Past Meetings

February 2010 Meeting

Open Source Media Framework

At our February meeting David Salahi will demonstrate the process of creating a Flash media player using the Open Source Media Framework. The OSMF is "an open software framework for building robust, feature-rich video players and applications based on the Adobe® Flash® Platform." The current version is "Sprint 8" and the official V1.0 release is anticipated later this year.

The framework consists of a three-tier architecture which can be built upon using either Adobe Flash Professional or Adobe FlexBuilder/FlashBuilder. The framework is designed to simplify player development and reduce development time. You can either use the standard player, as is, or you can easily customize it.

The presentation at the February OC Flash meeting will pick up where the January meeting left off. In February we will see a player that has been customized to use the video transcript that was automatically generated from a video at the January meeting. The player will use the generated XML transcript file to display cue point markers on the video player timeline which allow the user to jump directly to a section of interest within the video. The ActionScript code used for the customization will be explained at the meeting.

January 2010 Meeting

Searchable Video

In January, David Salahi will give a presentation on how to make your video searchable so that it can be found by Google. Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 or Adobe Soundbooth CS4 both have automatic speech-to-text conversion capabilities that can provide a written transcript of a video. This can be invaluable for search engine optimization.

And we'll also look at creating a custom video player in Flash to allow website viewers to jump directly to the location of search words in your video.

Resources

Watch the video of Karl Soule's presentation at Adobe MAX 2009.

See a demo of the technology in action.

Download the white paper.

Note: I've found some problems using the technique described in the white paper mentioned above using Adobe Premiere Pro. Sometimes Premiere Pro/Adobe Media Encoder fail to create a transcript. However, I've found a procedure that works consistently in Adobe Soundbooth. This downloadable excerpt from the book After Effects for Flash/Flash for After Effects provides details of the procedure.

David Salahi

December 2009 Meeting

FreeSpin3D Extension for Flash

We'll have a presentation by the people at revolver animation and game technologies on their new FreeSpin3D extension for Flash.

FreeSpin3D™ is an Extension for Adobe Flash that enables the importing of 3D models directly into Adobe Flash as a Flash MovieClip object. It is the only real-time 3D technology that utilizes the standard Adobe Flash animation timeline and built-in 3D behaviors, making FreeSpin3D the most intuitive solution for interactive designers. For those with a more in-depth understanding of ActionScript, the powerful FreeSpin3D API allows designers and developers to push the limits of interactive 3D delivery over the web.

November 2009 Meeting

Adobe MAX Conference Recap

In November we'll be discussing the announcements and some tips & techniques gleaned from the Adobe MAX conference in October. Among these will be:

the announcement of limited Flash capability for the iPhone
FlashCatalyst, the upcoming rapid prototyping tool for Flash
a Flash media player that can search for keywords within a video
FlashBuilder 4 beta 2 (formerly known as FlexBuilder) Beta

And if you didn't make it to MAX—or even if you did and couldn't get to every session you wanted—you can watch the sessions from MAX at tv.adobe.com.

Top Flash Sessions at MAX 2009

Adobe Unveils First Full Flash Player for Mobile Devices and PCs

At Adobe MAX on October 5, 2009 Adobe unveiled the next release of Adobe Flash Player that realizes the promise of a consistent, cross-platform runtime across desktop and mobile devices. Learn more about Flash Player 10.1.

September 2009 Meeting

Solving the Flash Video Compression Puzzle

For the past 4 years, Flash video has taken the internet by storm. All the videos you see on YouTube, MySpace, Google Video and most other video-oriented website are presented using the Flash Video platform. Mike McGready will share techniques and insights into how to get your videos to look great on the internet. The age of Rich Media has arrived. Take advantage of it!

August 2009 Meeting

Using Video Cue Points

David Salahi will present a tutorial on using Flash video cue points to play selected clips within a video. First, a video will be created with cue points in Adobe After Effects and then exported as an FLV file. (Cue points may also be created in Adobe Media Encoder, included with Flash CS4, for those who don't use After Effects.) Then, the video will be loaded in Flash and the cue points will be read from the video metadata. The cue points will be loaded into a Flash List control which allows the end user to select a desired portion of the video to play.

Come to our meeting on August 4 and learn how to use After Effects to render special effects and how to use cue points to control video playback in Flash. For extra credit, read up on the technique in the Focal Press book Flash + After Effects by Chris Jackson (chapter 5, "Creating an Interactive Video Game"). Download the sample files (ZIP, 1 MB).

July 2009 Meeting

Flash Tips and Tricks: Motion Tweens and Special Effects

Cynthia Gordon, Owner and Principal of MedAnimations, will give a presentation on motion tweens, using an example from her work in developing patient education animations. Cynthia will explain what motion tweens are, and how to create and use them. Topics will include:

Creating a motion tween to animate symbols
Difference between a motion tween, a shape tween, and frame by frame animation
Customizing the motion path
Using the motion editor to further modify your motion tween animation

Mark Dickinson, Senior Production Artist for Marshall Advertising, Costa Mesa, CA, will demonstrate several effects from Chris Georgenes' book "How to Cheat in Adobe Flash CS4", and will also discuss the Custom Easing Tool 1.1 created by Ladizlav Zigo. Mark will show us:

How to use the blur filter to create motion in your animations
Creating a handwriting effect through masking that makes text "write" itself
Creating special effects such as a bounce through use of the Custom Easing Tool

June 2009 Meeting

Program: Flash Team Tools

Iman Khabazian will give a presentation on tools that can be used to support Flash & ActionScript development. Iman will cover the following tools:

Mantis, a popular, free web-based bugtracking system
Subversion, an open-source source code version control system (no, that's not a typo)
Alcon, a lightweight debugging tool for ActionScript developers
Wireshark, a free packet sniffer used for network troubleshooting, analysis, software and communications protocol development.

Iman Khabazian oversees all phases of the software development life cycle for Flash applications. Currently he serves as the Chief Product Officer at D4 Media, and as Managing Director of iMAN IT. As Managing Director of IMAN IT, he directed the development team for the Beanie Babies virtual world, consulted on re-engineering the Lord of the Rings Online UI development process, developed the Tacori Male micro-site, developed a game framework, and consulted numerously regarding software design and software development life cycle. Iman has presented at OC Flash numerous times previously.

May 2009 Meeting

Program: Introduction to ActionScript 3, Part III

In May we will continue our ActionScript 3 tutorial series with a discussion of how to create buttons. Using event listeners to respond to mouse events will be discussed. Also covered will be techniques for creating up, down, and over states for buttons. Creating buttons in this way can reduce SWF file sizes by tens of KBs compared to using Flash components. It also allows you to create custom buttons with a unique appearance. For a head start read the article Designer perspective: How to approach ActionScript on adobe.com

Download the sample files from this month's presentation (ZIP, 95 KB).