If you're an avid reader of this blog, you must've already seen the danceoff between McCain and Obama, learned to skip the boring part of a YouTube video, or know what it's like when smoke signals meet SMS. Well, whatever it is that got you interested, I'm thankful you came back for more. For those who just got here, here's a quick roundup of my favorite posts this October.
Scariest Flash Games on Earth »
My top landing page for this month and the title pretty much says it all. These games are guaranteed to scare the hell out of anybody. I also think they're one of the best flash projects ever made as I've played flash games that kick ass with puzzles, but these are the ones that pay attention to graphics and atmosphere. Best played with the sound up and the lights down. Read more »
Jeepeney Advertising »
The jeepneys have come a long way from being the US military jeeps left over from World War II to being called the "Undisputed King of the Road" today. A symbol of Filipino creativity and ability to improvise on and reproduce first-world technology into forms more attainable given limited financial resources. Read more »
Also got some good finds from Vimeo. YouTube is a great source but Vimeo allows videos to be shared in HD quality. Check out these cool clips on photography and animation that I've featured this month:
1000 Bills (In Imago Speramus) by Alex Itin »
Changes by Lorcan Finnegan »
Three Thousand Photos by Robbie Merrick »
MUTO: A Wall-Painted Animation by Blu »
World War 3D Animation by Vincent Chai »
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Top image copyright: october by Steven Arens
October: The Month That Was
Newspaper Furniture by David Stovell
Inspired by bundles of newspapers left outside of shops on a Saturday night, David Stovell’s Sunday Papers explore the “compressed life cycle” of the material: “These products made from tightly rolled newspapers have a cultural and economic value, and that the same product has a different set of values by Monday morning, in that the news is old news and their value is for pulp. I wondered that if by simply repackaging, the material life cycle could be extended.” More images after the jump.
via Sunday Papers
Skip to the Best Part of a YouTube Video
You no longer need to tell your friends or readers of your posts to skip to a certain time of a YouTube clip. As the Google Operating System blog points out, YouTube's embedded player has a parameter that lets you specify the number of seconds that should be skipped before starting to play the video. Here's how you should edit the code: append &start=[number of seconds from the start of the video] to both URLs.
<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/abcdefghijk&hl=en&fs=1&start=15"></param><param
name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/abcdefghijk&hl=en&fs=1&start=15"
type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425"
height="344"></embed></object>
Now you can also do the same with the video's URL by appending a short tag to the end of the video link. The TechCrunch blog explains how:
To specify a point, append a tag to the end of your video link with the following syntax: “#t=1m30s” (you can change the numbers before the ‘m’ and ’s’ to edit the minutes and seconds, respectively).
Here’s an example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxuHi_GdAwg#t=1m30s
Since there's no end parameter, you can try TubeChop. There you can enter a YouTube clip URL, set the start time and end time of the best part using a slider, and send the chopped clip URL via email or on your site. In addition to TubeChop, Slicd also uses YouTube's API to isolate a part of a video.
Wassup, Eight Years Later
Remember this ad?
It's been eight long years since the boys said wassup to each other. Even with the effects of a down economy and imminent change in the White House, the boys are still able to come together and stay... Eight years later after the jump
1000 Bills (In Imago Speramus)
Two minutes of brilliant animation by Alex Itin
If You Can Type, You Can Make Movies
Try out Xtranormal and there’s a good chance you won’t get any work done for the rest of the day. Xtranormal is a free online tool that allows users to quickly build their own 3D animated video clips out of a variety of models and backdrops using a text-to-speech program and an intuitive drag and drop interface. Basically, you can make your own 3D movies in a flash by using your keyboard and mouse.
To begin creating a scene, choose from either a set of Lego-like models, or a more “realistic” set of actors that resemble the characters in The Sims. You can also select either one or two actors to specify how many actors you want to use in your movie. The site then provides you with a “script”, which you can fill out with text that you’d like the actors to recite in a computer-generated voice. Actions like facial emotions and gestures can be dragged and dropped for each character into the script. The camera angles are placed automatically but you may turn this feature off and manually position the camera so you can have total control over the scene.
Here's a McCain vs Obama Danceoff made by Xtranormal user brianS.
