personal portfolio

[Willofdarkness]

hey everyone. i'm workin on a new personal portfolio. the menu system and music are all complete. i hope it runs ok on all your computers, i think it's pretty demanding. i'm trying to optimize it as much as i can.

i'm going to have the sections load in the upper area, so i'm thinking it would be a good idea to have that logo tab not follow all the way across.

anyway, i all i have to do now is build each section (nothing too fancy) to get loaded into the main swf and then buy a domain!

i hope you enjoy it.

http://ucsub.colorado.edu/~geddes/wilderness (http://ucsub.colorado.edu/%7Egeddes/wilderness)

(P.S.) anyone know how to get the height of the window into flash so i can have the audio control at the very bottom all the time?

[buckcee]

looks good to me!

[theflash]

You mean the client rectangle area in window ... Stage.width and Stage.height

BTY: your design looks good... but in menu that blurred tree is overlapping on menu button I think that is not good also blurred items should go in back of the scene so...

good luck with porfolio

[theflash]

Though I am not sure about the blurred plant overlapping the menu but still check once again and hear what others say then decide accordingly...

Between I think you should remove that rollover effect because it is very command and does not suit your design at all...

[ApixDesigns]

nice work man, i'd stay with the blurred tree in front, it makes it have more contrast, people can work around it, its not hard to just move ur mouse 3 cms to the side and then click the button.....

[eurosickwitit]

llookin good so far, i like the idea, nice and full 100% flash site

[Willofdarkness]

i just added the about page... but i think it needs a redesign. at the very least, the thing loads external swfs properly.

i'm gonna do that tomorrow hopefully.... for right now, i'm burnt out...

[habes]

Looking good!
Your text for the about page needs to be moved down some. Its off the screen!

[ElectricGrandpa]

(P.S.) anyone know how to get the height of the window into flash so i can have the audio control at the very bottom all the time?

The variable is Stage.height, and I'd also recommend that you put these two lines at the top of your code if you're going to do Stage-related placement.

Stage.scaleMode = "noScale";
Stage.align = "TL";

Your site looks quite nice, but just a couple things: First, the font on the preloader is ugly. Make sure you pick a nice looking font and *embed* it into the text field. It might look nice for you, but for someone without the font it looks just-plain-silly.

Another little note: in all your text, even though it's conversational, you really shouldn't use lower case i's and all that. It works great when you need to say somethign fast, but for something a future employer will see it's a big no-no.

[Willofdarkness]

thanks for the tips EG. i hate that about page anyway.... i thought of a new one while getting ready for work this morning.

two questions:

2. how would i go about programming that audio button to fade smoothly from 100 volume to 0 volume, rather than doing it instantly? i can probably figure it out myself (getting more into AS these days... its so nice having a 4 frame SWF file!) but if someone can save me some time why not? right now i'm using a two frame system, both have stop(); and one has _root.audio.setVolume(100); and the other has setVolume(0); and clicking the button cycles the two frames.

2. you guys think i should add a layer of clouds or stars or something in the background? i was thinking that each time you go to a new section of the site, night would change to day and then back.

[Willofdarkness]

Update!

I have changed the style of the content sections! they load smoothly and i think they look pretty good. most of them are inactive though (such as image gallery and e-mail forum).

However I need some help from you! I am using loadMovieNum () to load each section. the problem is, if i want to preview it on my HD i link each one to, for example, "about.swf". On the internet, however, it only works if i do "http://ucsub.colorado.edu/~geddes/wilderness/files/about.swf". is there a way to get it so one version will work on both local and network paths?

EDIT: also, how might i get the content swfs to draw only on even numbered coordinates (to keep the text from being blurry).

EDIT 2: nevermind, i just added _x = Math.round(_x); and ditto for _y.

[designcode]

yohoo, great, I think you should finilize it.:love:

[rille31]

great site, really nice, clean stylish good work:beer:

[Loststarz]

Site:

Visually: 7.5 out of 10
Useability: 3 out of 10

[Willofdarkness]

why useability only 3/10? and why visuals only 7.5?

what needs to be changed/added?

