Col. Kurtz' Viral Advertisement Blog

Test

2010-10-14T22:54:00.001-07:00

Walts Warning

2009-02-20T04:16:00.000-08:00

You can create your own experience or one for the lads.. :) Use the mouse to look left and right, this will affect the way you are going to .. errm.. get "treated". Enjoy!

Made by ralphandco London.

Flash: Embedded Fonts in Subsets and Submovies

2009-01-26T05:11:00.000-08:00

Ok, this entry lines up in the endless queue of Blogs, Stories and Forum-entries about the most annoying issue in Flash: Embedding fonts and dealing with external Assets/Flashfiles.

Hell, I was almost cracking. Using Gaia and trying to do it this way led me to nowhere. (more about it here and here). Despite being able to SEE the font in all submovies, applying text and a textformat-object just made all text either completely or partially disappear. No clue what and why and...

It seemed as if only one particular range of characters makes it into the Submovie. My special problem was to get the "®"-Character into the text which was added to all embedded Textfields as suggested.

Only, it wouldn't work. But then: just out of randomness I created a MovieClip-class for the elements which had the textfields in it, made all text-assignments via this class and BAM! All there suddenly, special chars, normal chars, everything nicely showing up!

To sum it up: applying text and formats in Submovies directly via the Document class: Meeeep - Njet work. Instead: Always create proxy classes by hand, make a function to apply text (i.e.: "setText") and deal with the formatting in there.

Here such a proxy class:


package com.example.views
{
import flash.display.MovieClip;
import flash.events.MouseEvent;
import flash.text.TextField;
import flash.text.TextFieldAutoSize;
import flash.text.TextFormat;
/**
* ...
* @author Me
*/
public class CurrentItem extends MovieClip
{

public var titleTXT:TextField;
public var data:Object;
private var textFormat:TextFormat;

public function CurrentItem()
{
 titleTXT.autoSize = TextFieldAutoSize.RIGHT;
 titleTXT.mouseEnabled = false;
 buttonMode = true;
}
public function setTitle( str:String ):void
{
 setText( titleTXT, str );
}
private function setText( tf:TextField, str:String ):void
{
 textFormat      = tf.getTextFormat();
 textFormat.letterSpacing = 0;
 tf.embedFonts     = true;
 tf.text           = str;
 tf.setTextFormat( textFormat );
}
}
}

then use it like this in your Document class:

subItem.setTitle( "HELLO

!®" );

And all your miseries about embedded Fonts are history.

Obviously there needs to be a Font.swf being loaded somewhere, sitting in the memory, having called

"Font.registerFont( _Helvetica );"

for instance. See the above link for this matter.

Technotaliarism or "How machines could enslave us one day"

2009-01-22T04:49:00.001-08:00

You gotta read this one (in german, make an effort!)

Wie Maschinen uns eines Tages versklaven könnten
(How machines could enslave us one day)

["...Früher streuten wir nur Gene - dann begannen menschliche Gehirne, Meme zu verbreiten: Ideen, Gedanken, Wörter. Die Evolutionstheoretikerin Susan Blackmore glaubt, dass wir mit Computern und Internet eine neue Evolution in Gang gesetzt haben, die wir eines Tages bereuen könnten. ..."]

This article really made me think. What if we face the same fate that animals are doing which we are extincting worldwide or (ab)using for our own purposes? The farmer and his cows = the Machine and us? Ok, Matrix or Terminator will remain Science fiction but I kind of have a really strange feeling about this perspective on "Evolution".

Technotaliarism is what possibly could come out on the other end of our current race towards "f*ck knows". Keep your eyes open. Those who are for total freedom of information can sooner rule us in a nastier way than anyone of us could dream of.

