My Flash Website

#1

Hi everyone!

Ive created my first completely Flash website for my online portfolio, and i’d love to get some comments on it. I still plan on having a guestbook / shout box type thing on the main page, and also buttons at the bottom for different coloured backgrounds to suit the viewer. They should be in there within a week.

here the addy:
http://andrewhamilton.flippedout.net

I’ve also got a dozen other Flash animations in the digital/animation section on my site… some pointless, some ok… take a look :slight_smile:

edit ive updated the site, you can now select which colour you want the background from a small menu at the bottom of the page. Select from red, green, blue, yellow, black, and one for the girls, pink :slight_smile:

#2

Hi!
I’m really impressed! I really like the rustic look as wess as the interface. The text could be a bit more readable (it’s a little hard on a slant). But overall I really like it!
Could you tell me how you make your painting gallery image loader.
I want to make a loader like that on my site. Except that mine will be for video.
Thanks!
_C

#3

Thanks Corey. I thought id have the text on an angle just to make it a little different from others, it jsut looked to oridinary when everything was straight.

As for the gallery loader… man that took me hours to get working! so i’d be happy to share.

Heres the .fla of just the gallery and its loading part. Take a look around in the actions, and replace the links with your links. The way i have it working is when you click on a button, an external .swf loads in the box. The swf that loads has the image placed inside it. So if you were to do the same, jsut place your video inside a .swf and make the link go to that .swf.

http://www.flippedout.net/andrewhamilton/misc/gallery.fla

You can select everything and move it to wherever you want on a page, but the ‘Loading text and bar’ wont move with it, so go into the layer titled ‘actions’ in the ‘image loader’ folder, and go to the Actions tab. in there up the top is:

function load_jpg_or_swf(targetMC, jpgURL) {
_root.holder.mtClip.loadMovie(jpgURL);
attachMovie(“loader”, “loadMC”, 1000);
loadMC.loadtarget = _root.holder.mtClip;
loadMC.onEnterFrame = is_loaded_results;
loadMC._x = 525;
loadMC._y = 355;

its the loadMC._x and loadMC._y that is the position of the loading text and bar, so you jsut have to pinpoint the position you want it in the scene by changing the values. Its jsut trial and error.

Also, you can create your buttons however and wherever you want, but the key to making them work is giving them an instance. So first, make your symbol button, name it, then go to the properties tab, and give it a name in the instance textbox. Its easiest to name the instance the same as it original name.
Then you have to make sure the instance name is in this action (the actions of the ‘actions’ layer) :

thebetterlife.onRelease = function() {
yourJPGurl = “http://www.flippedout.net/andrewhamilton/pages/paint/thebetterlife.swf”; //works with jpg or swf!!!
load_jpg_or_swf(mtClip, yourJPGurl);

Its the ‘thebetterlife’ above, which is the instance name of the better life button. If the instance name of the button and the line in this action are not the same, it will not work.

I hope im not confusing you too much. Just check out the .fla file and you should figure it out pretty easily :slight_smile:
If you have any problems, just let me know.

#4

Note bad for first Flash website. However I thought the body text could be a bit clearer, for example use pixel fonts. By the way impressive artwork :thumbsup:

I thought it’s the year 2004? :smiley:

#5

first of all … GREAT SITE!

the site is very user friendly, that to me is very important for a portfolio-site.

just one thing … if i may …:slight_smile: … i think a “back” button is usefull when going back from the portfolio items to the portfolio sub-menu … maybe i should explane it better …
when u are viewing the items in the portfolio, u can’t go back to the submenu without going back to the home … hope you understand what i am trying to say …:slight_smile:

sorry 4 my english …

cheers :thumbsup:

#6

skull_leader, thanks for the tip about pixel fonts, ill get right onto that. And yeh, it’s 2004 :stuck_out_tongue: i was just creating my site for 2005 and thought i’d put it up in advance because i was getting really sick of my last site :slight_smile:

fusion_art, ill get right onto that back button too, i thought something was missing! Thanks mate.

#7

very nice website dude!
your work is quite good and the site reflects ur style pretty well.

keep it up!

#8

when viewing in firefox browser it’s only 320x320, so I can’t read anything. In IE though, works fine for me.

#9

How do i get around that?

#10

I had the firefox problem also. I’ve never seen that happen before. Interesting. Might be something you can find out how to fix at www.mozilla.com.

I really like the site though! Great improvements over the works in porgress shown in the web gallery.

#11

Excellent site. User friendly, very well organized, to the point. My favorite gallery is your pencil art. More realism there than what I have seen elsewhere .

Even though I am going to feel like a hypocrite when I say this, but your site is a poster child of how an artist’s Flash gallery should be, set-up wise. Perhaps have links under your pix for easy access of the gallery links (ie: when someone enters your Pencil gallery and click on a year, the remaining accessable years should be placed under your pix, so when they are done viewing that year, instead of clicking Pencil again, they just click on the next year below your pix, or something to that effect), but that’s the only thing I would change.
Why did I say hypocritical? Because there seems to be an “online artists bible” of how to set-up webpage art portfolios (one rule happens to be not making it into Flash). But, for myself, I am breaking all those rules with my “installments” of my upcoming site, a gallery/portfolio based on a plotline (you’re probably wondering, “what the hell…?”). The only rule you are breaking is having it in Flash format, but everything else is terrific in set-up. Great example for virgin Flashers.

#12

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