Looking for portfolio site - dark and has bugs crwling over it

[Olli_Budworth]

I'm trying to remember a site - it was posted here a while ago. It's a portfolio site for a designer. Very dark and eerie. There is a main image which has holes in it and there are bugs that crawl in and out of the holes. I seem to remember a load of butterfly's pinned to it too!

Can anyone help?

[jaybirch]

www.johnnyhollow.com i think , might need to check the spelling

[Uniq]

This site ROCKS! ...one of my favs.

Personaly I like the "Silence of the lambs"/"Marilyn Manson" look.

[darksinder]

How on earth is such photorealistic animation used in flash? Its like this site :www.advertisingvisual.com seeing these awesome websites and how much better they are than mine is really depressing!

[Olli_Budworth]

Originally posted by darksinder
How on earth is such photorealistic animation used in flash? Its like this site :www.advertisingvisual.com seeing these awesome websites and how much better they are than mine is really depressing!

Well the ladybugs were probably rendered in a 3D package, then they were exported as PNG's and imported into Flash. The background was more than likely drawn in photoshop and also imported into flash as a png.

[darksinder]

Thanks for the insight. I guess i need to get started trying to render to png's from maya. I didn't know png's could be such high quality, which is why i was trying to use jpg's when i attempted a 3d site, which made the file size huge.... This has rekindled my inspiration to try for 3d on my next site design.

[Olli_Budworth]

Originally posted by darksinder
Thanks for the insight. I guess i need to get started trying to render to png's from maya. I didn't know png's could be such high quality, which is why i was trying to use jpg's when i attempted a 3d site, which made the file size huge.... This has rekindled my inspiration to try for 3d on my next site design.

Never use JPEGS when you import to flash, always use PNGs.

JPEGs are already compressed, so you get a bit of quality loss. When flash renders an SWF, it converts all bitmaps / pngs etc, into JPEGs - that's why you have the JPEG quality option when you export. In doing this, it also compresses the images.

[darksinder]

thanks for the tip, didn't know that =)

[7year]

Also, PNG's are not going to make your file size smaller. The use of PNG's is the 8 bit alpha channel shich allows you to pass a mask you have made with the image. Unlike JPG's which cannot have transparency.

[darksinder]

so how do people do full-stage animation like that advertisingvisual site and still keep the download time manageable?

[semaj23]

Originally posted by darksinder
Thanks for the insight. I guess i need to get started trying to render to png's from maya. I didn't know png's could be such high quality, which is why i was trying to use jpg's when i attempted a 3d site, which made the file size huge.... This has rekindled my inspiration to try for 3d on my next site design.

First of all, you have Maya? Price tags about 8k. Anyway, Maya can also export swf. Maya 5 was the first version to have swf rendering. I'm not sure of the size that is created and I'm sure there is no interactivity. You can always add butttons and things in flash. Maya does of course export png if that's all you need. That's pretty expensive toy for making a flash site.

[semaj23]

Originally posted by darksinder
so how do people do full-stage animation like that advertisingvisual site and still keep the download time manageable?

I'd like to know how they keep thier file sizes down. My cartoon site will be primarily png and I'm concerend that dialup users may be able to go out to dinner while my cartoon loads.

Check out the dreamworks site they made in the portfolio section. Be sure and hit the red button, pretty funny.

[darksinder]

Student price for Maya Complete is $600

[semaj23]

Wow! Really!?

[darksinder]

Correction: the student price for Maya 6 Complete is now $479 I paid $599 for Maya 5 Complete when it was new.

http://journeyed.com/itemDetail.asp?T1=68266471

[mr. freak]

I personally think the current heavy "particley" look is just a fad that will have run its course soon enough

That said, I'd never seen www.advertisingvisual.com before, and the effects are nice! They get old after a bit, and the music is ripped directly from "Signs," but that's only somewhat relevant.

[darksinder]

Yeah, i do think the particle animation is cool, but my question was more of how do they accomplish importing such high resolution and smooth playing animation into flash without the download taking forever? And is rendering to png frames the best way to import animation into flash?

[jaybirch]

Originally posted by darksinder
And is rendering to png frames the best way to import animation into flash?

I tend to Stick to these rules to get get low filesize / high qulaity FX.

Low contrast animations (clouds for example) export as uncompressed quicktime and import into flash at around 94% quality.

High contrast animations (electric particles for example) export as jpg/png sequence at mid quality.