[Loststarz]

Useability should be nill because as designers and tech people we can get that menu to do what we want, we understand that semi-recursive movement but my mom would have to spend a few figuring out the movement (almost inversed), and she wouldn't...she would leave.

And visually it needs contrast, everything in 1 color family like that is monotoneish and sorta bland.

Don't get me wrong i think you did a damn fine job on the major aspects of that site such as coding and layout. I think you have a fine eye for typography and the graphic style is well implemented.

Rather than ballwash and tell you all the ways your great though I think it might help more to be "critical".

You see...I am a cynic.

That aside it is very pretty and 7.5 isn't a bash at all. This isn't IGN where you get a 9+ for not sucking.

I would give nothing i have ever seen a 10 becuse perfection cannot be achived and my 9's would be

1. TokyoPlastic.com
2. Thibaud.be

stuff like that, they have resources and teams of 10 working on sites like that and I wouldn't give anything I have ever worked on any higher than a 7.5 or 8.

[Loststarz]

PS. if that site is to be a "gretting card to the industry" and it's sole purpose is to impress the guy in charge of hiring Motion Graphics Professionals, then screw uesability.

Tech people can make that work just fine, and someone who couldn't figure that out is VERY UNLIKELY to have any input on the hiring of designers and developers.

[punkerton]

i absolutely love the look you've got going. very clean and very interesting. i think the movement is a little over sensative. everything moves so fast. i think it would be easier and more fun to navigate if it was a little slower and not quite so wishy washy. also it seemd like the contact button kept going down where i couldn't get it. i like the blurred tree but try to not let it block buttons, that was annoying.

great work!

[Willofdarkness]

loststarz: i appreciate your comments... its only crits like that that will help me make my site better, after all.

until i saw your post i was just going to add that this site isn't for average joe on the street... it's for advertising and design agencies (not neccesarily flash design houses, because i'm not good enough at flash), and potential clients. i like to think that if someone can figure out BBDO.com ot TBWA.com that they could understand my site.

I see your point about the contrast element of it. Would it help to have a sort of time-of-day effect? where each section drives the background to switch to day/night shades?

[Loststarz]

loststarz: i appreciate your comments... its only crits like that that will help me make my site better, after all.

until i saw your post i was just going to add that this site isn't for average joe on the street... it's for advertising and design agencies (not neccesarily flash design houses, because i'm not good enough at flash), and potential clients. i like to think that if someone can figure out BBDO.com ot TBWA.com that they could understand my site.

I see your point about the contrast element of it. Would it help to have a sort of time-of-day effect? where each section drives the background to switch to day/night shades?

I designed the interface look for a site once that detected the local time of the user (using the OS clock) and dispalyed either the "night" version or "day" version of the site accordingly. It ruled.

[Willofdarkness]

i dont' think that would be too hard to implement here.... i might try that.

there will be more color also when the gallery works, so once i figure out xml, you should check it out again. :beer:

[Loststarz]

i dont' think that would be too hard to implement here.... i might try that.

there will be more color also when the gallery works, so once i figure out xml, you should check it out again. :beer:

XML is something I am fine with, so feel free to ask if you have any questions.

[Seb Hughes]

I like it but, i dont like the nav, it keeps moving and it annyoing, also the contacvt goes out fo sight. but everythign else it very good

[Willofdarkness]

may i ask what screen res you are using? i tested it on everything from 1024x768 to 1280x1024 and it seemed fine. did you view it full screen?

(just wanna know so i can tweak the code and make it more browser friendly.)

should i add a "stop movement" button? or should i just direct people to the low-tech version (which i'm building today).

[Loststarz]

may i ask what screen res you are using? i tested it on everything from 1024x768 to 1280x1024 and it seemed fine. did you view it full screen?

