ActiveTuts+, the “sister” Web site of ActiveDen, is part of the envato Tuts+ network, and features some of the best Flash, ActionScript and Flex tutorials on the Web in an easy-to-follow and engaging format.

Each week on ActiveDen we will provide a roundup of all the previous week’s tutorials from ActiveTuts+ as a reminder to brush-up on your Flash skills or to learn something new.

Code a Chaotic Composition Inspired by Joshua Davis

November 6th in ActionScript, Design by Bruno Crociquia

Ever wondered how design guru Joshua Davis makes those choatic images? I did. With his art as inspiration I grabbed a cup of coffee and set out to mimic his style. This tutorial is aimed at designers and flash beginners, and documents my process of achieving something similar to Joshua’s early compositions.

Detect Intruders Using the Camera Object in Flash CS4

November 2nd in Video by Tom Green

The rise of Flash Video and Web 2.0 over the past few years has also sparked an increase in the use of video as a communication tool. Along with this increased awareness there has also been a corresponding increase in the use of web cams that are either hard wired into the computer or sold as separate add ons.

In this tutorial I am going to show you, firstly, how to feed a web cam signal into Flash and, secondly, how to get in touch with your inner spy and use your web cam to detect intruders.

Everyone loves a good banner rotator and everyone loves 3D, so why not merge those two concepts together? That’s exactly what Serbian art director and designer Stefan Kovac from ProgressiveRed thought when he created CU3ER.

Meet CU3ER

CU3ER is a fully customizable image slider with sensational 3D effects that really catch the attention of the viewer. CU3ER comes in the form of a compiled SWF file accompanied by an editable XML file that can be customized by changing attributes such as the number of slices and the direction you want to move those slices, how you’d like to shade your object, the color of your cube, transition delay and much, much more. And the best part? CU3ER is totally FREE.

You can even control a full subset of interface elements as shown in the diagram below:

View a demo on the Cu3er home page.

Transition Templates

Due to the customizable attributes via the XML document, CU3ER is only limited by your own imagination! A transition type can be selected and then customized by overriding each individual setting through the XML file. By basing the core transition on an existing template, this allows for a really quick way of establishing a brand new transition without having to define each property over and over again.

How CU3ER Was Built

CU3ER was built using a combination of PaperVision3D, the open source code library CASA Lib and TweenMax. The end result is something that is both useful, easy to use, customizable and gorgeous!

Conclusion

CU3ER’s feature list seems never-ending. With the added ability to embed fonts, customize UI element tweens, add rounded corners to navigation and description boxes, and select the preloader appearance from several templates, CU3ER is a very impressive way to display content in an engaging and attractive way.

Overall, CU3ER is an exceptionally well produced image slider that offers limitless combinations of results. It’s incredibly easy to use and the documentation is excellent. There’s even a forum where you can ask questions and share your own CU3ER creations. And the fact this is totally free makes this a stunning tool kindly dedicated to the Flash community.

More Information

CU3ER is totally free to download and use for both personal and commercial projects. See the Quick Start Guide to get your CU3ER image slider up-and-running in no time, or take your time and read the Full User Guide.

It’s time for another round-up of Flash-related news from around the globe in another edition of News Flash!

When to Flash and when to Flex

Derrick Grigg asks the question “When to Flash and when to Flex?”, citing a perfect example of a company that developed a promotion entirely in Flex whereas Flash would have been the more obvious choice. Read more

Creating a Flash Facebook Application with the Facebook AS API

Self-professed Italian geek and programmer Emanuele Feronato provides a useful tutorial on how to create a Flash applicaiton for Facebook using the Facebook ActionScript API. Read more

GTween v2

Grant Skinner has announced the release of GTween v2. It’s a total rewrite of the GTween library focusing on size, speed, extensibility, and improving the readability of the code. Skinner declares that that the core library is “now just 3.5kb, and it’s 2-5X faster than beta 5 was.” Read more

ActionScript 3 Performance Optimization

Prompted by some of the work from Grant Skinner (in particular his FOTB 2009 session) and Thibault Imbert, Mike Chambers has been doing a lot of research lately into optimizing ActionScript 3 content. Not just how to make it run faster, but how to approach the process of optimization. Read more

Hype Update

We featured Joshua Davis’ HYPE Framework back in September on the ActiveDen blog, and today saw the release of a new, updated version. HYPE is a creative coding framework built on top of ActionScript 3. A major goal of HYPE is to allow newcomers to Flash and ActionScript to creatively play and express themselves while they are learning how to program. Read more

