Website Crit

[Henry]

Hey all,

Here is a site that has been up for a little while. I'm pleased with the concept and the way it looks, just sems to struggle a bit to load properly and seems a bit tempremental.

http://www.start-london.com/

Any practical critisism/comments and advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Henry

[BoonDock]

Not bad, nice and simple, would help with some sound on the buttons...will you be displaying the clothing? Or is it just to promote the store?

[Henry]

Thanks for the commments, it is just to promote the stores and the brand really. Only occasionally will clothes be featured.

[G]

I liked the site design etc...but I found that the transitions between sections were pretty jerky, I thought it was my computer but its not....speed up the fps, or maybe its just your shapoe tween??

[Vamp9190]

^^ totally agree - not that smooth - jerkiness is there

Also - why the splash page??? There is no need for it -- if you want that image there, just have it load the site after, why should the user have to click AN EXTRA button just to get into the site?!?

Think of it this way, would you want to click a button every time you wanted to go to Google or MSN, etc.

[Henry]

Thanks for the replies,

I am working on getting ot to run smoother, I think its to do with having too much information on the frame after the mask is finished.

Also, I agree on the splash page - have changed that already.

Thanks guys
Vamp9160: do you have a link to your site I could look at?

[slinkyart]

Great concept, good design. I think the thing that is drawing attention away from the site is the fact that the animations seem chunky. There is so much going on, on the page that it's making the animations appear choppy. I would highly suggest when you build in Flash to build with levels.

For example, build your base movie, name it whatever, and on that movie I just have my background layer. Then I'll build another page with the same dimensions and whatnot and just put like my navigation on that page. So then, on that main movie page, you'd create a new layer in the timeline, call it "actions" and make an action that would say loadMovieNum("yourmovietoload.swf", "3");

All Flash movies start out at layer 0. So you can load in other movies on top of that level. If you load a movie on the same level as another, Flash will either replace the movie with the loading one, or it will get confused and cause an error.

So, the basic setup I have for my published Flash movies is as follows (generally): index.swf, navigation.swf, content.swf, misc.swf. So on the index.swf file, I have an aciton of loadMovieNum and I'm loading navigation.swf, content.swf and misc.swf all on 3 seperate levels. I generally put the navigation.swf on the highest level since the navigation is generally global (on every page). With the above format, all of the individual movies, depending on what you put on them (i.e. pictures, content, music files) will typically only be around 4-10 k (they'll be bigger if you have pictures or music on them) which is tiny and it will load quickly and all of the animations will play smoothly.

Does that all make sense or have I completely confused the crap out of everyone? Sometimes I tend to ramble!

But, all in all, I like the design, the site looks very good!!

[Zach-E2]

neat!

[Ryall]

um way too choppy.... fps or movie construct issues or bad AS... something needs to be addressed.

Peace

[Vamp9190]

............So, the basic setup I have for my published Flash movies is as follows (generally): index.swf, navigation.swf, content.swf, misc.swf. So on the index.swf file, I have an aciton of loadMovieNum and I'm loading navigation.swf, content.swf and misc.swf all on 3 seperate levels. .....

So you are saying that you are loading multiple external SWFs for each page? For people who don't know AS well, that is going to be tough.

[slinkyart]

So you are saying that you are loading multiple external SWFs for each page? For people who don't know AS well, that is going to be tough.

Yeah, that's what I do. It sounds confusing, but it's actually really, really simple. I should probably write a little tutorial on it.

[Vamp9190]

Yeah, that's what I do. It sounds confusing, but it's actually really, really simple. I should probably write a little tutorial on it.

yeah definately!

BTW - is each SWF the same size as your main stage, or just cropped for each element?

Also, does the SWF bkrnd have to be transparent (like a PNG basically) to layer in each element?

[Qugh]

I actually have a little tutorial on this, if you guys wanna see it.

Here are the actual source files with commenting everywhere in there. It's the right theory behind everything... just add more swfs if you want.
www.qugh.com/tuts/site_setup.zip

[bart weijts]

Tip: use on(rollOver, dragOver) on your buttons. If you drag out of your buttons they stay in the up position. Just a little detail :nerd:

[Henry]

Thanks for the replies.
As ever really helpful...
:)

[wakeup]

looks v nice - sort the techy **** out with the jerkynes and ur onto a winner

slinkyarts suggestion will help im sure