www.AlexsDesigns.net V2

[Alex]

hey everyone, after 4 weeks of working on my site, This is what you all have been waiting for...

I have decited to start working on this to give me an idea on where i stand with MX, and my skills in it. I have done alot of things that i normally wouldnt think of doing. There is alot of tweens that help make the backgrounds look more interesting.

thats just about it...

dont go easy on me, give it all you have, i wont get depressed, it will only help me to get better.:tb:

www.alexsdesigns.net


(i couldnt wait to monday, so i worked my butt off and got it mostly finished.) :thumb: :thumb: :thumb: :thumb: :thumb:

[Voetsjoeba]

Nice work alex :beam: You're practically the same as me, only I'm 14 years old :beam: I like it, very good, the sliding content and stuff, the thumbnails added to the portfolio section .. Very good :beam:

[eyeinfinitude]

hahaha every time I look at your work, it makes me laugh for some reason. Sorry, I don't mean it in a bad way, it's just really funny.

I can tell that you've improved a lot and I'm impressed with your progress. Honestly though, I still think it needs more work and refinement, but you're getting better.

You still have a problem with the way you design, it lacks the "clean" look. Overall your text are blurry and your images are pixelated like they've been stretched. Also try to keep your text consistent. I noticed different sizes in text which takes away from the clean look.

The first problem I noticed was that your site took awhile to load and I'm on a really fast connection too.

The sliding transition is a nice touch, that really caught my attention and I can tell you've worked hard on it.

Keep in mind that the little things count, you probably concentrated on effects and forgot about the little things.

So just be sure to check these things:
- your text, make sure they're not blurry.
- your image quality, don't stretch them.
- check the alignment of your lines and boxes, some of them are off.

[.soulty]

Nice change from your old site, Pretty cool ;)
Few things i like to say

::you need some roll overs on your menu buttons.
:: that cloud animation at the home page is annoying
:: Type in about me section is cut off and there is no scoll.
:: Some of your images seem to be squashed.
:: Some typography is needed, need to clean up some of your type, needs to be clearer, seem to be a bit blured.

Other than that its alright. I like the way your site goes to section to section, pretty cool style. though with this happening it seems that your main movie is pretty large, i've got cable and it took a while to load your site up.

Keep going, your getting better and better :beam:

[.soulty]

lol, i didnt notice you posted egeek !! grr :P we said basically the same thing. :smirk:

[Alex]

this is the first time my site went live, im going to have to sit down here tomorrow and go through and see what i need and what i dont need. to try to cut down on the file size. Thanks for your comments. :)

hey EG when ever you get mad, go to my site. haha:P

[Millad]

Nice site Alex !

I just whant to know you have more than 2 sound tracks right !

We do I need to download all the sound tracks to hear one !

Why not When I choos track.nr.2 then it will load it but it will show a preloader that will load tthe .swf movie that have the track. ! not download it with the main movie ! becouse your main movie have a low file size.


Center the Main .Swf you got front page 2003 Why not center it :)

If you removie the red line under the movie that says "©Copyright 2003 Alex's Designs. All rights are reserved." if you removie it the movie will look better i think !
:goatee:

but its cool site !

[λ]

Just a few points

As other people have mentioned, the images are pixelated, so you might want to get some new ones.

Why don't you get some proper pixel fonts as well, as the others mentioned.

Other than that, I quite like it. Good work.:)

[El_Thierro]

Well, it took me a whole while to load too, and I'm on broadband (ADSL). But the overall look is nice. But maybe you can do as Blastboy said, and make the tracks load seperately (I did it that way on my site, with a little loading bar and all :beam: ) Anyway, nice site!

P.S.I'm 16 years old too :)

[mlk]

its much better than the last version, but takes ages to load...

anyway change the brown color of the copyright on the first page it doesnt look really good. Why not make a gif with pixel fonts ? with a black/gray backgrnd..

Im afraid ill repeat EG and soulty with my other comments...

