BRUSCA

New Actionscript 3 Australia Zoo Banners

Posted by Brusca under Adobe, Australia Zoo, Flash

We just launched the new home page for the Australia Zoo website. This has some very nice features. New flash banners and an Ajax accordion to help deliver fresh daily content.

Below are some examples of the flash banners and a flow of how the display object works loading in the flash banners.

The home page flash banner loads in external (swf) banners and can currently take 1,2 or 3 banners rotating through. Each banner can have sound but is not critical and is developed to handle both regardless.

The initial swf stage file is only 24kb and loads each banner individually on a Timer() function. The stage is set to scale and will align the externally loaded banners to the center of the stage upon loading and if the stage is re sized.

Banner 1 of the new Australia Zoo Banners

Whale watching banner, from the new Australia Zoo banners

Showing the display objects and how they load the flash banners

Above you will see the displayObject layout for loading in the external banners. As mentioned the banners load in on a Timer() function and iterate through the length of a banner array, which is being passed through the swf object embedded in the page. This allows us to develop banners and add them dynamically without having to alter a core file.

If an individual banner has an existing sound file, this is also loaded externally to the swf file and stops the Timer() function until the sound has completed playing. Once sound is completed playing the timer will start and continue to rotate through the banners.

Also displayed at the bottom left of the banners are banner buttons, allowing a user to click through to a banner at anytime.

There is some more work to be done on fine tuning these. Creating AS3 packages, making the banners even more modulated. Allowing for the sound to be turned off permanently using stored objects so upon multiple refreshes the sound is switched off.

Check them out here www.australiazoo.com.au.

Simple AS3 Particles using TweenLite

Posted by Brusca under Adobe, Flash

Particles in AS3 using the TweenLite engine. Code is below, very easy to follow.

//import the tween classes
import gs.TweenLite;
import gs.easing.*

//create the container and particles
var particleCotainer:MovieClip = new MovieClip();
var particleArray:Array = new Array();
var particleArrayb:Array = new Array();
var maxParticles:Number = 200;

//add the particle container to the display
addChild(particleCotainer);

//create the function to add the particles
function addParticle(e:Event)
{

var dot:Particle = new Particle();
var dotb:Particle = new Particle();
particleCotainer.x = stage.stageWidth/2;
particleCotainer.y = stage.stageHeight/2+120;
dot.scaleX = dot.scaleY = Math.random() * .8 + .2;
dotb.scaleX = dotb.scaleY = Math.random() * .6 + .1;
dotb.xMovement = Math.random() * -200;
dotb.yMovement = Math.random() * -200;
dot.xMovement = Math.random() * 200;
dot.yMovement = Math.random() * -200;
particleArray.push(dot);
particleArrayb.push(dotb);
particleCotainer.addChild(dot);
particleCotainer.addChild(dotb);
dot.cacheAsBitmap = true;
dotb.cacheAsBitmap = true;

//create the movement for each particle
TweenLite.to(dot, 2, {y:dot.yMovement, x:dot.xMovement, alpha:.5, rotation:90});
TweenLite.to(dotb, 2, {y:dotb.yMovement, x:dotb.xMovement, alpha:.5, rotation:-90});
TweenLite.to(dot, 8, {y:200, alpha:0, rotation:90, delay:1.5, overwrite:0, ease:Strong.easeIn});
TweenLite.to(dotb, 8, {y:200, alpha:0, rotation:-90, delay:1.5, overwrite:0, ease:Strong.easeIn});

}

//create the timer to call the function. Runs every 100 milliseconds
var myTimer:Timer = new Timer(100);
myTimer.addEventListener(TimerEvent.TIMER, addParticle);
myTimer.start();

Australia Zoo Daily Video Diaries

Posted by Brusca under Adobe, Fireworks, Flash

www.australiazoo.com.au/our-animals/daily-video-diaries/

One of the more recent projects at Australia Zoo has been the inclusion of Daily Video Diaries.

On a daily basis a short 60 second video is displayed, explaining a fact or answering a question sent in by a fan or animal lover. Every single episode has the option to comment and is proving to be a good addition to the Australia Zoo website.

As we say at Australia Zoo, “Conservation through Exciting Education”. Not only can you get this at the Zoo 364 days of the year, you can also get it online.

The Daily Video Diaries are a small preview to the Chat to a Keeper section we do a on a monthly basis. The chats have more details and are generally around 10 minutes in length.

webdu 2008

Posted by Brusca under Adobe, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Flash, Google

It’s been another whirlwind webdu. As per usual webdu gives anyone with a passion for this kind of work the added motivation to continue to grow and explore new realms as they arise with technology growth within the web world. Sometimes aspects of your work can be demotivating, thankfully there are exciting times ahead.

Flash CS4 has some very nice features. One of them being the use of inverse kinematics. You can now create bone structures to help animate characters from within flash and the bones can be accessed using actionscript.

An example can be seen here at The Flash Blog

New Dreamweaver and Fireworks CS4 beta versions are now available and we got a sneak peek of those at webdu 2008. Some very nice feature like webkit built directly into Dreamweaver.

Google Maps API for Flash. Google have finally released an API for Flash. Meaning we can stop using the Yahoo maps application on the Steve Irwin Day events page and use the much better mapping system from Google, that’s right Yahoo, there is a world outside of the United States.

All in all a good conference, and some very nice new features and toolsets to help us at Australia Zoo deliver RIA’s through the browser and on the desktop.

Now time to sleep!