myflashportal

Aug

[Tutorial] AIR Updater for Flash

By manmeng 2 Comments

Categories: tips & tricks and tutorials

Download file : http://www.myflashportal.com/tutorials/air/updater/update.zip
Download sample application : http://www.myflashportal.com/tutorials/air/updater/update.air

SUMMARY
Rejoice brothers and sisters! I had finally figured out the mystery of updating your Adobe AIR app that is built using Flash! Thank god through all the reference provided. But though Adobe announced that there is a framework for AIR, but they weren’t plan it for Flash, only for HTML/Javascript and Flex Flavour. I had a quick look on it, it’s really simple, and fast. Unlike the old time where we need to go through the pain of Updater class.

TUTORIALS
Coming soon. Working now. Will write when go home, you can have a quick look on the file, leave a comment or something if you have something that you are not sure :). It’s pretty straightforward.

Create an app, give it a version number
Edit the versions.xml, put in the appropriate details
Upload it on the server and see the magic
Make sure that the version number for your app on the server is DIFFERENT from the one you are testing locally to avoid problem arising.

EXTRA NOTE
The ZIP file provided is created with intention that you can see the update in action, hence the version 1.0 on the fla file and the versions.xml (on myflashportal server) is 1.1.

I did not provide the Digital Certification file because you can create it on your own. I will provide a more detail when I get back.

Aug

Changing Landscapes

By manmeng 0 Comments

Categories: Cool sites

Life Changing Box
Do not be fooled by the modest look of this picture, the site does more to awe you only. As I always experienced, a good site doesn’t need to be running fully in 3D to make people go Wow. But instead, this site cleverly uses user interaction and clear crisp high quality video to make the experience engaging. I especially like the ease of use in obtaining the information through drag ‘n drop mechanism, instead of the usual boring boxy layout.

Kilo Studio
This would be one of the rare gem that is shining on its way up on the scene. Based from our neighbour country, Singapore, it will certainly has some deep intense power within that we can’t wait for them to unleash it. Congratulation to their recent limelight in THEFWA on Lumina Live.

Aug

Flash Can’t Be Indexed by Search Engine, NOT!

By manmeng 0 Comments

Categories: Uncategorized

Finally, the day has come, actually a month ago to be precise, search engine companies has admitted believes they are able to index contents inside the SWF of a site. This is cool, why? Let’s say you are building an entire site in flash and you are not sure if it will be search-able by website surfers. No worries now, why? Look at the article from : http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=9224&tag=nl.e539

Excerpts from the site :

…Adobe’s help, Google can now better read the content on sites that use Adobe Flash technology, helping users find more relevant information when conducting…

And besides that, if you are looking into deep-linking your Flash sites, something like 2Advanced’s site. You can do it with SWFAddress!

Aug

More 3D Love and Experiments

By manmeng 0 Comments

Categories: Cool sites

Some kind of toy made of Papervision again, but this time around, I’m just sharing due to it’s creative use of the medium instead of it offering any source, probably it will inspire you in some ‘portal-game-like’ kind of interface.

via Den Inavov Blog

Sharp
It would be tough sometimes if we are to combine technology and art, but that would be the greatest joy to gain from achieving it. This site portrays something the usual electrical store site wouldn’t do, to make the item or product itself an art. Quite conceptual at first, but as you go through the entire site, it seems to unveil more and making more sense to you. And from my observation, it’s built upon AS3, why you say? Because it threw an explicit error window to me when there’s some URL not found inside.

Virgin Eye
I would say this might not be groundbreaking for tech enthusiast that has seen millions of data visualisation at least, from Digg. Which you take existing data and beautify it in a way to human, it makes more sense to them. But in this case, instead of using data generated from user, Virgin Eye took a different approach in using it’s existing data from all it’s business and delivered in a ’sonar’ like look. Just how the Airspace terminals operates.

Rock Your Lock - JC Penny
While having your conversation with your friend through the webcam can be satisfying and enjoying, you may never know how much mor fun it can bring you when you can turn yourself into some superstar through some Flash sites that can make your webcam more ‘usable’ and ‘fun’. Realtime webcam image manipulation. This site includes not only one but most of the effects that we flashers has seen all these while in manipulating bitmap datas. Of course this might not be new to those who is fortunate enough to own a Mac that has iChat/Photo Booth installed by default which also features some of the effect. But this is definitely some commercial/technology breakthrough for the agency/studio that pulled this off. Strong and smooth backend definitely.

Create a 3D environment with Flash Player 10 API

Following back the post from our friends here, I had stumbled across this cool feature that gotoAndLearn by Lee Brimelow covered on the features that Flash Player 10 provides. This includes with only few lines and no additional plugins, you will able to build a 3D environment! Cool eh! That requires almost 0 knowledge of Papervision. Of course before getting started, you will need to have the Flash Player 10 Beta plugin installed to see the effect. Well, here comes the question, will this replace the overly poweful API by those 3D engine such as Papervision or Sandy3D? The answer is No. Because the flash 3D API/SDK still remains as a basic development tool for those who is looking to quickly chunk out a fast method for their client, but if they’re looking for a more hardcore implementation, the open source APIs is the way to go.

Aug

Delicious 3Dness in Flash

By manmeng 2 Comments

Categories: Uncategorized

It has been a while that we see much breakthrough, except because we always see breakthrough in Papervision3D, this time around, it’s really something magnificent and different from the usual stuff we see, and not sure if it’s really made out of papervision, or some effects branch. This is the genius from Japan, known as Roxik, which popularize the ‘dancing 3d avatar’ some time ago and got Pepsi Japan to acquire his engine in their campaign in creating custom avatar and dance to it. Really really cool. Even his minimalistic portfolio approach already can stun you to death.

