DISC: 2Advanced.com - 2A Version 5 Attractor

[EVPohovich]

JamaicanWebmaster I need you to get your footer into compliance with Flash Kits policy:

http://board.flashkit.com/board/showthread.php?t=41172

Images can only be 300 x 40 px.

Thank you,

EVP

[Adobemedia]

OMG that rocks. Have you seen the demo reel?

[alty29]

wow, sweet as crap!

It would appear they got smart, and aimed their design towards clients, not to forum nerds.

[DAUS]

Wow, a lot of you guys really surprise me with the level of detestation you harbor against 2A as a development outfit.

villain2 - It was refreshing to read an intelligent, thoughtful opinion which was not unnecessarily castigating. - I've loved 2A's work for years and have always taken great inspiration from what they do. Although I am still but a novice in the design realm, I can still appreciate quality, technically-sound design that pushes the boundaries of this artistic genre. I may be speaking from a bit of a biased position, but I don't think my kudos for their work is unreasonable.

In my opinion, the new site is amazing. EJ has an adventurous, sci-fi fantasy influenced mind, and it resonates through all of 2A's work. And personally, I'm relieved to see that they didn't break away from this style and presentation. For us as enthusiasts/peers to say that the new design isn't what 'we' expected is a ridiculous, inapplicable statement to make. As we are not a part of 2A's staff, therefore are not personally aware of their agenda's and objectives as a corporation. We are familiar on a more general level, but I'm sure the reasoning behind the new direction is justified. The fact of the matter is, many of us will still find elements of inspiration from within their work. After all, it seemed like so many were anxiously awaiting, and monitoring every moment leading up to the new release…

Now to speak more specifically about V5:
I love the overall cinematic tone of the site. The evolution of the background scenery within each section truly establishes a unique tone and atmosphere as you navigate. The menu animation is simple, but smooth and to the point. The music is fitting; the electronic tone goes well with the visual mood. But of course, any 9 second loop will become monotonous after a while.... Overall, the site delivers an experience, rather than a series of tweens and animations to wait for prior to viewing your requested content. I say great job, and pretty much what I was hoping for. Not quite ground breaking, but I think it contains enough artistic & developmental fortitude to assist in influencing what we will see become more of a current standard in web design.

[j_hunter182]

People who say this site isn't ground breaking must be talking about the visuals and "effects".

The browser integration, CMS and backend are simply stunning, never seen anything it before. And also, the menu system is far from simple.

[Adobemedia]

I have to agree. It took me 4 seconds to figure out how to open the menu, and 1 to figure out how to use it. I should beable to know where the menu is the first time I look atthe site. (They do have a option for always keeping the menu visible, but you have to find that to.)

[villain2]

I think complaining about the menu system taking a few seconds to figure out is a sign of one of my pet peeves, intellectual laziness. It's kind of a shame we're so impatient these days that when you have to READ something, one time, for three seconds, we're totally put off by someone making us think that long. That's just a personal thing with me not just about websites, but just in general regarding car manuals, dvds, ipods, etc. etc.

A thanks DAUS. I try to be objective

However, J Hunter182 brought up a great point ... the scripting for this site has not been mentioned yet,and I wanted to earlier. Someone asked why the address bar kept changing earlier. By using variables, anchors etc. within the web page itself (ie. outside the flash movie), they can link to specific frames of the flash animation using flashvars, variables, shared objects etc. etc. This allows for deep links within your site. It allows for people to use back buttons and forward buttons but now break out of the flash page itself.

For instance, if you see a url called:
www.website.com?id=22

You can use that id setting to, say, go to the 22nd frame of the flash movie by passing that variable to the flash player, or 22 can designate the number of the portfolio piece you want to see. So, if a user bookmarks that page, when they come back to it, the Flash movie will load and play at that specific point.

Now, it goes much deeper than that. There's a load of xml and actionscripting going on to populate all these pages. I suspect a huge portion (probably all) the content in this site is derived from xml (much like RoadRunner is).

The technical aspects of this site are a huge leap for 2A, who in the past didn't seem to be so focused on content management and efficient, dynamically populated flash sites.

[MONSTERBOY]

I like the site, for one, I like most of the work they do.

I for one am missing more detailed animations though, NOT TRANSITIONS --- I'm talkin, why are the background images don't have any movement in them? What a bummer! I mean, go to Pixel ranger's site. he has this whole section where he animates still images and brings them to life. I would expect as much if not more from 2advanced---the background images are ****in rad, and yet they don't have any life in them. why not some birds flying in the distance? why not the waterfall is actually moving? why not the lights twinkle? why not/???? BOo hOo bOo HoO!!

Otherwise good job.

[Nemesis Enforcer]

Feels like a very advanced, complex (but not complicated) desktop. I can live with it. Music is repetitive though...If it was 10-15 seconds longer, with options of other 'ambience' like V4, that'd be nice to have.

And how long has this been out? Not even a day? I'm sure the people behind the scenes will make small amends here and there. Especially if there are any untapped bugs.