Xtranormal clips don’t look anything like the 3D movies you see from the likes of Pixar or Dreamworks. But despite the goofy-looking characters, the minimally detailed backgrounds, and the limited number of possible animations, there's something about Xtranormal that will make you spend way too much time being an online Hitchcock (or Tarantino). And because you can make your little actors say whatever you want, the possibility is endless. Have fun and feel free to share links to your own mini-epics in the comments.
Make Movies via Xtranormal »
Android is Now Available as Open Source
I've mentioned Android before when I shared the T-Mobile G1's first video commercial. Now the same mobile platform that powered the smartphone is now available as open source. Here's an intro to the Android Open Source Project:
According to the Android website, Tuesday’s release “offers a full stack: an operating system, middleware, and key mobile applications. It also contains a rich set of APIs that allows third-party developers to develop great applications.” Among the features accessible via those APIs are the speech recognition engine, some software development tools and virtual libraries. There’s also embedded Linux (the system was built using the Linux kernel). Not to be confused with Android’s software development kit (SDK), the toolset used to build individual applications which was released earlier this year, Tuesday’s source code release offers the operating system code — the actual software which runs the applications.
Learn more at source.android.com »
Animating the Built Environment through Conversation
Earlier this month, Minimaforms presented their Memory Cloud installation in London's Trafalgar Square. The project was set to create an interaction between one of the oldest forms of communication – smoke signals – and a new one, SMS. For three nights, the public were invited to participate by sending text messages that were projected onto a cloud of artificial smoke, letting them light up the sky with declarations of love and hope or just their favorite Robbie Williams lyric. More photos after the jump.
Minimaforms was founded in 2002 by brothers Stephen and Theodore Spyropoulos as an experimental architecture and design practice that explores projects that provoke and facilitate new means of communication.
Memory Cloud
Top Image: Valerie Bennett
Changes
"Wanna come suck on some nectar?" would make a good pickup line, hehe. According to Lorcan Finnegan, the swirly bits on the title were animated in Flash but everything else was Photoshop and After Effects. Awesome.
How to Use Content Aware Scaling Tool in Photoshop CS4
Photoshop guru Russell Brown has posted a video demonstrating the new feature of Photoshop CS4's “content aware scaling”, which is difficult to describe, but fairly mind-blowing once you’ve seen it in action [video link]. In the video, Brown also walks you through how to use the “protect” feature to manually control which parts of your image are preserved/resized and how to use an alpha channel mask to selectively resize parts of your image.
If you wanna get your own hands dirty on the content aware scaling feature, Adobe already announced the arrival of Creative Suite 4 last Wednesday with prices ranging from $1,700 to $2,500.
Original Video Source »
Adobe Creative Suite 4 Now Available
Yesterday, Adobe announced the arrival of Creative Suite 4, the latest upgrade to its line of professional graphics and video editing applications. CS4 includes updated versions of Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, InDesign, Contribute, After Effects, Premiere Pro, Soundbooth, OnLocation, and Encore.
The Suite comes in four different flavors, with prices ranging from $1,700 to $2,500 for the Master Collection which includes all the above. Naturally you can purchase apps individually as well.
Check out my previous posts on Adobe Photoshop CS4 [here] and [here] to find out what's new and decide whether you want to upgrade or not.
To get your copy, head to the Adobe Store.
Adobe Press Release
Milestone Release Radically Improves Creative Workflow Efficiency; Redefines Collaboration Between Designers and Developers
SAN JOSE, Calif. — Oct. 15, 2008 — Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced the immediate availability of the Adobe® Creative Suite® 4 product family, the highly-anticipated release of industry-leading design and development software for virtually every creative workflow. Delivering radical breakthroughs in workflow efficiency – and packed with hundreds of innovative, time saving features – the new Creative Suite 4 product line advances the creative process across print, Web, interactive, film, video and mobile.
Customers can choose from six new versions: Adobe Creative Suite 4 Design Premium, Design Standard, Web Premium, Web Standard, Production Premium and Master Collection. The combination of Creative Suite and the new capabilities of Adobe Flash® Player 10, also available today (see separate press release) deliver new levels of creativity and expressiveness across media channels. Designers using the Adobe Creative Suite 4 product family will gain unprecedented creative control using the new expressive features and visual performance improvements in Adobe Flash Player 10 to deliver breakthrough Web experiences across multiple browsers and operating systems.