THIS is the future of viral marketing technology

2008-12-05T06:59:00.000-08:00

A thing, that turns Flash-Apps into movies. Those apps can contain ANYTHING dynamic... which makes it perfect for exporting straight to youtube or any other videosite.
So, beloved Viral-Marketing-bollocks-talkers, consider this: you watch a video on Youtube, about New York Times Square. And suddenly YOUR FACE appears on one of those large advert-screens! The textscrolls even mentions YOUR NAME! And the someone next to the camera goes: "Oh my god! I know him! That is *YOUR NAME*!".

And as I said: on Youtube. Like this, but better...

Flashgame Bowling Center

2008-10-19T04:22:00.000-07:00

Share it! ;)

Sliceoflife externalized!

2008-09-17T10:46:00.000-07:00

Icetruck 2.0

2008-06-30T01:54:00.000-07:00

Ralph has finished the new Dexter-Viral campaign aiming to repeat the huge success of the first one. This time users not only can insert their friends name but their own picture and a recorded message that will be played in a staged press-conference. Those features make this advertisemnt rather funny than freaky as in Icetruck 1.0.

icetruck.tv

New stuff...

2008-06-06T06:52:00.000-07:00

This is pretty viral and this is just beautiful.

Alternativa3D 5.0

2008-04-18T06:26:00.001-07:00

Anton Volkovs latest masterpiece: Alternativa3D 5.0. Check it out! Third Life in Flash?

TweenMax - BIG but tiny

2008-04-14T10:27:00.000-07:00

Jack Doyle is somebody almost every Flasher should've heard of: thanks to this dude we only need one class-import and all our animation-, effects- and whatever-problems are solved. He invented TweenLite, so far the slimmest and fastest tweening-framework for Flash. And now he is giving us even more: TweenMax.

It supports Bezier-tweening, sequencing (like in good old Fuse..), pause/resume and comes with all the bitmap-effects of TweenFilterLite. And its still tiny: only 8 kB go on top of your SWF. I say: Spot on and DONATE for chrissake!

The GAIA Flash Framework

2008-04-12T09:32:00.000-07:00

Ok, for starters: Flex is cool. Its simple and has a very sophisticated structure. It is flexible, allows teambased projects and forces Actionscripters to do things right and neat.

The Flash IDE, in contrast, has evolved from a mix of a Shape-based design-tool (like Illustrator) and a timeline-based Authoring-Tool that allows you to build nice-looking animations or even little programs/games combining disgustingly ugly code and head-killing Movieclip-clockworks that never really worked as they should.

Later Coding-Tools like Flashdevelop started to introduce Flashers into the world of proper Software-Engineering by supporting the OO-syntax of AS2. But despite all efforts: Flash remained a "beginners"-programming language that most "real" programmers always kinda smiled at.

But then little Frameworks and class-libraries popped out of the ground like mushrooms: Tweeners, Game-, 3D-, Vector-, Emitter- and Tile-Engines, Soundclasses like Popforge, Object-Serializers, Webservice- and Chat-Protocol-Supporting classes, MVC-Frameworks and so on.

Just one little things was missing, something that can do all that patterns you are working to get something set up and finished in combination with a nicely built clean and well documented Framework.

And finally I found it: GAIA. Nothing more to say, just watch the Video. Flex is good when design is not a question. AIR is good, when you don't care about the fact that only a tiny minority has installed and will install its runtime.

GAIA can be a perfect shortcut for all Flash-Beginners but also Professionals to set up and maintain projects with ease in FAR less time.

Best MP4-encoding settings for Flash

2008-03-31T08:05:00.000-07:00

Since version 9,0,115 of the Flashplayer has been released I was wondering how to encode H.264-videos quickly, efficient, easy and especially for FREE. Didn't take me long to stumple upon the Sourceforge-project MediaCoder. It supports a huge variety of formats and is extremely fast encoding (sleep well, Squeeze, you lazy bugger!).

But MP4 is not MP4, there are a lot of weird compressions, Sorenson, Apple, Microsoft.. they all try to abuse it for their own sake. Bastards! Luckily I found the perfect working combination of settings that the Flashplayer is able to play smoothly.

