follow the mouse snake script that we've seen here and there for a long time now. I understand how they've managed the get the character to follow the mouse the way he does, I don't understand the 3D aspect of the model. This is something that appears a lot at the moment and is something that I don't think I'll ever quite grasp in terms of how to re-create.

Man in the Dark

My Name Was God

What a lovely website. I really like the idea of playing with Flash to get a website that looks and works like a regular HTML website only much cleaner and more fluid. I don't think this website has done anything ground breaking with it's design here but really the thing that sets it apart from the rest for me is it's use a scroll bar within Flash. Scroll bars in Flash have always been a bit of a muse for me, never quite able to work them out and certainly never managing to harness their potential to the full, but trying none the less.

A lot of web designers seem to find audio on website's just a bit of an irritation but on this website they've managed to get a really nice sound track that properly compliments the website instead of dominating it. Minimalistic audio over simplistic design, that's the way forward.

http://www.mynamewasgod.com/

Friends of White

This is an interesting website built to promote Orbit Whitening chewing gum. It's an exceptionally well made website that let's itself down a bit with long loading times. It's a very dreamlike experience with this strange all dressed in white perfect cast of actors talking you through the aspects of the website. The seamless animation and clean graphics make it although very uninformative a really notable website. This is something that's taken not only money, but a very professional design team to create.

I love that there's these strange animations going on around the stage, things that offer nothing informative but help to build a very ambient set. These animations are loaded after everything else has loaded, or as best I can tell, which is helpful as the quality of the imagery used, the audio used and the video used is very high so the load times for every new section of the page is large. If these were included and not streamed in after it just wouldn't be worth sticking with.

There's not lot's to do on this website but what there is to do is both scary and very high quality design. This is a prime example. Clicking on the "Join the Sing-a-long" takes you too a camp with our clean white friends singing the Orbit White song.

Takes a while to load mind. The audio can even be downloaded after for use as a ring tone on your mobile. Not sure if it's the sort of thing anyone would download, but by the fact it's there it kind of adds to the odd theme of the website and it's content.

The song even has a sing along karaoke!

Interesting little game

http://www.gamedesign.jp/flash/dice/dice.html

An interesting little game involving the rolling of dice. It's a sort of dice Risk'esk game. Worth havign a go!

19 years

This 19 year old from the Netherlands has created himself a demo reel, this is truely exceptional and really humbles me to see this considering his age.

http://www.vimeo.com/401206/

Open Source Windows

OK this is simply a website listing decent open source projects for Windows OS. Many free open source applications to replace the ever more expensive professional software out today. I won't go into detail, just have a quick look yourself.

http://www.opensourcewindows.org/