“Creative Suite 4 and Flash Player 10 introduce vital time-saving features, new levels of integration and the jawdropping innovations our design and developer customers expect from us,” said John Loiacono, senior vice president, Creative Solutions Business Unit at Adobe. “CS4 continues to fulfill our promise to customers to break down more barriers in cross-media workflows, while also providing new services and collaboration tools that help them manage complex client demands.”
As part of the CS4 product launch, the largest in Adobe’s history, also available today are brand new versions of Photoshop® CS4, Photoshop CS4 Extended, InDesign® CS4, Illustrator® CS4, Flash CS4 Professional, Dreamweaver® CS4, Fireworks® CS4, Contribute® CS4, After Effects® CS4, Adobe Premiere® Pro CS4, Encore® CS4, Soundbooth® CS4 and Adobe OnLocation™ CS4.
Intuitive Workflows Improve Creative Efficiency
A simplified workflow in Adobe Creative Suite 4 enables users to design across media more efficiently by making it easier to complete common tasks and move content seamlessly among applications. InDesign CS4 includes a new Live Preflight tool that allows designers to catch production errors and a newly customizable Links panel to manage placed files more efficiently. The revolutionary new Content-Aware Scaling tool in Photoshop CS4 and Photoshop CS4 Extended automatically recomposes an image as it is resized, preserving vital areas as it adapts to new dimensions. An expanded version of Dynamic Link in CS4 Production Premium enables users to move and update content between After Effects CS4, Adobe Premiere Pro CS4, Soundbooth CS4, and Encore CS4 without rendering, saving countless hours in production. With deep XMP metadata support, the production workflow is simplified, resulting in online
content that gives viewers new ways to interact with and search for video, while giving content owners new opportunities to track and monetize content.
Adobe Creative Suite 4 brings 3D center-stage providing the ability to paint, composite, and animate 3D models using familiar tools in Photoshop CS4 Extended. Flash CS4 Professional now offers the ability to apply tweens to objects instead of keyframes, providing greater control over animation attributes. Also in Flash CS4 Professional, the new Bones tool helps create more realistic animations between linked objects. With a searchable library of more than 450 dynamically updated device profiles from leading manufacturers, Adobe Device Central CS4 enables users to easily test mobile content designed using many of the Creative Suite 4 products.
New and Expanded Services Extend Capabilities for Online Collaboration
Adobe Creative Suite 4 now also offers a host of services* for online collaboration. Adobe ConnectNow, a service of Acrobat.com, allows real-time collaboration with two colleagues or clients. Designers can also share color harmonies with Adobe Kuler™. Other online resources include: Adobe Community Help for technical questions; Resource Central for accessing video and audio product-related news and tutorials, as well as Soundbooth scores and sound effects; and Adobe Bridge Home, a customizable resource for tips, tutorials, news and inspirational content.
Pricing and Availability
Adobe Creative Suite 4 and its associated point products are immediately available through Adobe Authorized Resellers and the Adobe Store at http://www.adobe.com/store. Estimated street price for the Adobe Creative Suite 4 Design Premium is US$1799, US$1699 for Adobe Creative Suite 4 Web Premium, US$1699 for Adobe Creative Suite 4 Production Premium, and US$2499 for Adobe Creative Suite 4 Master Collection. To reward customers for staying current, Adobe is offering Creative Suite 3 customers moving to Creative Suite 4 a lower upgrade price than it offers to those moving from older, qualifying versions. For a limited time, a special introductory offer enables customers with older qualifying products to enjoy the same lower price with savings of up to US$200 off their actual upgrade price. For more detailed information please visit http://www.adobe.com/creativesuite.
Adobe Flash Player 10 is available immediately as a free download for Windows, Macintosh and Linux platforms (including new support for Ubuntu 7 and 8) from http://www.adobe.com/go/getflashplayer
About Adobe Systems Incorporated
Adobe revolutionizes how the world engages with ideas and information – anytime, anywhere and through any medium. For more information, visit http://www.adobe.com.