The unique thing here is :

He doesn’t seem to release his source code publicly.
The engine has some sort of massive optimisation! And includes Depth of Field as well! Whoa!
The engine known by him as : Sharikura.

Aug

The Actionscript Conference!

By manmeng 0 Comments

Categories: conference

Rejoice fellow Flashers! This is a good news (or maybe bad?) for all of us in Malaysia that is always in awed with other flashers around the world that is able to attend prestigious award ceremony for flashers. Anyway, this time around, Flex User Group of Singapore is proud to present to you their first ever conference made for Flashers/Flexers in the Singapore/Malaysia region! It’s a good news indeed.

More information can be obtained from : http://tac.sg/?page_id=15

Excerpts from the site :

Before 1st October: $60 SGD
On and after 1st October: $80 SGD
On-site Registration: $95 SGD

Conference Date and Venue:
19th October 2008
9.00am to 6.00pm.
National Library, Singapore.
Conference Area: Level 5
Exhibition Area: Level 8
Registration starts at 8.30am.

Thanks to momochi zabuza for the heads up!

Aug

Mobile demos of Flash Lite Application

By momochizabuza 3 Comments

Categories: Flash Lite

Ever wondered what the flash Lite can do, click here to view mobile demos by Adobe.

And if you ever wonder what is Flash Lite actually, you may want to see my presentations during BarCamp malaysia. The presentations was made with the aim to educate people what is Flash Lite can do actually and why should you, a flashers, give it a try

An hour about Flash Lite @ Barcamp Malaysia

view presentation (tags: lite barcampmalaysia flash flavert)

Aug

How to cheat at card flipping animation

By bhatushai 1 Comment

Categories: tips & tricks

**click the cards face to flip back and forth.

Hi Guys n Gals, this is my first entry at myflashportal.com. i’m going to share a technique(i mean cheat :P) that might come handy in a flash project.A card fliping animation. it’s really easy to do, you don’t need a complex mathmatical formula or a long timeline animation or a 3D engine. Here’s how to do it:-

1.Create new flash cs3 file

2.Create 2 square on the stage(the design is up to you).

3.Select and right click on one of the square and select convert to symbol and name it front. Make sure the registration point is at the center.

4.Do the same with the other square but name it back.

5.Put instance name front_mc in the front movieclip properties and back_mc in the back movieclip properties.

6.Select the free transform tool at the tool menu and select the back movieclip.

7.horizontally transfrom the back movieclip to look like a mirror reflection of the original movieclip.make sure the height and width is the same with the original size.

8.arrange both square in the center of the stage.and send the back movieclip to the back of the front movieclip.

9.create new layer at the timeline section and name it actions or anything you want and open the actionscript editor or press F9 and paste this code.

import gs.TweenLite;

front_mc.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, cardClick);

function cardClick(event:MouseEvent):void {

back_mc.visible = true;

TweenLite.to(front_mc,0.5,{scaleX:-1, overwrite:false});

TweenLite.to(front_mc,0,{alpha:0,delay:.15, overwrite:false});

TweenLite.to(back_mc,0.5,{scaleX:-1, overwrite:false, onComplete:hidden});

TweenLite.to(back_mc,0,{alpha:1,delay:.15, overwrite:false});

back_mc.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, backClick);

}

function hidden() {

front_mc.visible = false;

}

function backClick(event:MouseEvent):void {

front_mc.visible = true;

TweenLite.to(back_mc,0.5,{scaleX:+1, overwrite:false});

TweenLite.to(back_mc,0,{alpha:0,delay:.15, overwrite:false});

TweenLite.to(front_mc,0.5,{scaleX:+1, overwrite:false, onComplete:ReHidden});

TweenLite.to(front_mc,0,{alpha:1,delay:.15, overwrite:false});

}

function ReHidden() {

back_mc.visible = false;

}

tweenlite can be downloaded here : http://blog.greensock.com/tweenliteas3/

Aug

Gaia - Frameworks for Adobe Flash [Tools]

By manmeng 0 Comments

Categories: Uncategorized

Gaia - Flash Frameworks for Adobe Flash
This is actually an exciting news for developers and designers alike that is always racing with times.
But in fact, it’s much more of a bigger joy for designer that is looking to create a flash site that follows industry’s best practice as close as possible, including deep linking! Okay enough of talking, what is this? Let me summarize it in one phrase. With Gaia :

You will be able to create a sophisticated (REALLY) flash site with almost (really!) no scripting required!

Think I’m a liar? Watch the demo video at here. I was really stunned when I always spent a day at developing the backend for the site to work normally, full screen, with swfobject and all other plugins, but with this frameworks. Definitely I’ll be pumped up to try this on another new campaign site. Available for both AS2/AS3 projects. Looks inferior at first, but believe me, watch the video and you’ll truly understand the power of this tool.

Why should you use this? Is it that good you say? Look at the few sites below that the “pros” are using it

Aug

Flash Forward Conference 2008 Finalist is out!

By manmeng 0 Comments

Categories: awards and conference

The Flash Forward Finalists
It’s the time of the year again! Showcase of the web’s best work made from Flash. It’s definitely mind blowing from year to year. I’d wish I have tickets to go there and share some with you. It will be a hell of a blast. That includes work like Mentos KissCam that generates a lot of buzz among the creative buzz that makes you literally lick your screen. It will definitely be a good Monday morning creative/inspiration breakfast for you. Another one that caught my attention would be the 3D based Twitter app namely, Twittearth, lets you browse the globally updated Twitter, realtime. A lot of API integration compared to what it used to be campaign-based sites.

From the site :
“The winners in each category, along with the People’s Choice Award, will be announced at the Flashforward Film Festival Awards Ceremony on August 21, 2008.”