Another site I am making.

Jack Ruby · Post by **Jack Ruby** » Tue Jun 10, 2003 2:12 pm

Well this one is a kids animation site, though its not a site for kids.
Its quite a long way into production still adding to it and making amends, maybe 60% complete.

Its a flash site but theres no pre loader yet so give it a few seconds to load, its about 180k. The portfolio section is the most complete right now, have a click around.

What do you think so far ?

http://www31.brinkster.com/flyboysigh/test.htm

if the link does not work try pasting it into your browser.

mohaa_rox · Post by **mohaa_rox** » Tue Jun 10, 2003 2:43 pm

looking good! what is it about?

m0g · Post by **m0g** » Tue Jun 10, 2003 2:46 pm

nice!
Do you use Flash MX?Are you loading external swf's for the different sections? If not how big is it? (swf)

Jack Ruby · Post by **Jack Ruby** » Tue Jun 10, 2003 2:53 pm

Rox, I am making it for the animation company, called grand slam childrens films, its just a showcase of the stuff they do. Mog, yeah its flash MX, no external movies, just one swf, so far its 195k, this seems quite big but considering we have a whole site in there its not bad at all. Without all the images it was about 10k, everything is made from vectors except the images, I love vectors

m0g · Post by **m0g** » Tue Jun 10, 2003 3:04 pm

A tip is to load externals swf's instead, it will load faster for those who has slower internet connections + you get more control of the content in that way. Easier to update/change! Theres's also an option to load images externally...(if large)
Dynamic Textfields where you can have .txt files sitting next to your swf on the server, very easy to update text!

One small thing though... Maybe its my screen (gamma) but are the texts a bit too light? I find it hard to read/see...

The menu at the looks cool, maybe have a nice rollover effect!? also a preloader would be nice...

*maybe i should keep my mouth shut*

Jack Ruby · Post by **Jack Ruby** » Tue Jun 10, 2003 3:19 pm

The text being light is a fair comment, maybe I will darken it a little. Loading external swf's is something we thought about earlier on but waiting for a section to load up would lose the fluidity of the whole thing, even on 56k it should only take a minute or so to load, with the preloader we wont have to make the viewer wait for everything to load so it should only take a little while before they see it. Same goes for loading images.

We can do dynamic text fields, maybe we will in the final, only thing is formatting the text fields, flash tends to insert line breaks in stupid places, just for now we are trying to get it all working for the client, then we are gonna tweak everything.

Rollovers will come in the final versions, just for now we gotta make it all clickable. They keep wanting stuff changed so rollovers and other goodies will wait until they make their minds up, also its a little scary animating something then trying to sell it to an animation company, they obviously can do it 100 times better than me

m0g · Post by **m0g** » Tue Jun 10, 2003 3:27 pm

Well good luck and I'll be waiting for the final release

Jack Ruby · Post by **Jack Ruby** » Tue Jun 10, 2003 3:31 pm

Thanks for your input, I will post the final version when its done, hopefully in the next couple of weeks because I really need the cash.

Jack Ruby · Post by **Jack Ruby** » Tue Jul 01, 2003 11:15 pm

Well the site has come on quite a bit, maybe 75% done and it went to be presented to the main guy of the company its for today, it was presented with broadband so hopefully it went well, hardly any loading times and stuff, fingers crossed,

heres the preview server

http://www.mangetoutdesign.co.uk/testsite/index.htm

If you navigate to the portfolio section, check out the movies on the left hand side, and try clicking the different characters in the circles at the top, they all have their own movies,