10 things our interns should know, but never do.

July 23rd, 2010

Here in the Ministry of Artistry we seem to be training our apprentices the same techniques over and over again. We always assume that they’ve already learned these fundamental rules in Art School, but alas, the joke is on us.

Future interns and curious onlookers take note…

  1. Smart Objects:
    Paste vector shapes into Photoshop as a Smart Object so we can edit them later. Just in case you left the source illustration on your desktop.
  2. Composition:
    We all have days when our designs aren’t working out. Research grids. I found that Grid Systems is a fantastic book to have around. Here’s another tip: align your text and make a decision between one of the 30 fonts on the page.
  3. Scaling Vector Shapes:
    If you have a rounded-edge box, don’t scale it. The corners will look all kinds of stupid. Select the points and drag them.
  4. Masking, the Right Way:
    Why are you cutting out that image with the erase tool? You’re making me mad. Add a layer mask so we can clean up your sh*tty work later.
  5. Layer Comps:
    It’s a 5 page website, why are there 23 Photoshop files? Use some layer comps before you fill up the server.
  6. Versioning:
    Seriously? What the f*ck is ‘designfinal.psd’. Did you notice a pattern with all the other files? Client_Project_Vers_initials.extension, ex) NGC_Aftermath_01a_bb.psd
  7. Note Taking:
    Are you even listening to me? The first time I gave you 8 revisions and you only remembered 2 of them, and they were wrong anyway. Paper has been around for thousands of years and it works great.
  8. Asking Questions:
    Please don’t guess. You’re going to take off in some crazy direction that no one will like. Run it by us first and if you don’t understand the task then please just ask someone.
  9. Managing Time:
    Wow, I didn’t expect you to take a week to find a photo of a lion. It’s a great photo. Too bad we already finished the project.
  10. When to Show Up:
    The rest of us are here every day. I do enjoy guessing when you feel like getting out of bed and showering, but it would be super duper if you were here for a full day, every day.

I hope that list helps someone, somewhere avoid a beat-down.

Posted by Brett Bagenstose   
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Managing Your Flash Project with UML

June 28th, 2010

Realizing your Inner Geek
For years I have planned and quoted many Flash applications for my job as a Flash Developer.  A few months ago I was planning one of these guys.  I was mapping out flowcharts and diagrams with great detail and actually enjoying it. What?  I never enjoyed this stage of a project.  I’m more about preparing assets and getting my hands dirty in ActionScript bliss.  What’s going on here?

Oh that’s right, I’m using UML to plan this project.  “Oh UML, you bring out my geekiness like no other. But I like it.”

What is this UML talk?
UML, Unified Modeling Language, is a standardized general-purpose modeling language in the field of software engineering.  Say what?  In other words, it’s a way to lay out your project visually so you can better plan and structure your project.  If you’ve ever created a flowchart to show the different sections of a website or application, then you have used a form of UML. But it goes well beyond simple flowcharts.  It’s useful during all stages of a project from laying out the sections of a site, to the inner workings of ActionScript classes and their methods and properties.

Lets see it
Below is an ActionScript class named ‘Monster’. We show the properties and the methods that are contained in this class.The minus and plus signs are to show whether they are private (-) or public (+).

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted by Shane Hoffa   
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Pushing my Buttons – Multiplayer Madness in Flash – Part I

June 21st, 2010

Flash your Friends
So one issue that has always chapped my hide with Flash is multiplayer, and I think the main reason is Flash Media Server.  It’s like that girl at the middle-school dance that you want to talk to but you know it’s not worth it because she’s just too good for you.  Don’t get me wrong, Flash Media Server is choice.  If you have the means, I highly recommend using it on a project.  But it’s just too expensive to ever make it practical for anyone but big pharma and porn video distribution.  And there are some really awesome non or low-profit ideas out there that could seriously benefit from it, like more representative e-government and micro-financing projects for commercial meetings, that you could say you would love to do one day at cocktail parties.  But what’s a progressive flasher to do?

