July 21, 2012 Off

Miss Molly had a dolly

By in Animation, Illustration, Video

Miss Molly had a dolly animation for BBC Schools Radio is now Live!

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July 20, 2012 Off

Grand old Duke of York character design

By in Illustration

Just started the character designs for the Grand old Duke of York animation for BBC Schools Radio…hopefully I won’t have to draw all of the 10,000 men!

Here is the Grand old Duke of York himself!

 

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July 5, 2012 Off

Hickory Dickory dock

By in Animation, Illustration, Video

My Hickory Dickory Dock animation for BBC Schools Radio has just gone live!

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July 5, 2012 Off

Slit Scan fun

By in Photography, Research, Tutorials

Back in November 2011, I attended the monthly meeting of the Digital Creatives Oxford. One of the guest speakers was a guy called Peter Jones – not the millionaire investor from Dragons Den, but an enthusiast of a photographic and cinematographic technique called Slit Scan. I had never heard of the technique before, but had sub consciously seen it in use in Dr Who and Star Trek.

As a Flash guy, I thought that recreating the slit scan process should be fairly straight forward in Flash, utilising a webcam. I say fairly straight forward, but I am commenting as a Flash Designer, not a coder, so I gave a call to a good friend and awesome coder, Mark Horsell.  He was immediately intrigued by the idea, and rattled off a prototype in a matter of minutes!

here are a couple of images created using slit scan.

You can have a go yourself here
You will need Flash Player installed and a webcam. When the swf loads, click Start and grant Flash access to your webcam in the pop up. Click Start again to start your scan.

I can’t take any credit for this at all, it is all Mark’s work, but I just wanted to share the bizarre technique of slit scan with you all.

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June 11, 2012 Off

Swiffy plugin for Flash Pro

By in Animation, Research

Previously I wrote a post about the current options available to export Flash to HTML5 canvas.
I thought it was about time I uploaded a Flash to HTML5 export test I did a while ago to show the result of Google’s Swiffy conversion tool.

To view the comparison below you will need Flash player installed to see the original swf, and also have a compatible browser to see the exported HTML5 version.


Get Adobe Flash player

Original Flash version [34kb]

HTML5/Swiffy export version [62kb]

I have to say Swiffy is a pretty good tool and I have had a fairly high success rate when exporting my animations with it. One slight negative point is file size of converted files compared to the size of the original swf’s. As a rule of thumb, the Swiffy exported file is around double the size of the original swf file!

Swiffy certainly isn’t the silver bullet solution if you are trying to find something that can convert all your Flash content into HTML5 at the click of a button, but for simple animations, it is pretty quick and easy to do. I do advise taking a look at the supported features and browsers before you embark on converting your animations, and perhaps keep these in mind if you are creating any new animations you know will need putting through Swiffy.

What is great is that in the latest version of Flash Pro CS6, support for HTML5 is now an inbuilt feature. To assist with optimization of your HTML5 animations, they have also included an integrated sprite sheet tool which will hopefully alleviate the file size issue I experienced with Swiffy.

As of yet I have not upgraded from Flash Pro CS5, but I think with the plethora of updated features that will help me take my Flash animations into the uncertain realms of HTML5 and mobile, it will be worth the £190 upgrade cost.

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May 29, 2012 Off

Hallberg-Rassy 312 for Sale

By in Miscellaneous



I thought I would do my bit to advertise the sale of my father’s Hallberg-Rassy sailing boat.

I have many a fond memory of sailing trips up around the islands off the West coast of Scotland in Eriska, but unfortunately the time has come to sell her as she doesn’t quite come up to scratch for the planned transatlantic crossing next year.

ERISKA is a beautiful sea kindly boat suitable for both long and short distance cruising in comfort and style, who performs well in all conditions. She is well equipped, reliable and a joy to sail whether with a crew or shorthanded. ERISKA’s main features include a new Volvo Penta D1-30 diesel engine in 2009 and in-boom reefing.

Call the office on +44 (0) 2380 457704 to arrange a viewing.

For more detailed vital statistics and photos or Eriska than you can shake a stick at, please visit the dealer website at the link below

www.transworldyachts.co.uk

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