Dreamweaver Oxford » flash

Andrew Shorten – Platform Evangelist

admin — Thu, 07 May 2009 11:16:22 +0000

Last night’s session was our most popular yet, with Andrew Shorten from Adobe speaking for over an hour on the forthcoming Catalyst and Flex releases.

There are definitely some interesting times ahead for designers seeking to use Flash. It’s always been a bit of a headache for designers to get their heads around interactive interfaces using Flash Pro.

Here’s a quick list of some of the links Andrew talked about :

Andrew’s blog
In education or unemployed? Get free tools at https://freeriatools.adobe.com/
Photoshop Express – free online image editing
Acrobat.com – Buzzword: online word processor + whiteboard app
Adobe Labs – the place to go for the beta of Catalyst when it emerges, probably in June

For some of these tools, you’ll need a free Adobe ID. Once you’ve got one of those, don’t forget to access our Group page too on Adobe, to subscribe to updates, RSVP to our events etc.

Thanks to everyone for making it a great night, and many congratulations again to Dan Govender for winning the $2,000 of Adobe software. Commiserations to everyone else.

Next month’s meeting is June 5th, a Friday for a change. There is talk of making this an out and out social, with food! What do you think?

March meeting – 24th March

admin — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 19:17:03 +0000

This month is mostly given by our sister Adobe User group: www.flashoxford.com

Away3d and the future of 3d in Flash

Hosted by Rob Bateman, a Flash developer who has been integral to the creation of Away3d a realtime 3d Flash engine. He will provide an overview of this exciting open source project and discuss examples of work created using Away3d. This session should be of interest to coders and animators interested in cutting edge Flash development.

For more information on Away3d check out Rob’s blog at http://www.infiniteturtles.co.uk.

Venue: OFVM – Film Oxford, 54 Catherine St, Oxford, OX4 3AH
Starts at 7.30pm
Location: http://tiny.cc/ghNTd

Last night’s talk – and offer

admin — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 16:56:24 +0000

Many many thanks to Paul Forsey for a great talk on panoramic photography and for bringing all that great kit.

Paul’s web site is at www.stepintothepicture.co.uk
You can see some of his panoramas here.

Paul talked us through the complete process, from building your own tripod head to taking the photos, to using RealViz Stitcher Pro (Mac or PC).

I think Autodesk (makers of 3DSMax) have taken over the software, and seem to sell it as Stitcher Unlimited online for £300.

Paul did mention Adobe Photoshop‘s built in Photomerge option, but in CS3 it’s doesn’t give brilliant results. However, the upgraded CS4 Photoshop has been partly promoted on the back of enhancements to its built-in stitching app, so somebody should give it a try! Here’s the help, so get stitching if you’ve got CS4 and let us know how you get on. We can post results here.

As an extra incentive, if you do send us a panoramic photo, whether created in Flash, Stitcher, or CS4 alone, you’ll get an extra credit towards the next software raffle.

John (from Flash Oxford, hello!) then talked us through a couple of add-on apps for Flash which could achieve similar results. Paul’s panoramas require Quick Time to display, and apparently fewer people on PC have QT installed than the Flash Player. And I’m not paid to say that either.

Next month’s meeting is on Tuesday March 24th, so note the change of weekday. It’ll involve a talk about 3d Flash, so again, check here or the Flash Oxford web site for more details soon.

Alun