Flash Preloader

Create a Simple Flash Preloader using basic actionscript

A Flash preloader is useful in preventing partial loading of a movie while it plays. The preloader is usually made attractive to the viewer to keep him/her occupied while the full flash movie or some external data is loaded in the background. We are going to learn how to create a very simple preloader while concentrating on the actionscript that makes it work.

Create the Simple Flash Preloader

Once you understand the basics behind the Flash preloader you will be able to create more advanced preloaders with moviclips and additional actionscripting. Follow the steps given below:

2. Preloader Loop: Now we need to make a loop that executes till the last frame is loaded. To make use of a very basic animation we will display three dots after the loading text to show that loading is taking place. To do this insert three key frames after the first frame in the actions layer. Now place one dot, two dots and three dots in the three frames respectively (as shown below).
frame 2 (actions layer)

frame 3 (actions layer)

frame 4 (actions layer)

• Now we need a frame to return to the first frame as the condition is being checked there. For this double click the fifth frame in the actions layer and give the following action script.

  gotoAndPlay (1);

  Logic: We just return the control to the first frame to complete a loop.

  

• Now click on the sixth frame in the Preloader layer and give it the label start. That’s it your simple preloader is ready. Just make sure that all the stuff that you want to be displayed in your movie starts from the 6th frame and that you label the last frame of your completed movie as “end”. Alternatively for Flash 5 and above you can use the following code instead of the code given in the first frame:

  ifFrameLoaded (_totalframes) {
  gotoAndPlay (“start”);
  }

  Here, we have just replace the “end” frame with the inbuilt variable _totalframes which contains the total number of frames in the main movie timeline.

• We recommend you create an attractive movie clip and place it in frame 1 to make your preloader look more interesting then the plain loading text used here

Finished Flash Preloader Interface

Check if your preloader timeline matches our figure above.

Test your movie for a 64KB modem by pressing Ctrl+Enter twice. You will be able to see how the preloader progresses and then starts playing at frame “start”.

That’s it, your simple Flash preloader is ready! Now continue with the rest of your animation.

TIP: Keep a new document with your favorite preloader (with nothing else in it) so you can start on your next project with a copy of it (preloader ready).

You have dozens of ways to create a “painterly” effect in Photoshop. Here is one illustrated.

Blur shadows, sharpen highlights, and add texture for a “painterly” effect.

1. Open a copy of your image as a Smart Object.
   Choose File => Open as Smart Object or, if the image is already open, choose Layer => Smart Objects => Convert to Smart Object. When working with Smart Filters, you can later – if necessary – reopen the filter and change the settings.
2. Select the shadows and blur. Open the Channels palette and Ctrl+click the channel at the top (RGB or CMYK or Lab) to make a selection according to the brightness of each pixel. Use the shortcut Ctrl+Shift+I to invert the selection (select shadows rather than highlights). Apply a slight Gaussian Blur, perhaps 1 or 2 pixels, to blur detail in the darker areas. (Remember that you can use the shortcut Ctrl+H to hide the “marching ants” and make the selection border disappear)
3. Select the highlights and sharpen. You need to reselect the highlights, so again Ctrl+click the channel at the top (RGB or CMYK or Lab). Apply the Sharpen => Smart Sharpen filter with initial settings of Amount: 200% and Radius: 2 pixels. (Adjust the values to match the content of your image and your artistic vision.)
4. Add a canvas texture to the image. Do not deselect (so that the texture will be applied a bit more prominently to the image’s highlights than to the shadows). Use the Texture => Texturizer filter to add a slight canvas texture, enhancing the painterly effect.

for all of the following make sure Interactive Creation is turned off

1. Create a polygon cube and scale it by 300.

2. Name this Cube “photonBoundry”.

3. Create a Polygon Plane and scale it by 60.

4. Name this Plane “seaBed”.

5. Create another Polygon Plane, scale it by 20 and this time translate it by x=10 , y= 17, z=10.

6. Name this Plane “waterSurface”.

7. Create a Spot Light and rotate it by x=-75, y=50, z=0 and translate by x=15, y=36, z=15.

8. Name this Spotlight “photonEmmitter”.

9. Create a new “dielectric_material” by selecting and Right Clicking on the “waterSurface” polygon plane and choosing “Assign New Material” from the menu. You’ll find the “dielectric_material” in the Mental Ray nodes in the window that has popped up..