[optical]

who cares? do Super Famous care? do Firstborn care? Do North Kingdom care, does Attik care, does Razorfish care? - does anybody who is actually doing it in the big wide world really care about a leading player in the "global brand" industry re designing their website?

Relax people it's only the internet.

[nizamm]

Hehe, the FK comments continue to amuse me. Quite interesting to see all of your ranging opinions post by. My turn,

Well, I just loaded up the site this morning and choked out my breakfast because I was under the impression that the site was still under construction. Now the very first second (splash screen) did impress me but frankly I must admit that I really expected NOT to see that techy industrial feel. So that kinda let me down. But shortly after entering the site, I had to agree. EJ's style alright and well implemented. The wallpapers literally 'builds' the site. Neat interfacing, almost acts like an OS rather than a website. I must say, that I felt the site functionalities are quite similar to that of FWA (If anyone noticed the evolution of the old FWA site to that of the new one, you'll know what I'm talking about). This version of 2A has all the information well put and categorized.

It looks great, but it's a bit slow. But great work i think. When you look at the different sections, the url changes. Does anybody know why?

And, great to know they implemented deep linking (Magnus, that's what it's called). Something I had been really looking forward to. It really helps and has been implemented before in FI and AdvanceFlash.com.

The music, can't comment on it yet, dont' have speakers here at work. But knowing EJ is also a music composing freak, I'm sure he can solve that problem.

All in all, I have no complaints. It looks good alright, a new theme to the web. However, the only one bit I feel that could really been implemented better off, would be the transition effect for some of the panels in those preview panels. Like 2 gradient circles scaling up looks kinda noobish to me. The other box effect with lines look nice, no compliants on that one.

Loading times, sitting on a 1 - 2mbps connection here. Had absolutely NO probs. Every section loaded in seconds....so that's about it.

Good work, 2A...

[zakp0]

wow, sweet as crap!

It would appear they got smart, and aimed their design towards clients, not to forum nerds.

Exactly, and I was hoping they wouldnt Heh. Also, it isnt sluggish here at all for me, although that's probably cos my laptop owns j00 all

I was hoping to see an awesome new techy site, but I suppose this is better for em. I'm not saying it's bad, I'm saying it's not what I wanted Good job 2A, I've got all your wallpapers saved already

[tpnovak]

Just to chime in for a minute... There's a lot of discussions here (good, bad, indifferent). Just a couple suggestions...

For those who hate the hiding menu... Choose "Preferences" > "Top Nav Persistence" and turn it to "On". If you click apply, it will only stay persistent for the one session. If you use the "Save" it will always be persistent, future visits included. Same goes for language and audio settings - turn off the audio permanently if it annoys you - Even, V.3 was pretty repetitive over time, no?

If you want to read a bit more about the back-end: Dynamic Deep Linking, XML Data Cache, Localization, you can always check out this link for more information... (which is also an example of reaching deep linked content in the site)

http://www.2advanced.com/#casestudies/bydate/2006&id=18

Keep in mind, it is indeed our portfolio site, and pertains largely to clients - therefore a lot of features of prior sites are being moved away to our blog site... http://www.plat4m.com/ In the future, experimental, tutorial, equipment, links, etc... Those will all be found at Plat4m.

Thanks for the WIDE range of comments... It's always fun to see a few emotions brewing and of course heated debates. I guess if nobody had an opinion, we wouldn't be doing our job.

[Adobemedia]

tpnovak, your from 2A?!
Also, I'm looking forward to tuts in plat4m.

[villain2]

who cares? do Super Famous care? do Firstborn care? Do North Kingdom care, does Attik care, does Razorfish care? - does anybody who is actually doing it in the big wide world really care about a leading player in the "global brand" industry re designing their website?

Relax people it's only the internet.

Well, apparently enough people care to make a six page commentary about it on FlashKit, and you cared enough to comment about them commenting, so it has an impact of some sort.

Thanks for contributing to it!

Beyond that though, I said to someone a few months back on FlashKit that application-style websites (ie. websites that act like OS instead of static pages) is going to be the new direction for websites, especially one's done in flash. As long as the transitions and animations are kept to be subtle and related to the user's interaction, I think this "new form" of web design for Flash will continue to expand.

Better brush up on on your actionscript, php, javascript and xml skills

[zakp0]

http://www.2advanced.com/#casestudies/bydate/2006&id=18

I opened your link, everything returns as "undefined" though :|

Bug? :\

[nizamm]

I opened your link, everything returns as "undefined" though :|

Bug? :\

Ditto! We've been tricked! Call the cops!!!!

[Adobemedia]

Works fine for me.

[tpnovak]

I opened your link, everything returns as "undefined" though :|

Bug? :\

Seriously? Worked fine for me... Browser / Version?

[aversion]

I thought the new site was going to be Geisha themed...

Followed the link and it worked fine for me but the loading message didn't clear.



(Latest FF, 1.5.04 and windows)

I would love to see a button that hides the whole interface, just showing the image underneath.