RE: FLASH: a question for John Dowdell..

[Brack, Jeremy]

I fully recommend the HOT seminar.. it was not only useful, but it was also

fun.  I already knew a lot about Flash before I went to the class, so I was

a little worried that the class would be "beginner level" or just basic

stuff.  But I was wrong. I knew a lot about the basics, and that actually

helped me learn some of the advanced tricks they demonstrated in the class.

If you get stuck on something, they had about 10 assistants ready to help


you.  The examples in my HOT seminar included building an entire e-commerce

website with draggable products that the customer can place into a virtual

shopping bag that sounds like a cash register(or any other sound you want)

when you drop a product in the bag.  It was pretty cool.  They showed us how

to list the contents of the virtual shopping bag, total up the cost, add tax

and process a credit card.  They didnt show us how to link the Flash aquired

data with a real server, so that kind of sucked.. that would have helped me

build Flash e-commerce sites with the programming department at my company.

Well I guess I could research it if I had time.

During day 2 of the HOT seminar we learned how to use dynamic content with

Flash and Generator.. so it was really interesting.


The one main drawback the the HOT seminar is that they did not allow us to

take home the Flash/generator examples we created ourselves in class.

Several of the advanced people in the class (including me) created some

really cool stuff during the 2 day class, and unfortunately they had nothing

for us to save it on.  No floppies, no zip drives, no CD-R's, no FTP server,

no e-mail, no nothing.  They gave us a a CD for Generator and Flash with

examples that did not relate to the class.  And they e-mailed us the generic

in class samples that the instructors created.  Well I still havent gotten

the Generator sample, but I assume some people in the class were able to get

it.  On the evaluation form at the end of the seminar, I suggested to

include zip disks or CD-R's for future seminars.. Even a CD-R drive on the

instructors computer only would have been helpful... then for what? 30 cents

a CD-R we could each have our examples saved?  Well maybe next Seminar I

guess.


So if you get a chance to attend a Flash HOT seminar, I think you should

definitely go!  But maybe bring along a portable zip drive!


Jeremy



-----Original Message-----

From: Angeline Geronimo [

ageronimoiscgnetwork [dot] com (mailto:ageronimoiscgnetwork [dot] com)

]

Sent: Tuesday, July 18, 2000 11:18 AM

To:

'flasherchinwag [dot] com

'

Subject: RE: FLASH: a question for John Dowdell..



Hey so how was the Hands On Training Seminar?  Would you recommend it?



> I attended the Macromedia "Hands On Training" (H.O.T.)

> Seminar back in March

> 2000, in New York City.

> It was a 2 day class, with Tanya Lux speaking about Flash on

> the first day

> and Steve (forgot his last name) spoke about Generator the

> next day.  At the

> end of the 2 day seminar, both Tanya and Steve told the class

> to e-mail them

> to get the in class samples, since they didn not have any

> means to let us

> take our samples home with us..

> I e-mailed Tanya and a few days later she sent me the generic

> sample she

> made.  I also e-mailed Steve, and I still have not yet gotten

> even 1 reply.

> I think in total I e-mailed Steve 3 times over the past 4

> months and still I

> have not gotten a reply.  Is there any way that you could

> e-mail me the

> generic Generator samples that were used for the H.O.T.

> seminar?  My company

> recently purchased Generator 2 Developer Edition and it would

> be extremely

> helpful if I could have those samples to work with again.

>

> Thanks,

>

> Jeremy Brack

> Web Designer

> Interactive Marketing Group

>

>

> -----Original Message-----

>

From: jdowdellmacromedia [dot] com [jdowdellmacromedia [dot] com (mailto:jdowdellmacromedia [dot] com)]

> Sent: Friday, July 14, 2000 3:57 PM

>

To: flasherchinwag [dot] com

> Subject: Re: FLASH: illustrator shapes

>

>

> At 10:30 AM 7/14/0, Anthony Faust wrote:

> >if I want to make a polygon type shape and wanted to animate

> it, what's the

> >best way to make sure that the file size would be the smallest?

> >should i make it in illustrator and import it into flash or

> should i make

> >the shape in flash itself?

>

> Should be pretty much the same... regular polygons would be

> described in

> the same number of curves regardless.

>

> Related notes:

>

> --  If shape-morphing, then making your target shapes in

> whichever app, but

> use the shape-tweening in Flash instead of blending in Illustrator and

> importing each separate shape, to avoid a potential filesize hit.

>

> --  For complicated shapes drawn elsewhere, please do examine

> the shape in

> Macromedia Flash to see if it can be simplified, broken

> apart, have its

> curves optimized, more. (Consider a squiggly green shape atop a blue

> square... in the final SWF this might be more concisely

> expressed as two

> shapes, rather than the normal knockout approach!)

>

> --  If coming from Adobe's Illustrator, you may wish to

> compare filesizes

> from various paths... we can transfer via .AI6 format, or the free

> FlashWriter Export Plugin, and ILL9 advertises some type of

> SWF export (I

> haven't personally evaluated ILL9's SWF, but have read mixed

> reports...

> please test in your own work).

>

> --  If coming from another tool, you can often get better results by

> importing just the curves, and then applying gradients or

> other features in

> Flash itself.

>

> jd

>

> John Dowdell, Macromedia Tech Support, San Francisco CA US

> Search technotes: http://www.macromedia.com/support/search/

> Offlist email risks capture by the spam filters. I may not see your

> email if it's not on the list. Private one-on-one email options are

> available via Priority Access: http://www.macromedia.com/support/



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