Early CNY eGreeting from (if) interactive

Togetherness
The very own and famous Malaysian interactive agency, if interactive has just announced their very interactive Chinese New Year portal. A very complete, professionally done and cutting edge backend they used for this. Impressive.

Scripts & Resources

Few weeks back, was exploring towards some experimental script in making a 'trivia' based game. Fiddled around with google and found of these really interesting resources to share, might appear to be helpful in your projects.


Prototype
Great database for experimental scripts in Flash!

Tips & Tricks In Flash
A site which has an article on optimising your flash movie, especially on animations.

Continous Movements
If you've been looking for a continous moving movie clip from a direction that looks like rain, stars or snow, this would be a good place to start with.

Changing Tints for MovieClip
There's been a small project I've been doing, that required me to changing tint for my movieclip, and I'd found this has been always underrated feature being used. Really neat.

Local site showcase

http://peteteo.com/
Talk about local music talent, I'm so suprised and found myself did not know about this great local artiste. If i would want to describe the site and him, the relation? Style i would say. The site has nothing in spectacular from the technology used, but it is relatively usable and friendly, the navigation.


http://www.musiccanteen.com/
Pay to listen music portal, as I would expect that I thought it would be another boring community-money-earning site. But hey, they proved me wrong and I'd think it's real cool they incorporate this kind of design for a music site. Interesting approach. Nice subtle feel.

What's function? what's onEnterFrame?

I've been browsing around the net and stumbled upon this very interesting Flash Video tutorial.

Animating with Actionscript
Functions explained inside, take a look, really interesting on how easy you can understand function with this. Neat. Plus, you'll hear little explaination on how you can understand fps works together with your flash movie briefly.

Simplicity is less

Ashby Design
One of the very prominent design firm out on the industry, in my opinion. Well, it was for a while i've been wondering which company that did the website and branding for RIAA, it was them, and remember the little icon of Parental Advisory? Slick navigation that slides out and fades in. And it does the job nicely.

Flirc

Flash + IRC = FLirc
An interesting development on an IRC (Internet Relay Chat, which is way popular back during 98-2000) client using Flex + Actionscript 3.0. Extract from the site's post :

"...I started working on my Flash IRC Client (flIRC) some time before Flash 8.5 was released. Now two days later I want to show you the first demo of my little project and experiment. You can see a very early version here..."

Elegance in Design

http://www.ashbydesign.com/
One of the site which I've seen that has a great range of portfolio. Though the comments being made towards this site varied between different people, which some like and some dislikes it. But i'd think it's worth a visit for a better design inspiration in Flash. It's stylish.

Innovation in Flash Designing

Above The Influence
Talk about being yourself, how much you realize that you're pressuring yourself in changing to fit into the group? Above The Influence, a very interesting website promoting public awareness in being what you want to be. A very informative + interactive website that will guide you through in searching for a better you. Very nice art direction.


No Animals Were Hurt
Talk about creativity and innovation in programming, this site has an interesting concept in telling the story of Alan Turing's. And some brief extract from the website for you to better understand the site.

"...The picture plays too quickly while the sound plays at normal speed, but with each visitor the picture slows. After enough visitors, the sound and picture will play at equal speeds, allowing the story to finish. Each unique visitor unlocks one frame, out of the total 5000. Each time 5000 is exceeded, the counter is reset. Currently, after 12822 visitors, the film is 57% its proper length..."

MMORPG fever?

Adventure Quest
Interesting Online Role Playing game made using Flash + PHP/MYSQL backend. It's not real time like Dofus. But it's rather interesting because it simulate the idea around Final Fantasy's gameplay.


Zoe Chicco
A very stylish and elegant website that is designed minimally, but with very functional purpose in mind. Designed by Oringe.


Oringe
Talk about motion impact, this site has it. And usability? this site provides you with clear navigation indication. Very clever use of Flash 8's technology. Take note on the 'blur' effect whenever you scroll the page down and up, it gives the user an impression that the page is moving dynamically. Clever. Simulated what's being shown from the MAX Conference 2005.

2006, year of mixed flavours.

Bio Bak
Drag, drop and throw! I was speechless and couldn't find a word to describe the creativity outcome of this site. Despite the pretty interface, which looks absolutely tasty, the details that you should look at is the site's usability. It's very well thought of, the sound effect, indications on what's clickable and what's not. Look, there's so much hidden or extra features to be explored around. Neat! (Why i'm impressed? Because the site is highly optimized and a lot of 'navigation' bug that happened to be around especially when using custom cursor, that designer solved it! Remember the day where you right click on a flash site with custom cursor, and then your own arrow stays there)


Memory Park
Talk about weird fantasy world, this probably fits half of the description. But wait, there's more. a very explorative site which you'll find yourself clicking around for more and more suprises for the rest of the world, it would partially reminds you of Samorost though.


Arturo Fuentes
3D space emulated in Flash? Interesting experimental site that evolves around the idea of music sheets.


Eminem
This site is one of the very content driven towards one subject itself, visually. I was impressed by the way of how they managed to visually intepret the storyline for Eminem's life. And you'll suprise to find a lot of hiddens inside as well. You would think it would be rather late to introduce or recommend this site to anyone. But i found there's no 'late' in always telling people what's great and nice out there. Worth looking out for the studio that designed this site, WeFail.