The Jeepney Magazine: Helping Others Help Themselves
Poverty remains an issue in the Philippines and, despite the development goals laid out by the government, the country has not been able to sustain the economic growth required to reduce poverty to acceptable levels. Here's a great idea that Mr. & Mrs. Shaw came up with. It's 'a hand up, not a hand out' philosophy and street papers like the The Jeepney Magazine may help the poor get out of the cycle of poverty.
The first street paper in the Philippines, The Jeepney Magazine is published by Urban Opportunities for Change Foundation, Inc, a non-profit foundation organized to provide social awareness and opportunity to people trapped in poverty. According to their site, The Jeepney Magazine has two main goals:The first is the presentation of the stories and hearts of the Filipino poor. It is our intent to communicate the needs, struggles and more importantly, the victories in the midst of those struggles, of homeless people, to an audience that can make change happen.
The second is the provision of jobs, with dignity, meeting or exceeding the Philippine minimum wage. The provision of jobs, is modeled by the over two hundred autonomous street papers in the world today. The vendors of these papers receive fifty to ninety percent of the papers cover price.
The Jeepney Magazine sells for a street price of one hundred pesos. The vendor receives fifty pesos. Twenty-five pesos goes toward printing and twenty-five pesos are used for production costs, vendor training and vendor oversight. The goal is for each of the vendors to sell a minimum of ten magazines a day, giving them an income exceeding, by forty percent, the Philippine minimum wage.
Street papers are a new idea for Asia. They have proven themselves in Europe, North and South America, Africa and Australia, as a viable method of poverty alleviation. The Jeepney is the first street paper among Asian's developing countries.
Here's a video clip of The Jeepney Magazine featured in the Probe Team of ABS-CBN.
"When you buy a street paper. You do much more than contribute to the vendor's chances of escaping homelessness. You are helping finance a support system for many more excluded people, something that giving spare change to a beggar simply does not do." - BBC
Get involved! Click on the link below for information on subscription and donation of the magazine.
I Want to Help via The Jeepney Magazine
Sneak Preview of New Revolution Themes Going Open Source
Wednesday October 1st, Brian Gardner announced that Revolution is going open source. Yes, open source. This means that the new set of themes will be available under the GPL license and in compliance with standards set forth by WordPress. Jason Schuller, who runs WP Elements will be teaming up with Brian Gardner on the Revolution project and a completely new Revolution site will be launched on November 1st.
All the themes that are currently available at the Revolution theme site will no longer be available after the launch and current All-Inclusive members will automatically inherit the ability to receive the aforementioned theme package benefits at no additional cost. Now for most of us who can't wait to see the upcoming themes, here's a sneak preview.
This theme, geared towards the photography/portfolio folks, will have the capability of showing 600×400 high quality images, and will autosize the thumbnail images at the bottom where the recent photos will be.
Since a majority of Brian Gardner's current themes are on the “masculine” side, he decided to offer up a variety of styles on the new site. This one is ideal for women’s portals.
And this is for the grungy/media type sites.
UPDATE: The Revolution Two open source site launched early on October 29. Click here to visit Revolution Two now »
Free E-Book on Personal Branding
Whether you're a freelancer, a blogger, or an entrepreneur, branding is one of the important tasks that you need to pay attention to. How you present yourself and how you are perceived can make a lot of difference to both how much work you get and how you charge for that work. Thanks to Skellie, you can get a free 20 page eBook on Personal Branding at the Rockable Press website simply by signing up to their mailing list. From how to write your ‘about’ page to how to choose a photo of yourself, the minibook gives tips on branding yourself online and in person.
via Rockable Press
Scariest Flash Games on Earth
Image Copyright: Fear by kefirux [deviantART]
Halloween is just around the corner so I thought maybe I could share something relevant to the spooky season. Well, the title pretty much says it all. The following games are guaranteed to scare the hell out of anybody. I also think they're one of the best flash projects ever made as I've played flash games that kick ass with puzzles, but these are the ones that pay attention to graphics and atmosphere. Best played with the sound up and the lights down.