(just wanna know so i can tweak the code and make it more browser friendly.)

should i add a "stop movement" button? or should i just direct people to the low-tech version (which i'm building today).

I would make a splash that gives the user a choice of Flash or XHTML right from the get go.

I know these splash pages "suck" but until someone figures out how to read a users mind and give them the version they want.....it's all we got.

[Willofdarkness]

I would make a splash that gives the user a choice of Flash or XHTML right from the get go.

I know these splash pages "suck" but until someone figures out how to read a users mind and give them the version they want.....it's all we got.

that link should go straight to the splashpage... its just that right now i don't have the low tech version ready.

[hybrid101]

parallax panning...i'm not really used to yur navigation, but the colors are sweet!

[love police]

yeah thats not bad. add a button somewehere though to turn of the annoying music.

[Willofdarkness]

yeah thats not bad. add a button somewehere though to turn of the annoying music.
uhh.. there is a button to turn off the music.

[love police]

ok, well now that i know that, i managed to look for it when it loaded. and i saw it for a split second in the bottom left corner. maybe you should keep it on top the whole time. ;)

[Willofdarkness]

ok, well now that i know that, i managed to look for it when it loaded. and i saw it for a split second in the bottom left corner. maybe you should keep it on top the whole time. ;)

what browser/flash version are you using? it should always be in the bottom left corner no matter what size your window is.

[shasta12]

Very impressive to me!! WOW.. I haven't seen anything like it.
As a newbie to flash, where can I find tutorials to teach me how to do certain elements you've incorporated? Such as...
1. the scenery moving with the mouse cursor
2. the movie taking up the full screen instead of a fixed size

Like I said I'm new so I don't expect anyone to explain all this to me, but could someone point me in the right direction? to a tutorial maybe?

[love police]

firefox, flash player 8

[kathari]

same for me about the sound buttom, Disappears behind the black immediately.
THis will be a very nice site!

[Willofdarkness]

thats very strange.... it's on the topmost layer!

i'll have to figure out another solution... i'm using firefox and flash 8 and the soudn button is always on the bottom left for me even when i scale the window down as small as it will go.

[kathari]

well, it gets covered by the black "ground". CHecked in Firefox and Safari, player 8

[Willofdarkness]

things that make you go "hmmmmm"

[phorte]

Tottaly lovin this man. Very nice, noticed a little glitch on the loading bar on the side, it looked like it flicked into Times New Roman, for a sec. Looked a bit odd.

[Zimmermann]

well, it gets covered by the black "ground". CHecked in Firefox and Safari, player 8

Same here - I'm using IE at 1600x1200. And the music stops after a few minutes. Other than that I really like the site :)

[createi]

i like it, i think you should remove wild animals... to give it life.

it looks like the new jack Johnsons album cover

[Willofdarkness]

oh no! i've never seen that cover before... but are people gonna think i'm copying him?

dang.

well, it's too late now.

here's the latest version... it has a static nav on top (doesn't work yet)
http://www.orangesherbert.com

unfortunately my computer did a silent restart when i was doing this, and i hadn't been saving... SOOOO i have to do all that **** over again... i'll only bother if you guys like the nav bar on top...

also, the stage is meant to only be 550px tall... so everything should be usable on 1024x768, and doesn't require fullscreen. also, i made the trees and deer smaller.

i have to redo all of that in flash, but it shouldn't take too long... but i'll only do it if you think it's better... well?

[unchew]

I love the colours and the swinging around the links, makes it look fresh!°

[phorte]

oh yes, really like that nav up the top. 2 things about it though, thats info on the right side, i reckon should be fully right alligned, there is a gap after "design" to the edge of page, looks a bit dodgey. Also the load bar sits onto of the nav bar, so it covers it when it loads. Guess its personal pref which way u want it, but i reckon itd look better underneath.

[createi]

no i don't think people think you are copying him? cos its only his cd cover thats got similar style. not his website.

[G]

Really liked it but how do you turn the music off?? :)