10. Open up the shading group for the “dielectric_material” by clicking on the “go to output connections” button in the attribute editor

11. Click the chequered box next to “Displacement mat.” and select the “Ocean” texture from the “2D Textures” Category. the attributes for the texture should now show up.

12. Use the settings as shown in the image below.

13. If you want to animate the ocean attribute then Right Click on the “Time” attribute of the ocean and select “Create new expression” and type the following in to the MEL Expression area at the bottom:

ocean1.time = time/2;

Thats it for the water surface. On the next page we will be dealing with the Spot Light Attributes…

14. The first thing to note for this situation is we will not be using visible light. we will be using only photons that are emitted from the light. Therefore the first thing we need to do is uncheck “Emit Diffuse” and “Emit Specular” in the light attributes. See figure 3.1

15. So that the light covers the area of the “waterSurface” Plane we need to increase the size of the “Cone Angle”. if you have followed these instructions correctly you will need to change this value to “74″. See figure 3.1

To confirm that this has worked you can select the light and in the viewport select “Panels > Look Through Selected”. the circle that you see is the cone angle.

16. Now is time to setup the photon emission. open up the attributes for the light again and open up the “Mental Ray” and scroll down to the “Caustic and Global Illumination” Section.

17. Check the box next to “Emit Photons” and you’ll see the section light up. Now set the “Exponent to “1.5″.
You’ll notice that the “Caustic Photons” option is still greyed out. this is not a problem. we just haven’t told maya that we want Caustics yet.

18. Open up the Render Options Diologue box and make sure the renderer is set to “Mental Ray” then open up the tab “Indirect Lighting”. Open up the “Caustics” Section and check the box next to “Caustics”.

19. if you now close the attributes for the light and open them again the option for caustic photons will be available. Set this value to 500000.

Thats it for the light. in the next section we will be setting up the “parti_volume” node…

Setting up the photonBoundry

1. select the photonBoundry Cube and right click and select “Assign New Material”. Select “Transmat” from the Mental Ray nodes section.

2. Open up the Shading Group Attrributes by clicking on the “Go to Output Connections” button  and open up the “Mental Ray” section.

3. Scroll down to the “Custom Shaders” section and click the chequered box next to the “Volume Shader” attribute. load into there the “parti_volume” found under the “volumetric Materials” section under the Mental Ray nodes. leave the settings for the “parti_volume” alone for now.

Setting up the waterSurface

4. Select the waterSurface plane and open up the attribute editor for it.

5. Select the “dielectric_material1″ tab and click the “Go to Output Connections” button .

6. Scroll down to the “Custom Shaders” section and where it says “Volume Shader” type: parti_volume1

7. Now where it says “Phot Volume Shader” click the chequered box and select “parti_volume_photon” from the “Photonic Volumetric Materials” section under the Mental Ray nodes. Again leave the settings alone for the node as we’ll set them up later.

Setting up the Camera

1. open up the attributes for the camera by clicking on the “camera Attributes” button in the viewport (it’s the second button in on the “mini shelf” in the perspective viewport.)

2. Scroll down and open up the “Mental Ray” section.

3. In the “Volume Shader” box type: parti_volume1

Almost done now!

Setting up the parti_volume nodes

1. open up the hyper shade and select the “parti_volume1″ material that you created earlier and use the following settings.

2. Back in the Hypershade open up the “Utilities” tab and open the attributes for the “parti_volume_photon1″ node you created earlier. Use the following settings.

uick note: a few people struggled with the tutorial and it would seem the problems are witht he parti_volume and parti_volume_photon setup. when setting the scatter attribute make sure it is a dark grey and not a black colour.

The end result

if you want to change the colour of the light coming in then all you need to do is change the “Col” and “Outside Color” of the “dielectric_material1″ shader to the colour of your choice. example below.

Written By
Callum Ridley

First open Maya, and create a new scene.

Create a Sphere, Set it’s radius to 10, and center it on every axis.

Assign a Lamburt Shader to the Sphere, and set the color to Stucco.

Set the Shaker to 20, and Scale the Texture 10:10:10, and all the Subdivisions to 50.

One the First Channel Create a Cloud Shader, and On the Second Channel, Create an Ocean Shader.

For the Cloud Shader, Set the Edge Thresh close to zero, and the ratio around .7. Make the first color a tan/sandy color, and the second a green or white color.

