RESOURCES Exploration

Developphp.com

The site http://www.developphp.com/list_flash_video.php has a pretty good video tutorial on Arrays, along with others in various other topics. On this site the code is posted separate from the video (underneath it). The Source files are also available for download. One of the nice things about this site is if the author of the tutorial finds a mistake in a video after the fact, he posted a notice to that effect on the video. The author explains each statement of code during the video.

Flash and Math

http://www.flashandmath.com/intermediate/movrect/index.html very nice moving rectangles tutorial here.

This is very nice looking, and relaxing to watch.

Free Action Script

http://www.freeactionscript.com/category/game-examples-as3/

Very nice text tutorial on building a game, another shot ‘em up game. Well detailed but very long!

Web Design

http://www.webdesign.org/

Awesome site with all kinds of tutorials under a load of headings, I have used quite a few of these as ideas for projects for different classes. Both video and text tutorials are offered.  They are labeled beginner, Intermediate, and advanced so that it is easy to pick tutorials at your own level. Most are well illustrated and well written. A few are of poor quality.

Jal Social Block Art

JAL SOCIAL BLOCK ART

Jal Social Block Art was created for Japan Airlines new flight route service from Tokyo to Boston.  This site is a promotional site using games to get users to create blocks of art and share them on their social media sites.  Through the process of creating blocks of art users win "lottery tickets."  Users can then redeem their lottery tickets and possibly win free airline miles. Users will login using one of two social media accounts either twitter or facebook and can then post their "works of art" to their accounts.  Since there is a trend in simple games and posting user results to social media accounts I felt this was a very good marketing solution.  This marketing  solutions is a very inexpensive way to advertise as the users are your marketing tool, sharing your advertisement through word of mouth.

Newgrounds - Studio/Artist Exploration

While I was coming up with the idea of what to post for my blog presentation, I realized that I was trying to find a site based on Flash that would amaze the class and earn the respect of millions. But I began thinking about using something that I actually know about.
The first site that came to mind that utilizes the most Flash documents I've ever seen became obvious; and if you've ever been to Newgrounds.com then you know everything that it's already about.

The summary for the site is fairly simple, Newgrounds is a site where you can upload Flash games, movies, and other cool, funny, or even really low-grade content for the public to explore. So there's a diverse amount of user and company-created content that we are free to play and watch.

Wild Animals Vs. Humans BEAR 71

This is an incredible interactive documentary about how human encroachment has affected wildlife in todays world. It is a pretty powerful telling of how wildlife sees us. It is narrated from the point of view of a mother bear (Bear 71) just trying to get by and feeling like a refugee in a war zone. It is a little bit awkward to navigate, you can use the radar in the upper right corner or just explore around the landscape with mouse and keys, and the dialog is controlled through the upper left drop menu. Sometimes the music seems out of place or in the way and I wish it were more clear as to what video the dialog is going with, but it is a good interactive piece of insight into what todays wildlife has to deal with on a daily basis.
http://bear71.nfb.ca/#/bear71

Design Exploration | The Scale of the Universe

http://htwins.net/scale2/

Did you know that the width of human hair is approximately 100 micrometers, that the Cat's Eye Nebula is 8,000 degrees celsius or that a dust mite is proportionately equal in size to a standard LCD pixel? These amazing details of our universe and many others can be discovered in, The Scale of the Universe 2, a compelling animation, created in Adobe Flash.

Created by two teenage brothers in California, The Scale of the Universe 2 is an interactive application that takes viewers on a trip through our galaxy and down into microscopic levels and beyond. The navigation is controlled by a user-friendly scroll bar located below the content window, allowing users to gracefully zoom in and out through a myriad of objects, each containing an expandable window with supplemental information. Subtle animations and a gradually adjusting background gradient compel the viewer to explore the expanding or retracting environment. Selectable background music is also included and enhances the user experience with a sense of discovery.

The Scale of the Universe 2 is an excellent example of taking a large amount of information and making it more digestible as well as entertaining, for all age groups, with the use of a multimedia platform like Adobe Flash.

Mauricio Guimaraes Portfolio

Mauricio Guimaraes portfolio website caught my eye because of the good illustrations. It has two ways for navigation the website, when you move the mouse around the site it interacts with you and the pointer will go behind the click-able elements and then it has a more traditional navigation that is fixed at the bottom left of the page if hunting around for the menu Isn't your style. There is really good use of layers that make the feel of the animation pop out. A nice touch is when you navigate towards the top of the site the clouds have a nice transparency and really move to the foreground.
http://www.mauriciostudio.com/