The other day I needed to create a few demo apps for one of my projects and was dreading dusting off my Flex skills to create some quick UIs. Don't get me wrong, I like Flex but sometimes I just need to do something quick and dirty in AS 3. That's when I remembered MinimalComps - the minimal AS 3 UI Component set by Keith Paters over at Bit-101.
In the last tutorial we discussed the new library that was released by Adobe. The new library from Adobe fits much more naturally into the whole architecture of facebook applications that are built using the Flash platform. We need to know that the previous approach using the PHP library is not useless. In order to create stable and useful Facebook applications we need to know about many ways how to achieve the same goal. If you followed the series from the start then you are on a good way to be able to create truly cutting edge facebook apps as we have discussed have to grab results from DB and we also make use of the ActionScript library.
Most of you (43%) agreed with me that Android would be the first mobile OS to be rocking Flash Player 10. Next we have 18% voting for Windows Mobile and 18% for iPhone. There doesn't appear to be much hope...
There is an interesting, but sometimes confusing, issue when you create a virtual copy while you are working in the Develop module. Here's the scenario: You are working on an image and before you travel down an alternate creative path you decide to make a virtual copy before proceeding. So you use the menu command or the keyboard shortcut and... poof ...a different image is sitting there instead of your virtual copy! You go back to the Library module or look in the filmstrip and notice your virtual copy did get created. You've done this before and it worked. So what's going on?
The ocean is a different world. Where else can you cavort with colorful animals a thousand feet or more above the Earths surface? But the romance of the sea comes at a price. Just as the watery depths rob our lungs of air, they rob our eyes of color. Its not uncommon for an underwater photo to lack any information in the Red channel. Which is where coral, clown fish, and our very own skin tones live. Fortunately, Deke knows how to summon a Red channel back from the dead. Watch this dekePod and learn how to create underwater images that will satisfy your inner Jacques Cousteau.
If you use Photoshop, then you probably browse your images with Adobes Bridge, which shows you thumbnails of your files. Good news: The Bridge lets you preview images without going to the trouble of opening them. Bad news: Those previews result in large cache files that eat up your hard drive. Worse yet, they permit others to track what youve been looking at. Even if youve long since destroyed the original file, the thumbnail persists! Learn how to protect yourselfand maybe even save your job.
Adobe's landmark pen tool defined an industry. But to the uninitiated, its reliance on anchor points and control handles makes it as approachable as first-year algebra. Until you see it's nothing more than a mating ritual: The points are boys and the handles are girls. Once you get that, it all falls into place.
How best to encourage people to use an obscure but super-useful Photoshop feature? Rhyme, rhythm, and romance. Hence a music video that will make all your automation dreams come true. Give Deke five minutes of your time and hell set your world on fire.
Photoshop masking isn't easy, in fact, the elusive alpha channel has been described as the least understood feature in Photoshop's enormous arsenal. In this video from Lesson 1 of Photoshop CS4 Channels & Mask One-on-One, Photoshop Guru Deke McClelland gives you a tour of the Channels palette in Photoshop. This handy palette is truly Command Central for your Photoshop masking operations.
Its the best of times and the worst of times for fans of Battlestar Galactica. The second half of the season premieres on Friday, January 16 on SCI FI Channel (yay!), but its the series final season (awww). VFX Supervisor Gary Hutzel hints at whats in store for the explosive finale, plus takes us behind the scenes of the stunning Cylon versus Pegasus sequence from Battle Galactica: Razor and the spectacular continuous shot introducing Cylon U-87 from the upcoming Caprica—as well as reveals a few juicy details about what may be Ron D. Moores "lost" series, Virtuality.