Red 5
Actually, I’m not going to say much about Red 5, because I never really got it to work.  I think that’s just because it didn’t seem intuitive enough to implement easily, and when you’re learning a couple new codebases every project it’s tough to find time if you get disuaded right from the start.  That said, it’s theoretically an open-source Flash server written in Java that supports video streaming and, most intriguingly, server-side shared objects.  William Sanders, author of every Flash Media Server book I’ve seen, describes these shared objects like this:

“The first time I encountered the remote shared object I thought it had to be the most important contribution to the Internet since the invention of the browser. That opinion has changed little over the years…”

Basically, they’re variables that aren’t confined to one user’s machine, and they make multiplayer functionality possible by letting everyone that subscribes to them push data to each other.  Hella useful.  But if you can’t set up the server, you can’t use the functionality, and with Red 5, finding documentation is like finding No Fear shirts at the GAP.  Case in point: Everything under the “Red 5 Help and Information” section is a broken link.  So what else?

What is that push button thing I’ve heard about?
So even though multiplayer is too tricky a wicket to practically use on most projects, it would also be a welcomed addition to them.  That’s where PushButton Engine comes in.  I think.  Actually, I don’t know yet, because it’s really late, and I spent all night writing this blog post and putting my kid back to sleep instead of actually trying it out.  This is yet another reason why I need open-source projects to be well-documented and work right out of the box.  From the description on their site though, it does everything Red 5 does, uses the best C++ networking practices to make server-side communication smaller and snappier, and they put a bunch-load of work on documentation and ease of deployment.  And on their “Buy Now” page they have a variety of very impressive bridges as well.  But, it’s worth trying to overcome my cynicism if it can deliver on even some of that bouquet of promises.  Tune in next time to find out what my dreams of super-cheap multiplayer flash apps look like when they shatter into a million pieces.  To be continued…

duh duh DUH!!!1!

Posted by Jason Morris   
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Canon 7D – low light. Looks great, wait, no it doesn’t!

May 14th, 2010

I love our 7D. So much that we have two of them. It’s an affordable medium for super high resolution video. The lenses and work flow are far cheaper and easier than our old BFF, the Red One. For sure we will stick to the Red One for larger shoots as the quality is unmatched, but the 7D works for everything else.

The first glass I bought was a Canon EF 50mm 1:1.4.  It’s amazing. The depth makes every photo look top notch. It out-performs my human eye in natural lighting, even indoors, at night, with a single 50 watt bulb.

But, there is always a but…

I wanted to give it a real test. So, St Patrick’s Day, 2010 I headed into the city for the annual Hannahoe Vigil in Reading, PA’s St. Peters Cemetery. It’s a tradition that’s brought townies and gawkers up the hill and into the dark cemetery at midnight for 114 years. It’s not a sponsored, corporate event – it’s what celebrating local heritage is all about. Standing in the dark with friends and soon-to-be-friends, playing instruments while you’re drunk, and sharing a few bottles of Jameson. Of the dozens of attendees, only a few knew each other before the hour in the dark. Afterwards everyone was hugging goodbye and planning a trip down the hill to the pub.

Back to the story. Yea, it was dark. Real dark. There were only a few flashlights but through my lens everything looked fantastic. You can see from the footage, while not the most spectacular documentary you’ll ever watch, it looks great in YouTube with its downsizing and compression.

When I got home I opened the footage on the computer. I was immediately disappointed. It was grainy, noisy, pixilated, what ever you call it -it just generally looks like gain was added. Turns out that it was. The Canon 7D has a default setting called “Auto Lighting Optimizer”. I wish it would be called “Gain” like every other camera.

Another thing I noticed when other people’s camera’s went off, was, even though I was shooting 30P, the frame recorded in 1/2. Check out the flash footage frames. It looks really weird in real time, and even stranger as stills.

The setting ruined the high-res footage. Lucky this was just a test. Hopefully it will help someone else out there before they make the same mistake.