[Alex]

thanks guys, i am working on it right now, i had to leave, i stayed up to 2:30 working on it. im getting new fonts and i am working on getting the load speed down.

:)
(lavaboy, did you send the music thing yet :) )

[lava]

hey man, just a question... were you "inspired" to have that background pic? hehe.
Looks pretty good... just stay away from that times new roman (or similar) font. Get a nicer font.

I'll send it in a bit

[Alex]

i change the font to something that i found. i though it looks nice, but i dont have a designers eye. i will change it when i get back.

Thanks! :)

[lava]

haha, based on the picture I guess you want the send message to cell thingie as well?


hey, I masked the advert link... I think.. um, yeah.

It's here
http://www.wraf.lavaland.net/advert.swf

[Alex]

for some reason it doesnt work when i import it.

[nobody]

alex, looks so much better than your last site. I like the transitions.. again, the load time sucked.
I like the idea with the waterfall.. but theres some problems.. they don't really.. flow.. like they should. Like they randomly change speeds and stuff. and They just stop when they get to the bottom. Other than that, I like it

[Alex]

thanks. right now im working on trying to cut down on the loading process. i dont know why it goes slow.

[Millad]

Alex get the size down furst get the music off so you kan view it better without waiting to download music !

add the music in the end !

[lava]

just make an empty movie clip, and then do:

emptymovieclip.loadMovie("http://wraf.lavaland.net/advert.swf")

[replode]

I think your old one had less space, but it was easier to view. The new one is good, especially with the sliding transitions, but it it is sometimes confusing to read the text because it's not really laid out good.

imo, your old site was better in some ways, and you could have just added on to that one. not trying to be hatefull.:)

but your learning fast. 2 full flash sites by age 16 is really good.:)
hope to see more.:)

[dreamer]

Your loading takes way too long. Did you use ifframloaded scripts?

[Xzandar]

BAH!!!!!!!!!! Once again I'm the little noob ant around here. *sighs* I don't think I want to advance my skills, because I'd get squished like the little ant that I am, every step of the way. :-X

Good works! Mind if I add you to my site's link section?

One thing I did notice, though, was that it did take a while to load on my oh-so-humble 56k connection. Other than that, I thought it was a big advancement from the last version. :)


Christopher William Coddington (Xzandar / cwcandromeda)

[Alex]

Thanks, sure you can add me to your links section :)

im clearing abunch of stuff, so it should go faster when i upload the cleaned out version :P

[Xzandar]

I got you added. Now to upload the file. *sighs as he opens his FTP program*

By the way, man. How did you get the text to load into one of the components in you flash? I've always been curious how people do that.


Christopher William Coddington (Xzandar / cwcandromeda)

[Jubba]

Xz: read your PM. I sent you the link to the rules. :)

[Mik3]

Good Job Alex!
Your site is A LOT better and you have greatly improved!

P.S. I am 13 too!

[lava]

hey alex, you just need to compress your loops better... I'm sure you have them in the library. Right click them and click on properties.

[Cynegenica]

One thing that I haven' t seen mentioned before, so maybe its just me, but i think the preloader is out of alignment with the centered text below it. While its a little thing, as mentioned by EG, its the little things that count. Check to make sure that the alignment is right. If it is... its just me.

[dizknee]

Huge improvement over v.1 Alex!! Congrats. I do agree with the loading in of music, that would cut down on the load time dramatically. Also, some of the images do look distorted as mentioned before. Your getting much better.

[Mik3]

for some reason I was just looking around and noticed:
THis might look really cool if it moved fast! Like take the FPS really high so the page changes are really fast. You might wanna try it out and see if you like it, if you do you should put it up!