Liberty City Stories
A game for the PSP. But the interactivity that evolves around the site makes it worth exploring. What's worth watching is the transition in between items.


Yucca Studio
This site reminds me of Fort Minor's site where the navigation evokes the transition where different section acts as part of the layout for the site. But wait, not only beauty justify the site's quality, but as well the work from this studio, which it suprised me when i found BigBrosWorkshop's are done by one of their creative division, JunkFlea.

Marriage between design and codes

I was fiddling around the internet and then i bumped down to David Michaud's site, which appeared to be designed by Great Exposure. That it gaves me the impression, a hybrid that marries code and design together. Of course this has been said millions of time, but again, from my point of view, it is a beautifully done piece of web design work. And if you look closely to the details that being considered for the design, every single rollover gives interactive feedback to user indicating that they are navigating through the it. It's really one of the very important detail that a lot of casual designer lacked off. Which leads to a lot of bashing from people which thinks flash is nothing but just Flashy sellout program.


Talk about simple yet functional and informative website, look at Grand People. The clarity of the navigation makes the site stands out from its own. Neat.



And if you're looking for famous authors and quotes, or even tips in designing more effective work. Look ActionScript Toolbox. Great start for inspiration.



Was doing research towards implementing RSS/XML in Flash, and found this site, which appeared to provide a very cool Flash gallery tool, of course with a price of $20. Do check if out if you're finding a solution for your client, or as well a lot of project involving showcasing artworks or photos.
Slideshow Pro


WebDesign-Festival, 10 countries challenging each other on a showdown to showcase their best in web designing skills. An annual event i suppose.


Would like to give the credit to French N Fresh for part of the site. They rawk. lol.

Realm of awesome characterness

If you're going to head to buy some softtoy to ease your heart or for the one you love, and i'm not making free promotion here, but regardless of the product, the site is excitingly cute, the character design and the transition's detail.
PulcoPiyo


And not only that, you gotta have a look at the designer's portfolio site, it's filled with awesome interaction that might cook you up for the day. I'd say, a very good sense of motion and animation the designer has.
PulcoMayo



If you look forward towards entertaining simply mini game, head towards Filiere Bois. Very nice illustration. very.


And slightly off topic and I'm not sure if it fits this thread, but Microsoft decided to make a facelift for Windows Vista's main page, it looks Mac-ish, nevertheless, it's very well done.

Test your website on a Safari, using the browser?

How will your website look on Safari in Mac?
Pretty neat and useful. And yes, it does work! I'm glad at the very least it looks 'fine' on the browser while i'm being limited to controlling and testing the features of rollovers and DHTMLs, Javascripts realtime, but that's just a matter of time and the developed planned to make a VNC where you are able to control a MAC OS X remotely from your computer, with a small fee applied.

Retrievr - Search using what you remembered!

It's still very experimental and early development stage, but i've seen various amazing output from this, which the concept is basically really helpful and interesting.

You remember a certain part of a picture that you want to find, and then you couldn't remember the name but you're dying to look for it! Here, this is where the app comes in handy.

Named Retrievr, developed by the guys from SystemOne, a brief introduction about it,

Retrievr lets you find flickr images by drawing rough sketches of them.

You can read more about the project here. Credits of the source from Kottke.org and Drawn.ca

Tea Time Game

Have fun with all these mini games, found it to be entertaining.

The Sith Sense


South Park Studio - Create your South Park Character

Usability in Flash?

There's once and before tons of people condemned Flash with it's inability to make usability to the optimum level, for example which it usually breaks the 'back' and 'forward' function in a browser where user had no idea on which page they've navigated and how to go back to the previous page.

But this when, partially, this site proves that the thinking is no more. The RSX Institute, which reminds me of the site from Toyota's Hybrid City which also tries to maximises its usage on the powerful Flash 8. But still, this site is very poweful, from the backend perspective and as well visually, it is so tasty. It's highly interactive, trust me.

Take a ride at RSX Institute

On the other hand, I had a chance to stumble across this site from Andreas Wannerstedt. To my suprise, which he had taken a training at Hyper Island.


Thus he then worked on a amazing reel using Flash 8, that talks about his intern in Exopolis, really, truly an amazing designer. Thumbs up. A little bit history about the designer, which started off a print studio at 2w. Worth looking at.

Visit Portfolio site

View the Reel Here (HOT!)

Great day, great site.

IF Oturstest : Bad Luck O Meter
I was stunned when i was presented with this link, the quality of the image, the smooth narrative storyline, and most of all, the loading time on a broadband connection, it's just fascinating. What makes this site stands out from the crowd, is the rich interactive experience, that you interact with the site different on every different scenario, and afterall, the timing is so nice that it just doesn't intimidates you to know more about the product. Refreshing!


VS2X Virginia S. van Slimming
A beautiful site done by a relatively young Interactive Designer. Check her out. And yes, beautiful illustration style she has, reminds me of Samorost :D

New Year 2006 Craze

Happy New Year to you, since that I won't be working tomorrow, due to public holiday replacement, I'll condiser to write tutorial using function or probably a preloader, let me know what you think.

And I stumbled across these few weird sites,
Very simple addictive game, a crossover between, puzzles, crosswords, but you make the word from anywhere you like.

MultiPopWord

And next is one of the weirdest thing ever you'll see people do from the internet, world's smallest website and game.

World's Small Website

Beware : you might hurt your eye by looking at the screen for too long.