For the Ocean Shader, set the Color Mode to Foam On Waves. Leave all the other settings alone.

Now we have created the world itself, let’s move on to the clouds.

Create a new Sphere, Center it on every axis, and set it’s radius to 10.07, and all the Subdivisions to 50.

Set the Setting’s as Follows:

Now for the Stars.

Create a New Sphere, set its radius to 1000, and all the Subdivisions to 50.

I created a Star Field in Photoshop; you can either do the same.

Set the Ambient Color to white, and the Diffuse to Black.

Now for the lights.

Create a Directional light; angle it according to your preferences.

Now Render the Scene.

It should look something like this.

Valentines photo animation!

Flash animation tutorial using this thoroughly explained, detailed flash lesson, I will explain to you how to create very attractive valentines photo animation using some special flash tricks. You don’t have to use action script code to make this lesson. Using this lesson, you will also learn how to import any photo into a flash stage, how to apply blur filter on it, how to create mask layer and much more. You can use this animation for Valentine’s day web banner… Let’s start!

Step 1

First, save the valentine’s  photo below that we will use for this lesson as background.

Step 2

Create a new flash document. Press Ctrl+J key on the keyboard (Document Properties) and set the width of your document to 350 pixels and the height to 361 pixels. Select any color as background color. Set your Flash movie’s frame rate to 33 and click ok.

Step 3

Call the current layer background. Double-click on its default name (Layer 1) to change it. Press Enter once you have typed in the new name!

Step 4

Choose now File > Import > Import to stage (Ctrl+R) and import a photo that you just saved in step 1 into a flash stage. While the photo is still selected, go to the Align Panel (Ctrl+K) and do the following:

1. Make sure that the Align/Distribute to Stage button is turned on,
2. Click on the Align horizontal center button and
3. Click the Align vertical center button.

Step 5

While the photo is still selected, hit F8 key (Convert to Symbol) to convert it into a Movie Clip Symbol.

Step 6

Click now on frame 50 and hit F6 key.

Step 7

Go back on the first frame select the Selection Tool (V) and click once on the photo to select it. Then, go to the Properties Panel (Ctrl+F3) below the stage. After that, select Filters tab from the left side. Click on the plus icon and select the Blur filter. Make the adjustments as follows:

Step 8

Right-click anywhere on the gray area between frame 1 and 50 on the timeline and choose Create Motion Tween from the menu that appears.

Step 9

Create a new layer above the layer background and name it mask heart.

Step 10

Select mask heart layer and draw a heart shape like it is shown on the picture below!

Step 11

While the heart shape is still selected, repeat step 4.

Step 12

Click now on frame 50 of layer mask heart and hit F6 key.

Step 13

While you’re still on frame 50, select the Free Transform Tool (Q) and enlarge heart shape like it is shown on the picture below!

Step 14

Right-click anywhere on the gray area between frame 1 and 50 on the timeline and choose Create Shape Tween from the menu that appears.

Step 15

Select mask heart layer and convert it to a mask by right-clicking on the mask window layer and selecting Mask. See the picture below.

Step 16

Go back on the first frame of layer background, select the Free Transform Tool (Q) and enlarge a photo like it is shown on the picture below!

Flash animation tutorial  will explain to you how to create very attractive valentines photo animation using some special flash tricks.

Step 1

Open photo in Photoshop. Duplicate layer with Ctrl+J. Select #c5fdfe as foreground color and #000000 as background color. Desaturate duplicated layer with Image > Adjustments > Desaturate.

Change Detail value to 7 and Darkness value to 8.Apply Filter > Sketch > Photocopy

Desaturate again duplicated layer with Image > Adjustments > Desaturate.

Apply Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast to increase brightness.

Update layer mode to Soft Light and reduce opacity to 60%.

Step 2

Duplicate again original layer using Ctrl+J. Move layer above all other layers. Apply Filter > Sketch > Bas Relief on duplicate layer.

Desaturate layer with Image > Adjustments > Desaturate.

Increase constrat using Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast.

Change layer mode to Overlay.

Step 3

Duplicate again original layer using Ctrl+J. Move layer above all other layers. Apply Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation on duplicate layer.

Change layer mode to Color.

Step 4

Duplicate current layer using Ctrl+J. Change layer mode to Hard Light on duplicated layer.