[grimdeath]

alex buddy try to bring downs the size of your website im on 56k and i honestly didnt wait till it loaded its 2 big and im a bit tired hence me not waiting to see your site i will check it out tomorrow but try to optimize the site and make it 56ker friendly lol good luck :beam:

[Alex]

i havent been able to work on it lately, i am loaded with school work. but i will get around to it

[Alex]

i fixed the loading speed, now it loads for me under 20 seconds.

i changed the font, does it look small. some one told me that it does, but it looks fine for me.

thanks

[Cynegenica]

try to optimize the site and make it 56ker friendly

This is great advice.

One thing that may be advantage to you if your site is going to take 20seconds over Broadband connection is to possibly create an alternative (html for example) site for those that aren't lucky enough to have a broadband connection. 20 seconds on broadband is a LOT more on 56k connection dont forget.

If your looking to get customers from your site, or to get your portfolio seen, i think that would be a great way to go about it.

Otherwise, intead of having it all load at once (like yours does), break it up into smaller movies and have them load upon request. Ie if the user clicks on portfolio, you can still have the slider effect but have the thumbnails and data load on the fly. You will see this effect in sites like unflux for example. Makes loading much faster and less restrictive to the surfer.

[Mik3]

Alex go back to bigger fonts please :)

I cant read it! RED ALERT RED ALERT

-Mike

[Alex]

for some reason it looks fine for me. can you post a screen shot??

[NeoDreamer]

- You have a loading bar box, but no loading bar!
- Text is way too pixelated and small

[Alex]

it looks fine to me, can you print screen to show me. for some reason it looks different on my computer....

[asphaltcowboy]

I think you have to embed your font or something Alex, perhaps it's one that's on your computer that no one else has. Hope you like my drawing =)

[Alex]

this is what it looks like to me...

[asphaltcowboy]

lol! not quite the same is it? something to do with your fonts m8.. am I right in saying that he needs to embed them? someone? anyone? :]

[dizknee]

yea, way to small, i cant read anything. and i agree, a load bar box, with no load bar is kinda like a nav bar with only words.. no substance!! here is a screen shot. nice design again tho, and im likin the scrolling between sections. OH, and the phone bg, under contact, nice touch.

[dizknee]

yea asphalt.. embed your fonts Alex, and make sure that the x, y cords are set to WHOLE numbers.

[Alex]

i have no idea how to do this. :(

[dizknee]

those are dynamic textboxes correct? if so, click on the box, and then look in your properties panel. right next to Var: to the right, you should see a box named Character. Click it, and then check off All Characters, and then done. That should solve that much. As for the x,y, those are on the left, right next to the W, and H boxes

[dizknee]

Oh, just make sure that the x,y are set for something like 104.0, instead of 104.4. Also, pixel fonts work best in multiples of 8, otherwise they tend to get distorted

[asphaltcowboy]

what does embed fonts actually do again? I just hear people fling the term around ;)

[dizknee]

it embeds the Character outline inside of flash, so that if a user doesn't have the font installed on their pc, it will display how you want. Like, if ur using Verdana, and I dont have it, my computer will choose the closest thing to it. Sometimes this messes up the whole flow of a page. Embedding the character outline ensures that they see Verdana, installed on their pc or not.

[asphaltcowboy]

ah, gotcha ;) ta

[dizknee]

no prob, but dang, im havin trouble with wut IM doing now, hah.

[Alex]

i have change the font, can some one please post a screen shot so i know how much more to make it bigger.

thanks for your help

[dizknee]

ya missed 1 box, in the new updates section.

[Alex]

thanks for helping out. :)

[dizknee]

no problem

[Daveman]

Alex, that is so much better than the last time i looked. I'm on 56k here at work and last time i gave up after about 5 min. I have no sound here so can't say anything about that. FYI it loaded in about 40 seconds... The fonts that peeps are talking about are clear for me, but why not do the menu fonts the same or render in html? Only problem i had was FPS... I'm on an old P1 200 here and it was quite jerky.. Your slowly getting there, just a general polish up is all thats required..

I really like your transitions between sections (apart from the jerkyness which is probably more on my end).

Dave