Day 14: SXSW, Angela’s Notes Concluded

Rich Interactive Experience

Speaker Josh Ulm (The Remedi Project)

What are the benefits of a Flash development platform, and how do you talk to a client about it? Flash MX plug-in has 70% adoption after 1 year; Flash 5 has 95%. People really can see these animations.

Advantages of Flash MX

• Streaming video built-in; no separate QuickTime plug-in needed. Not as robust as QT or RealPlayer, but works well for short video clips.
• Video ability opens door for what doors we can open Flash up to. CD-ROMs typically had been done with Director, but now can be done with Flash.
• Reusablity of code much better with MX. Able to link to external files.
• Could now use ActionScript almost to the exclusion of the TimeLine. Good development platform.
• Have ability to control movies and EnterFrame objects. Easier with Flash MX to turn things on and off. Code below allows to stop an action.

onClipEvent(load) { this.onEnterFrame = function() { this._x += 10; if (this._x >= 300) { delete this.onEnterFrame; } } }

Player/Piece structure model. Player component is manager. Sits and controls everything else that goes on. May be movie shell that does nothing; may contain code used by various pieces. Pieces are the content. Drop various pieces into the player. Nice to be able to separate pieces and allow other pieces to be edited separately. Also nice from a bandwidth standpoint — user can download just the part the use. Don’t spend time breaking down structure more than you need to, though.

Code below controlled scrolling playback of 2 objects. Control motion using ActionScript to give better control.

{obj:this.l_big, property:"_x", rate:-4.5, offset:-300} {obj:this.l_small, property:"_x", rate:.5, offset:280}

How to start: What are the common/re-usable aspects of my movie? Start by coding those aspects. Then drop in other aspects. Prototype of movie can have text boxes indicating user could click here for such-and-such action.