The House
The House was built, er created by Sinthai Boonmaitree (xin) of Bangkok, Thailand. The game is about a deserted house built in 1970. It was reported that the whole family committed suicide for unknown reasons and no one has entered the house eversince. Point-and-click your way through the house to unfold the mystery of what really happened to that fateful fictitious family. Play The House »
Exmortis
Created by Ben Leffler, Exmortis is about you waking up in the woods with no memory of how you got there. Nightmares of blood and screams still echo through your mind. It's late and it's cold - unless you can find shelter fast, you won't last the night. You spot a house in a clearing up ahead and left with no choice - you decide to shelter there for the night. Soon after you begin to realise that death is a welcome choice compared to what lies waiting for you inside... Play Exmortis »
The Maze
Now just in case you're just looking for a way to kill time, check out the Most Addictive Flash Games Online or you can also test your patience and skills with the maze game below created by Jeremy Winterrowd. Simply try not to hit the walls and make it to level 4. Sound effects will help find your way to the end. Enjoy.
Play The Maze »
Three Thousand Photos
Vimeo user Robbie spent 3 weeks in NYC and took over 3,000 photos around the city. A cool twist on Time Lapse photography. Very, very cool.
How to Use Photoshop's Lens Blur Tool
TUAW, or The Unofficial Apple Weblog has two tutorials that will take you through how to use Photoshop's Lens Blur filter to do two things: make images look like they were shot with a tilt-shift lens, and create clipping masks for objects that aren't entirely in focus. The guides come with helpful screenshots, which makes any good Photoshop tutorial stand out. Links below.
How to use Photoshop's Lens Blur tool for tilt-shift fakery »
How to use Photoshop's Lens Blur tool with masking »
How A New Yorker Cover Is Made
Here's a video about how illustrator Bob Staake made this week's cover of the New Yorker. Interesting note, he uses Mac OS 9 (on Mac OS X in classic) and PhotoShop 3.0. See video after the jump.I guess I have a pretty unusual way of working -- at least that's what my illustrator friends are always telling me. I start by creating the most basic shapes and then refine with details as I go. To me the process feels completely normal. I look at that stark white space in front of me and can see the entire fully completed image in my head. Maybe I'm just lucky that way. - Bob Staake
São Paulo: The City That Said No To Advertising
Last year, a funny thing happened in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The city of approximately eleven million people, South America’s largest, awoke to find a ban on public advertising. Every billboard, every neon sign, every bus kiosk ad and even the Goodyear blimp were suddenly illegal. Photographer and typographer Tony de Marco has documented the cityscape with the bare billboards and painted store front facades.
MUTO: A Wall-Painted Animation
Here's another cool animation made by Blu in Buenos Aires and in Baden (fantoche). Only this time, it was painted on public walls. Really amazing.
World War 3D Animation
World War was created by Vincent Chai for his final degree project whilst studying 3D Animation at the University Of Hertfordshire. I don't know what his final grade was but I'd give him an A+.
Jeepney Advertising
Jeepneys are the most popular means of transportion in the Philippines and a symbol of the country's culture. They've come a long way from being the US military jeeps left over from World War II to being called the "Undisputed King of the Road" today. A symbol of Filipino creativity and ability to improvise on and reproduce first-world technology into forms more attainable given limited financial resources.
But with the jeepneys being banned from major passenger routes to relieve traffic congestion, plus government imposed rates, licensing, the rising cost of fuel prices and maintenance, and the increasing difficulty in the "boundary" arrangements between jeepney owner and contracted driver, it's a good idea that jeepneys can also be contracted for short-term use for dedicated ads. The driver-owner is paid a reasonable amount monthly for a three-month contract (for example) while continuing to ply his usual daily routes. Helps make both ends meet. The Wake T-Rex blog also suggests emmision tests to reduce air pollution.
The image above shows a jeepney dressed up inside-out in an eye-catching yellow-and-red motif for a Motorola cell-phone campaign. Below is a Coca-cola ad-on-wheels, wrapped in coke-red, replete with logo, graphics and the giant coke bottle atop.
Last year, a jeepney was tricked out with Kobe Bryant's ad for Nike during his one-day visit to Manila to interact with school children and conduct basketball clinic as he launched his Supernatural Asia Tour.
Unlike the traditional billboard advertising, these Ad-on-Wheels doesn't just sit there all day. They move around and get noticed by thousands of people everyday… where the commuters are of course.
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