Free web design helps from SitePoint - JQuery and more...

I have probably mentioned SitePoint before, but that is because they have some really useful things for web designers.

The offering that prompted me to blog tonight was some free sample chapters from their JQuery book, and better still - 100 free JQuery codes as well.

Get it here: http://bit.ly/a0sN6a

Their website is well worth checking out while you are there to see what other freebies are available.

Boom to Bust - Where have all the websites gone?

This BBC article about some of the once big names of the Internet brought back memories for me. It is strange to think that most of my current students were only kids at the time, anything between 5 and 10 years old. They probably won't remember most of these. But for me, as one who was working in a new web industry as a brand new web and graphic designer, many of these were the every day names we saw as examples of success.

It is interesting to see that not one of those names survives today.

For students of web design now, it is well worth looking at these early examples to see how things have changed (technology), and how some things have not (usability issues and big corporation buy-outs).

It is also interesting to see how Boo.com might have survived if it were launched today. While back then the internet was too slow to cope with the technology they were trying to use, today it would be no bother. Too ahead of its time perhaps? Or too willing to ignore the constraints of the time? You decide - but the lessons are still important now.

Any way - enjoy the article:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8568509.stm

And if you want to see what those sites might have looked like why not look them up in the Wayback Machine:

http://www.archive.org/

Game Engines go Free

If you have been tempted to cross the boundary between 2D interactive media or games or 3D animation into 3D games, you will probably know you need to get a decent 3D game physics engine.

That's where my brain has been lately, and consequently I have turned my attention to physics engines. In my mind it was initially a toss-up between Epic's UnrealEd, which comes with Unreal Tournament, or the FPS Creator from The Game Makers.

UnrealEd would have been first choice since I know it is used by a local university on their Game Art degree, on the other hand the FPSC had good features too, and in some ways was less complex and perhaps more suitable for allowing (high school level) students to quickly preview their characters and in-game objects.

However as I did some digging I found that the current plethora of game engines out there, including some open source offerings, has made the area highly competitive. So competitive in fact that well respected commercial engines are now becoming available FREE for personal use, or under developer licenses where you only pay if you make money. This combined with all the free stuff, makes for quite a choice.

Commercial Game Engines for Free

UDK - Unreal have released what they call the Unreal Development Kit, it contains all the tools previously only available to commercial developers or those with a lot of spare cash. This now seems to replace UnrealEd from my point of view.

FPSC - The Game Makers have released a free developers edition of FPSC. It has all the features of the pay for version minus network games and compile - but the pay for is only £30 these days anyway.

Unity - Described as being the best game engine this side of a $million, it normally retailed at about $200, but a free development version is now available too, and looks pretty amazing.

Freeware or Open Source Game Engines

Blender - Has long been capable of producing 3D games made interactive with Python scripting.

Platinum Arts Sandbox 3D Game Maker - purports to be popular with educational environments.

Cheap Game Engines

The 3D Game Maker - I thought I would throw this one in. Although very limited in terms of customisation, for some educational purposes (e.g. Level 1 and 2) this could be ideal. With a bit of technical know how students can include their own 3D models (.x format) in their games.


Well, I already owned FPSC, the 3D Game Maker, and UnrealED, but now I have downloaded Unity and the UDK (be interested to see how UDK is different from UnrealEd). I can hardly wait to get started.

True Full Screen in Flash Player 7 or 8

Most flash based video players have a "full screen" option that makes the video fill your screen even if it originated from a small square in a web page.

But it can be used to make any SWF file fill the screen.

I use both MX 2004 or CS3 depending on which computer I am using. And I know there are still a lot of MX or 8 users out there. So, in case I forget, and in case anyone else finds it helpful, here's how you do full screen in MX 2004 or 8.

The whole thing is summed up in detail here:
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashplayer/articles/full_screen_mode.html

The ActionScript

Here is my AS2 implementation:

/*first set the initial fullscreen value which is 0 because we are not yet in fullscreen */
var fullscr_status = 0;
/*Then a function that runs when the fullscreen button is pressed, this tests whether we are in fullscreen (1) or not (0). If not we go into fullscreen mode. If allready in fullscreen mode we come out of it. */
_root.button_btn.onRelease = function() {
if (fullscr_status == 0) {
//Fullscreen on
fullscr_status = 1;
Stage["displayState"] = "fullScreen";
} else if (fullscr_status == 1) {
//Fullscreen off
fullscr_status = 0;
Stage["displayState"] = "normal";
}
};

The thing that is different for MX 2004 and 8, when compared to using ActionScript 2 in CS3 is this:

Stage["displayState"] = "fullScreen";

and

Stage["displayState"] = "normal";

these are different in CS3.

The HTML

The fullscreen ActionScript won't have any effect unless the object and embed parameters are set to allow fullscreen as follows:

For object:

param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"


For embed:

allowFullScreen="true"


The HTML object and embed I use is described on the Adobe site here:
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashplayer/articles/full_screen_mode_04.html

An Example

Just click the square.

Design Out Crime

I received an email today from the Design Council and was immediately interested in an article about using design to cut crime. For me this is exactly what design is about, that is solving real world problems. As Ivan Chermayeff would encourage me to think - these solutions should come out of an understanding of the problem.

So what was the article about? Beer glasses, that don't break, or if they do, cause less damage to people - we are talking about cutting down incidence and opportunity for 'glassing' attacks.

That means designing something that has some aesthetic value, a practical use, and limited abuse.

Read the full article here:

http://www.designcouncil.org.uk/Design-Council/Files/Landing-pages/Design-Out-Crime/Alcohol-related-crime/?id=5335&WT.dcsvid=NDA5OTYwNDIwOAS2&WT.mc_id=

And you can watch a video about it below:

Designing the next generation British pint glass - the design story from Design Council on Vimeo.

What makes an 'Imax' 3D cinema image 3D?

I was discussing 3D stereograms last year in relation to Channel-4's 3D week, but I came across this interesting video clip on the BBC website when I was looking for information on 'The Pixar Story' a documentary "about the pioneering computer animation studio ".

The 3D shown here does not require coloured filters in the glasses, but does still adhere to the age old principle that 3D is constructed in the brain from seeing two slightly different images with each eye. Rather than coloured filters these use polarising filters. This gives the best colour reproduction of all the 'cheap' glasses methods - but I will let the video tell you more:



Further information may be found here >

Happy New Year

I wish you all a happy and prosperous 2010.

For me 2010 will see me continuing to work hard and learn hard, and getting the right balance between work and family. I believe that way points to satistfaction, health and success.

Happy new year.