First Audio:

Notice, that FAAC is the encoder of choice. Unfortunately LAME is out of game. But FAAC seems to the job much better anyway. So no tears..

Now Video:

Play around with "Mode" to find the best working results for you. I always opt for Two-Pass. Extremely useful for movies with stills as well as lot of movements.

If anyone of you knows it better, please comment on this one. Can't stop learning!

Herr Flick is back

2008-03-19T08:25:00.000-07:00

Herr Flick waas happy to make a funny little video wis us.

The great Tudors Mystery

2008-03-18T15:58:00.000-07:00

As announced: Ralph is kicking out the viral campaign for Tudors, a new Showtime series about Henry8.

It not only works with simple "fake-text-in-real-video" but this time also with a real image. Thanks to "addChild" in AS3 you can easily stick existing Sprite-Objects into other instances while it is running and keeping all its properties untouched - absolutely impossible in AS2. Honestly, I love AS3 for that.

Another feature: you can seek through the movie. Which was a braincracker since I had to keep the dynamic parts flawlessly running as if everything was one simple, single video. And: I didn't use Timer. But a pimped up version of TweenLite.

And now lets prank a friend: www.wkts-tv.com.

Transform your face

2008-03-14T12:00:00.001-07:00

That is currently my favourite website.

Nothing Flash but my Boss just asked me to hook it up with Actionscript to generate pictures like that in Flash...

We'll see!

Ralph is kicking out new Viral campaigns

2008-03-08T13:08:00.001-08:00

First: HUMAN LAB RAT on Justin.tv

Another "prankish" website for the upcoming Paramount/Dreamworks-Blockbuster "The Ruins". Its created in cooperation with justin.tv, an "everybody-can-be-a-star" live video stream website, where people can play Big Brother from both perspectives: surveillant or exhibitionist and sometimes both. Like youtube, only live.
I won't reveal details, just have a look for yourself, its really well made: HUMAN LAB RAT.
Thanks to Marcin, Peter and J3K from Ralph, you did a great job!

Second: ARE YOU THE THE MYSTERY MILLIONAIRE?

"Tudors", an upcoming Showtime Series about King Henry 8 is doing a Dexter-ish campaign but with a different thrill: rather than shocking or giving someone the creeps it plays with a more subtle but at least working feeling: greed.
A fake news site shows a report about a recently discovered document that claims the ownage of land where the todays Buckingham Palace is standing on. And now guess who THAT guy might be?
Link is coming shortly, not live yet. Sign up to the Ralph-newsletter if you want to be the first to know about its release.
Filmed and produced by Ralph.

Third: SAVE THE WORKERS!

This one is funny: Cartoonists at Adultswim need your support! Vote for one or all of them in a campaign that saves them from being exploited or even worse... The choice: a monkey with Tourette syndrome, an Orphan who is on the dinner list of some church priests or a tramp with a puking hand puppet as alter ego.
You can personlize all three with your name and send it either to yourself or to your friend.
Not live yet - sign up for the newsletter to be the first!

2D is yesterday, 3D is now

2008-01-29T02:18:00.000-08:00

When Papervision came up, everyone was excited and started playing around with it. Now with its second version ("The Great White") more and more cool things like that are rising up on the horizon and this is just the beginning. If you consider yourself a good and worthwhile Flashguy, stay tuned and always keep and eye on the latest development around that phantastic framework.

Papervision Blog

Hello!

2008-01-24T08:19:00.001-08:00

This is Col. Kurtz. I will write some funny links and will share some Flash/Actionscript experiences with you. I am currently getting deeper into AS3 and Flex. Since I am based in London I will also write some stuff about the scene, music and "good to know" articles about online advertisement and especially its development.

I am working for Ralphandco, a Clerkenwell based Media company specialized in Viral Online- and Marketing-campaigns. Basically I am/was responsible for the whole Flash bit of campaigns like Dexter (www.icetruck.tv) or Waltswisdom (www.waltswisdom.com).

Stay in touch.

P.S.: Oh, and check out this one here:

l8er