The documentary footage:

This video was embedded using the YouTuber plugin by Roy Tanck. Adobe Flash Player is required to view the video.

Noise:

Flash:

Posted by Brett Bagenstose   
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Apple V Adobe

April 30th, 2010

The popular belief has always been; if you’re a creative person - you have to use a Mac. I’ve never fully embraced this belief. Maybe I’m not creative enough?

When I first started my career I simply couldn’t afford an Apple. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always appreciated their industrial design but as someone who was feasting on Ramen noodles and water most nights I couldn’t justify spending two times the price for a Mac. I was forced to beg my nerdier friends (yes, nerdier than me) to help me build a PC. Boy, oh boy do I remember stressing out over paying off the credit card bill for that extra 8 MB of RAM.

I’ll admit, I couldn’t afford the software either. And it was much easier to, ahem, find software for a PC. Plus, all those handy plug-ins and utilities built at home by semi-pro or novice developers just didn’t exist for Macs.  

Now, there is no doubt that Adobe has the market cornered on Creative Software. I started in Corel Draw, NewTek Video Toaster, and Macromedia Future Splash, but all roads ended in Adobe products.

With this new feud developing between Apple and Adobe, where does this leave “Creatives?”

If you’d like some background, here’s some great reading: 

I’ll admit, I have an iPhone. In fact, 75% of the Neo-Pangea staff has an iPhone. The office has ambiance thanks to the iTunes music server and Airport Express. I’m one of the few who bought an Apple TV. We have an iMac in the reception area. We’ve even developed an iPhone version of our Web site, and many of our clients’ Web sites.

So, we’ve learned to stop worrying and love the Mac, right?

Maybe not.

Apple is claiming that they won’t release Flash on the iPhone, iTouch, or iPad because of Adobe’s lack of open-sourceyness and Flash’s performance drain. (The first is untrue and the second is only prevalent on an Apple system, but anyway…) The flag they are waving and trying  (read: forcing) to get developers to adopt is HTML5, CSS3, and MP4 video.

HTML5 and CSS3 are fantastic. But, just like any other non-flash site or application, it’s not a replacement for Flash. It has its pros and cons just like any other language. We’re using it, and recently launched a very pretty site that looks great on both the PC and the iPad. The site’s audience, timeline, and budget were big factors. However, in many ways we are feeling corralled to make decisions that aren’t the best for the business or the creative goals of a campaign just to facilitate a platform that refuses to cooperate. 

I know a lot of designers and developers whom over the years have switched to Apple. They use Lynx or Windows via Bootcamp for development, but OS X for email and the internet. Some even switched totally to Mac for the design, perceived ease of use, or maybe just to give the impression that they are part of the creative industry.

Most of these people won’t stand for Apple’s egocentric and self-serving development philosophy. We love Adobe products and the strides made in ActionScript over the past few years. We don’t have time to learn a language meant for only one device.

Don’t get me wrong, Adobe is no angel. Buying Macromedia was an ingenious business decision but they themselves have cornered the market, potentially a legal monopoly of sorts. Their software price points are outrageous. But that’s a rant for another day. Today’s rant was dedicated to Apple.

There’s little doubt in anyone’s minds that Apple is going to try to develop their own photo and design tools to grab market share away from Adobe. Just like they did to Premiere and Avid with Final Cut (and are already doing via Garage Band for some audio producers). Could their new Apple-packaged Photoshop possibly be as good or fast-adopted Photoshop?

With all this chest pounding and finger pointing between Apple and Adobe, they themselves are suffering. A part from developers needing to abandon one language or pick up another, both companies will see fallout from this PR battle. No good could come from this.

Just think…
Apple would sell more iPads if it acted like a real web browser.
Apple would sell more apps if Flash developers could publish them.
Adobe would sell more software if it could publish iPhone apps.

Can’t we all just get along?

Posted by Brett Bagenstose   
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