My Portfolio

Okay, I finally updated my portfolio.

It's my first venture into flash (although I used SwishMax).

Now, what I didn't do was put in a pre loader. Of course it comes up fine on my machine, but I am wondering how long it takes to load on yours?

My Portfolio

Feedback please.

Thanks,

Linda Paquette

load quickly on mine... of course you don't have much content. and is it only the banners button that works?

load quickly on mine... of course you don't have much content. and is it only the banners button that works?

No, all the buttons should work?

Hi Linda

It started almost immediately on my computer - although i'm on cable. All of your links worked as well. Only thing I was wondering was with your websites - are you supposed to be able to view them larger? I couldn't, but that would have been a nice addition because they were super small otherwise. Only other thing I noticed too were that some of the images were really blurry - especially in the illustration area. I've used SwishMax as well, and if I scaled an image - either up or down, it always lost a huge amount of the quality, not matter how it was created/imported. I finally had to figure out what size it was that I needed, and resize the image to size in another application. Just a thought

~Jenn

Thanks, Jenn.

I have cable, too, so I wondered if it was because of that and the fact that the images were already in my computer cache that it loaded quickly without a preloader.

I was hoping that it loaded quickly because I just had a little content in the intro and then people have to click a link to see more of it.

This was my first "movie". I've looked at a couple of the tutorials, but I'm more of a "learn as I go" kind of person and not much into making samples for the sake of learning. Too old to change, too, I guess

The templates will be viewable larger in my products page when I get it done.

I may add that information to my portfolio at that time.

I also noticed about the images. Unfortunately they were imported from a vector app and a couple were jpegs from an old rastor program. Seems that Swish doesn't play nice with other programs. I guess that's something I will need to work on.

I did notice that if I created things inside of Swish Max they looked better.

Great start using flash! There's something that wasn't quite right for me though; you could set the jpg's at their original size now that they look blurry and/or pixelated... other than that, great job!

Great start using flash!

Thanks Rabbit. I consider that high praise coming from you!

No problem! If you need some assistance using flash, just contact me .... one small tip of advice as well: www.flashkit.com has loooots of files for you to use with flash including sounds, loops, etc... also has a gigantic library of tutorials to help you out.

Good luck!

No problem! If you need some assistance using flash, just contact me .... one small tip of advice as well: www.flashkit.com has loooots of files for you to use with flash including sounds, loops, etc... also has a gigantic library of tutorials to help you out.

Good luck!

Thanks and thanks for the link. I put it in my favorites.

Hi, Linda.

I looked to your site. It loads very fast ( I am on cable, too).

I dont want to repeat what others said about images and stuff. I just want to say that my impression is very good , not because it is your first flash site.
It is very delicate and nice.
If you need help, here you have some very usefull links, I used myself (they are on my site too).
Beside Flashkit, which Lonelyrabbit told you about, you can find a lot of interesting stuff on:
http://www.ultrashock.com/
Also, for pixel fonts, which are very usefull with flash, look at:
www.orgdot.com
www.fontsforflash.com

Good luck

Definitely anything done directly in Swish will retain its quality. Also play around with the export settings in the menu on the right. If you set it to export text as shapes, the fonts will look much crisper - not perfect, but smoother in the animations. Also make sure that you have the image quality set at its highest - this is the default setting - but just in case you changed it.

Here's a link to a simple little animation that I did for a client's children's site (I think this was ony the 2nd or 3rd animation that i'd ever attempted) in which I drew everything except for the barn doors in Illustrator - including around 5 different poses for each of the animals, then imported them all into SwishMax and compiled it in there. There's a markable difference between the shapes that I imported vs. the ones that I created directly in the program. You're right when you say that it doesnt' like to play nicely with other programs. Nonetheless, it's a really simple program to learn from what i've seen compared to Flash - especially if you don't need to do anything too comlex.

~Jenn

Looks like I am a little late replying to this one! Everyone else beat me to it
Can I just say ditto to all of the above?

It looks great, it loads fast (on cable) and I think its amazing for your first movie! I wouldn't worry about preloaders - they most often come in handy with very large flash files with tons of sounds in them (like Survivor Penguin - that thing is like 5mb)

- Big Bird (the royal one)

Hi, Linda.

I looked to your site. It loads very fast ( I am on cable, too).

I dont want to repeat what others said about images and stuff. I just want to say that my impression is very good , not because it is your first flash site.
It is very delicate and nice.
If you need help, here you have some very usefull links, I used myself (they are on my site too).
Beside Flashkit, which Lonelyrabbit told you about, you can find a lot of interesting stuff on:
http://www.ultrashock.com/
Also, for pixel fonts, which are very usefull with flash, look at:
www.orgdot.com
www.fontsforflash.com

Good luck

Thanks and I added all links to my favorites. I need all the help I can get! LOL

Definitely anything done directly in Swish will retain its quality. Also play around with the export settings in the menu on the right. If you set it to export text as shapes, the fonts will look much crisper - not perfect, but smoother in the animations. Also make sure that you have the image quality set at its highest - this is the default setting - but just in case you changed it.

Here's a link to a simple little animation that I did for a client's children's site
~Jenn

I liked your little 'toon. Amazing with the horse. I don't know if I would have the patience to make it walk like a real horse! I also visited your graphics cache. You are definitely an expert in animation! Loved the first one ... the "we've got your package ready".

I do have another question for all of you. I have loads of midi files on my machine, but swish won't use 'em. I have very few wav files that I can use. Where do I find more good ones at an affordable price (or free is nice, too! LOL)? I did a Google search and darn near came up empty.

Looks like I am a little late replying to this one! Everyone else beat me to it
Can I just say ditto to all of the above?

It looks great, it loads fast (on cable) and I think its amazing for your first movie! I wouldn't worry about preloaders - they most often come in handy with very large flash files with tons of sounds in them (like Survivor Penguin - that thing is like 5mb)

- Big Bird (the royal one)

Thanks twitchy. By the way, sorry you got kicked out of Survivor Penguin!

I liked your little 'toon. Amazing with the horse. I don't know if I would have the patience to make it walk like a real horse! I also visited your graphics cache. You are definitely an expert in animation! Loved the first one ... the "we've got your package ready".

I do have another question for all of you. I have loads of midi files on my machine, but swish won't use 'em. I have very few wav files that I can use. Where do I find more good ones at an affordable price (or free is nice, too! LOL)? I did a Google search and darn near came up empty.

Thanks for checking it out I'm most definitely not an expert with animation - but I love playing around with it and have taught myself alot since my first one at least.

As far as wav files - I've gotten all of the sound fx/loops that i've used from flashkit - just have to watch the file size once you start adding audio. I did find a pretty quick, free audio compression program (dbAudio Amp) that reduces the audio file size incredibly (one went from 2040 kB to just 70 with an almost unrecognizeable loss of sound quality - which then compresses further when you export your movie.) MIDI files definitely won't work with Swish - just wav or mp3's. There are a few programs that i've seen that will convert a midi to a wav file - just check around.

~Jenn

I liked your site, but I have dialup. The first part loaded fast. Then wherever I clicked on the menu, I just got banners again. Eventually, everything loaded, and all the links worked. There didn't seem to be any separation between the menu items, so it was kind of confusing until everything was completely loaded. It is fun for someone interested in web design, but probably not so good for customers.

I like your site, but if you increased the fps, your animation would be smoother..

I like your site, but if you increased the fps, your animation would be smoother..

Thank you for the tip. When I update, I'll remember it.

I'm sorry, but I don't like it.

It doesn't appeal to me......the work or the website.

But hey, everyone has their own style and their opinions.

Jen