This is not a full-blow post with links and everything - sorry,
I simply want to announce that I am now working on a very special motion graphics project - a music video for the famous song heard during the credits of the popular Valve video game "Portal" based on the Half-Life game series.
After playing through the game, I scoured the massive interweb in an attempt to find a decent music video for the catchy tune entitled "Still Alive" (written by Jonathan Coulton) but was dismayed to find nothing except a blatantly rushed slideshow with lyrics that popped up on the bottom. It was very simple, very crudely composed (no offense to the creator) and really did not do justice to the incredible, original, awe-inspiring game that the song was made to celebrate.
So I took it upon myself to rectify the situation. I am wrapping up the pre-production phase (storyboarding/scripting) within the next day or so, and I have already started on the asset creation (to help visualize for storyboards, more than anything) to a small degree.
I will post a few updates on here during the course of the production, and maybe a few screenshots for those who are interested on where this piece is going.
Now, back to work...
Peace.
3.18.2009
The Full Screen Take Over
I always like to make sure that my posts are worthwhile, so I waited until I came across a few things that were without a doubt worthy of posting. I also decided on a sensible format for each post on this blog: First, a small blurb about the latest happenings in my world, and then some useful links for you to explore. So here it goes...
I had some friends give me their opinions on my new portfolio website a few weeks ago, and I finally got around to implementing some updates based on their suggestions. Aside from some minor aesthetic changes, I decided on my own that I wanted to maximize screen real estate for people visiting the site, so I looked into adding a button that would initiate Flash's full screen mode.
I added the button without a problem, and scripted the functionality, but when I tested the page, the fullscreen mode kept overlaying my website with one of the looping thumbnail videos from my portfolio gallery. After some troubleshooting and web research (thanks to pixelfumes.com and xllusion.net), I discovered that Adobe decided, somewhat non-intuitively I feel, to add a property to the FLVPlayback component (which I use to play the videos on my website) called 'fullscreenTakeOver' which, when enabled, causes the FLVPlayback component to "take over" the fullscreen mode with whichever video it is currently playing. For some strange reason, Adobe decided to default that property to 'true' meaning I needed to disable it for every instance of the FLVPlayback component on my website.
I have a single static FLVPlayback component on the homepage, and several scripts working in tandem to instantiate the component to playback videos when selected in my portfolio gallery. After some time spent scouring the scripts to locate those instantiation points, I was able to add a line of code reading something like "myPlayer.fullScreenTakeOver = false;" to each location. Luckily, there was only three spots where this was required so the time to make these changes was minimal. Still, I question whether Adobe thought through the implications of defaulting it to 'true' when they implemented this property. Feel free to clarify this for me in the form of a comment.
( links )
Gunnar Optiks - http://www.gunnars.com/
This website is for Gunnar Optiks specialized glasses for computer users. Specially made lenses in their glasses reduce eye fatigue caused by staring at a monitor for lengthy periods of time, preventing what is commonly called Computer Vision Syndrome. I haven't picked a pair of these up yet, but I certainly will when I can do so. And according to a very reliable friend of mine, most of the available styles are very afforable and may even be covered or partially covered by your insurance if you have it.
YourFonts - http://www.yourfonts.com/
YourFonts' website allows you to create your own fonts in a very straightforward manner. Download and print a font character template from their site, fill in the template by hand in your handwriting or whatever style you want, then scan and upload the template to their server and, within a minute or two, you will be able to download a opentype font (ttf) created from that uploaded template. For those not quite satisfied with the end result, they even provide links to some inexpensive font editors to tweak your fonts even further.
Peace.
I had some friends give me their opinions on my new portfolio website a few weeks ago, and I finally got around to implementing some updates based on their suggestions. Aside from some minor aesthetic changes, I decided on my own that I wanted to maximize screen real estate for people visiting the site, so I looked into adding a button that would initiate Flash's full screen mode.
I added the button without a problem, and scripted the functionality, but when I tested the page, the fullscreen mode kept overlaying my website with one of the looping thumbnail videos from my portfolio gallery. After some troubleshooting and web research (thanks to pixelfumes.com and xllusion.net), I discovered that Adobe decided, somewhat non-intuitively I feel, to add a property to the FLVPlayback component (which I use to play the videos on my website) called 'fullscreenTakeOver' which, when enabled, causes the FLVPlayback component to "take over" the fullscreen mode with whichever video it is currently playing. For some strange reason, Adobe decided to default that property to 'true' meaning I needed to disable it for every instance of the FLVPlayback component on my website.
I have a single static FLVPlayback component on the homepage, and several scripts working in tandem to instantiate the component to playback videos when selected in my portfolio gallery. After some time spent scouring the scripts to locate those instantiation points, I was able to add a line of code reading something like "myPlayer.fullScreenTakeOver = false;" to each location. Luckily, there was only three spots where this was required so the time to make these changes was minimal. Still, I question whether Adobe thought through the implications of defaulting it to 'true' when they implemented this property. Feel free to clarify this for me in the form of a comment.
( links )
Gunnar Optiks - http://www.gunnars.com/
This website is for Gunnar Optiks specialized glasses for computer users. Specially made lenses in their glasses reduce eye fatigue caused by staring at a monitor for lengthy periods of time, preventing what is commonly called Computer Vision Syndrome. I haven't picked a pair of these up yet, but I certainly will when I can do so. And according to a very reliable friend of mine, most of the available styles are very afforable and may even be covered or partially covered by your insurance if you have it.
YourFonts - http://www.yourfonts.com/
YourFonts' website allows you to create your own fonts in a very straightforward manner. Download and print a font character template from their site, fill in the template by hand in your handwriting or whatever style you want, then scan and upload the template to their server and, within a minute or two, you will be able to download a opentype font (ttf) created from that uploaded template. For those not quite satisfied with the end result, they even provide links to some inexpensive font editors to tweak your fonts even further.
Peace.
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