Sorenson Media Launches Sorenson Squeeze 6

Squeeze, the professional Flash video encoding leader since 2001 is now even better. Features a new, streamlined interface with notifications, automated review and approval workflow & automatic syndication and publishing options. Sorenson are also claiming performance speeds of up to 5x faster. Read more

The 20 Best Internet Flash Games

British newspaper The Telegraph have compiled a list of what they feel are the top 20 Flash games on the Web. I’m not sure they tried very hard with their list, but there are a couple of nuggets in there. Read more
]]> http://blog.activeden.net/general/news-flash-3/feed/ 0 http://blog.activeden.net/general/news-flash-3/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Flashden-DownTheFoxhole/~3/TBSwTmIyLGg/ http://blog.activeden.net/general/stardust-as3-particle-engine/#comments Tue, 03 Nov 2009 23:10:56 +0000 Scott http://blog.activeden.net/?p=6136

The Stardust Particle Engine allows Flash developers to quickly create particle effects using an ActionScript 3 API. Particle effects such as smoke, water, fire and starfields can all be created efficiently and effectively using Stardust.

Developed by Allen Chou and released under an MIT license, this engine will allow you to create both 2D and 3D particles systems. Here are just some of the awesome features of StarDust:

• Easy to extend for custom initializers, actions, fields, deflectors, clocks, and 2D/3D renderers.
• Includes 3D extensions for ZedBox, Papervision3D, and ND3D.
• Includes a native 3D renderer.
• Supports masking (particles can be masked out for actions).
• Supports gravity and deflector simulation.
• Supports action triggers (for creating complex particle behaviors).
• Supports XML serialization.

Examples

See for yourself how effective StarDust is by clicking on the examples below to see what can be achieved:

More Information

For full details and to download and start using StarDust, check out the official project home page on Google Code. We’d love to hear from you in the comments to this post if you have previously used StarDust or think that you might use it in a future ActiveDen submission!

ActiveTuts+, the “sister” Web site of ActiveDen, is part of the envato Tuts+ network, and features some of the best Flash, ActionScript and Flex tutorials on the Web in an easy-to-follow and engaging format.

Each week on ActiveDen we will provide a roundup of all the previous week’s tutorials from ActiveTuts+ as a reminder to brush-up on your Flash skills or to learn something new.

Create a 3D Flickr Photo Gallery with Flex and Away3D

October 30th in Flex by Matthew Casperson

In this tut I’ll demonstrate how to build a dynamic photo gallery using the Flickr API. To add a little extra flair, we’ll harness the power of Away3D and display the photos in a 3D environment.

There’s plenty to discuss, so let’s get on with it!

AS3 101:The Display List

October 28th in ActionScript, Novice, by Dru Kepple

In this sixth installment of AS3 101, we’ll be studying topics related to the “Display List”, Flash’s rendering system. With a solid understanding of how to program the Display List, a whole world of dynamic possibilities open up. You will no longer be tied to static display structure that you create on the timeline in the IDE, but you can create and destroy MovieClips (and more) with code.

There is much to know, so we’d better get started. Our ultimate goal is a wall of clickable images (go and check out the demo). While simple, it introduces many Display List programming techniques.

Create a Sparkling Bomb Mouse Cursor with FLiNT Particles

October 26th in Effects by Karl Macklin

This is a beginner to intermediate level tutorial in which I will explain the basics of the FLiNT particle system. We’ll also take a look at how to create a sparkling bomb mouse cursor. It’s something I created and used in a memory game which you can check out here if you’re curious.

With that said, let’s start making particles!

It’s the start of a brand new month which means it’s time once again for a fresh, fabulous, FREE ActiveDen file! Each month, we’re going to give away one free file on each marketplace (ActiveDen, ThemeForest, AudioJungle, GraphicRiver, and VideoHive). If you like paper, then this is going to be the best month ever!

Author: Gumball

File: Paper Transition

Features

• Vector-based animation
• Sound effect included
• High quality frame by frame animation
• lightweight (5kb)
• No actionscript required so you can use in AS2 and AS3 flashprojects

Usage:

You are granted ONE free usage of the item in a project, either commercial or non-commercial. You may not use the file in multiple projects unless you purchase licenses in the usual way. You may not redistribute the item in any way. If you need a different license for this file, you may purchase it here.

A big thanks for the free file, Gumball! Here are some of his other great files:

Download it here!

Also, be sure to check out this month’s free files from all the other Envato marketplaces.

Our favorite Flash Fashion pioneers, Uniqlo, are back once again with more dazzling use of Flash video.

With their Tokyo 2 Collection, Uniqlo have created a highly usable and proficient video catalog that is inspirational for any company or business wondering what the merits of Flash video advertising are. With greater bandwidth capabilities becoming more and more prevalent throughout the world, Flash video projects are starting to become the way to advertise and promote on the Web. Let’s take a closer look at how effective this Web site really is.