To complete this tutorial update current layer opacity to 70%.

Final Image

Let see how to create a mythical secnery in photoshop.

Features

Autodesk?? 3ds Max?? and Autodesk?? 3ds Max?? Design software provide powerful,
integrated 3D modeling, animation, rendering, and compositing tools that
enable artists and designers to more quickly ramp up for production. The
two versions share core technology and features, but offer differentiated
experiences and specialized toolsets for game developers, visual effects
artists, and graphic designers on the one hand, and architects, designers,
engineers, and visualization specialists on the other.

System Requirements

32-Bit 3ds Max 2012 or 3ds Max Design 2012
for Windows Operating system: Microsoft?? Windows?? 7 Professional operating system,
Microsoft?? Windows Vista?? Business operating system (SP2 or higher),
or Microsoft?? Windows?? XP Professional operating system (SP3 or higher)
For general animation and rendering
(typically fewer than 1,000 objects or 100,000 polygons):

Intel?? Pentium?? 4 1.4 GHz or equivalent AMD?? processor with SSE2 technology*
2 GB RAM (4 GB recommended)
2 GB swap space (4 GB recommended)**
3 GB free hard drive space
Direct3D?? 10 technology, Direct3D 9, or OpenGL-capable graphics card?
(256 MB or higher video card memory, 1 GB or higher recommended)
Three-button mouse with mouse driver software
DVD-ROM drive
Microsoft?? Internet Explorer?? 8.0 internet browser
or higher or Mozilla?? Firefox?? 3.0 internet browser or higher
Internet connection for web downloads and Autodesk?? Subscription-aware access.

64-Bit 3ds Max 2012 or 3ds Max Design 2012 for Windows Operating system:
Microsoft Windows 7 Professional x64, Microsoft Windows Vista Business x64
(SP2 or higher), or Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 (SP3 or higher)
For general animation and rendering (typically fewer than 1,000 objects
or 100,000 polygons):

Intel?? 64 or AMD64 processor with SSE2 technology*
4 GB RAM (8 GB recommended)
4 GB swap space (8 GB recommended)**
3 GB free hard drive space
Direct3D 10, Direct3D 9, or OpenGL-capable graphics card
(256 MB or higher video card memory, 1 GB recommended)
Three-button mouse with mouse driver software
DVD-ROM drive?
Microsoft Internet Explorer 8.0 or higher or Mozilla Firefox 3.0 or higher browser
Internet connection for web downloads and Autodesk Subscription-aware access
For large scenes and complex data sets (typically more than 1,000 objects
or 100,000 polygons):

Intel?? 64 or AMD64 processor with SSE2 technology*
8 GB RAM
8 GB swap space**
3 GB free hard drive space
Direct3D 10, Direct3D 9, or OpenGL-capable graphics card
(1 GB or higher video card memory)
Three-button mouse with mouse driver software
DVD-ROM drive?
Microsoft Internet Explorer 8.0 or higher or Mozilla Firefox 3.0 or higher browser
Internet connection for web downloads and Autodesk Subscription-aware access

You can mount or create the bootable ISO.
or extract all the files from the disk into afolder and
run “setup.exe” from there.
My testing was done on a 32-bit OS and a 64-bit OS.

Yay! The new AutoCad 2012 is now available to everyone. Download it for Free. Experience the perfect and genuine software only from AutoDesk. If you’re a student or Cad lover, you can have an awesome beta test and trial to try the newly released Autocad software. And if you want, you can download the complete ACAD 2012 version, too.

If you loved the older version AutoCad, it’s time to love the next spanking new advanced architecture and design software developed by Autodesk – the AutoCad 2012. I know it’s quite early but as we all know, the huge company is always ahead in the technology of construction and design so we better grab it and draw like it’s 2012.
it’s time for the Autocad 2012

Flash animation tutorials although usability evangelists often consider Flash to be a usability nightmare, used properly, Flash can provide users with a rich and interactive interface which would be impossible otherwise. Today Flash is the de-facto standard for interactive elements on the Web as most users install Flash plug-in by default. And in fact, there are many paths creative designers can take to create a more interactive and user-friendly interface.

Flash animation tutorial will explain to you how to use toolsand make atutorial easy wayto learn and create.In this tutorial  we use Adobe Flash to make interesting animation effect without using ActionScript. Some Flash animation may use only a few lines of simple