Catwalk

The Web site centers around a fashion catwalk. Video of models strutting their funky stuff up and down the catwalk greet the user as the Web site first loads. Video loads quickly and effortlessly, and the viewer has a great vantage point of seeing all the clothes and outfits all at once with a wide angled shot of the catwalk.

Next to actually visiting a store, what better way is there to see clothes than with online, interactive Flash video? The potential customer can not only shop from the comfort of their own home, but they can see the way fabrics and garments fit snug to the body or gauge the length of a piece of clothing and the way it moves and sways when the model walks. In fact, the only thing missing from this experience is the ability to touch the texture of each fabric.

Interactive Video

Users interact with the video by clicking on an outfit a model is wearing. When a model/outfit is selected, the video quickly cuts to an empty cat walk with just one model visible, wearing the outfit you wanted to take a closer look at. A simple, minimal list of options appears on the right of the screen (as shown above) which itemizes each item in the entire outfit. A dress, a belt, and leg warmers for example. Hovering over each of these menu items provides a static thumbnail shot of the garment. This is a great to find out more details of one particular clothing item that catches your eye.

Style Menu

But that’s not the only way you can peruse this video catalog. Looking at the left of the screen, there is an option called a “Style Index”. One for men, one for women. Clicking on “Women” for example, loads a series of smaller video thumbnails showing 12 outfits. This menu is navigable, so clicking the left and right arrows allows the user to see more outfits on screen. This is a nice, orderly alternative to the main interactive video movie which makes it easier to select the item you want to take a closer look at.

Improvement

Although it appears this Web site is simply a fashion show rather than a way to purchase garments, I would have loved to have seen two features incorporated into this Web site. Firstly, upon selecting an outfit, it would make sense to choose an individual item from the garment and see large, static, high quality photos of each garment, along with a description, color options, and sizes. Secondly, to go along with the item descriptions and static photography, shopping cart functionality would be perfect. To be able to view a video catwalk of clothes, select an item, view a detailed description and up-close photos, and then be able to select items to purchase and then checkout: That kind of functionality would really take interactive online shopping to a whole new level.

The Future of Advertising

This is what they meant by the future of advertising. This is how video should be used effectively. This is the future of advertising right before our very eyes today.

Producing this kind of high quality video for the Web is not cheap. Imagine the cost of hiring all these models, the make-up artists and stylists to dress the models, the production crew who shot and edited this super quality film, and the time and cost to edit it and develop it in Flash. However, when you compare the cost of this production to how much some companies invest in TV adverts, Flash video advertising and promotions are comparatively much cheaper. In fact, it’s a very cost-efficient way to promote products and services. If executed well, this kind of promotion can quickly become viral and before you know it, everyone in the world knows about your products having interacted with your innovative, branded experience.

The next logical step here will be to fuse this kind of interactive Flash video with adverts on your TV screen between your favorite programming. And some people might tell you that this functionality is just around the corner…

Hello fellow blog readers! Aw_Shucks here to share some tips on how to create and design help files in a different and useful way.

Most of you know will know me from the ActiveDen forums, where I spend at least 15 hours of the day waiting for new posts to appear on the forums. But today I am here to share something useful with the ActiveDen community.

Visual Help Files

If you’ll look at the diagram below I colored-up for you, you can get an idea about how I do it. The point of it all is to make it simpler for you, the ever-so-hard-working author, to get your “help” information across to the customer in an easy to understand manner:

Click image below to view larger version:

Keep It Simple

The point is to keep it simple. This is something I have learned from many different people pounding that idea into my head since I started uploading to ActiveDen. But it wasn’t until recently that I found an effective way of applying that advice to my help files.

Here’s how I keep it simple: I begin by creating my help file in Photoshop. Designing my help files entirely in Photoshop makes it so much less tedious than written documentation, and actually, more fun to make them. And, believe it or not, it saves a lot of time. It takes approximately half the time to design help files completely in Photoshop than it does to manually write out the code, syntax and text of an HTML help file. At least for me anyway. Photoshop (CS3) provides a way for the user to easily and quickly create slices on an image, and then save the sliced image as a readily working HTML framework that can be opened in any browser as a regular functioning HTML page.

When designing a help file in Photoshop, a good point to remember is to let the diagram speak for itself. And what information the user might not understand by just looking at the pictures, can be clearly written-out in a short, but concise description.

I am aware that some, or even most of you, are well versed in the art of Photoshopping, but keep in mind that I designed this tutorial for those who might benefit from a crystal clear and easy-to-follow example. I hope this tip and tutorial will be of use to you and save some valuable time!