Objectives

The primary objective is of course to showcase and promote my abilities and skills as a New Media consultant and developer, in other words, shameless self-promotion. To do this effectively required focusing on several secondary supporting objectives:

  • Panache — I wanted to challenge myself, push the envelope of my skillset, and have a little fun, such that the site would intrinsically demonstrate some of my capabilities
  • Easy to update — content must be easily added or pruned. The site is tied together by XML files which link the menu to assets, including text files, pictures, videos — everything that I might want to include in this showcase

Credits

I'm a big believer in leveraging third party classes and components, both commercial and open source. Why re-invent the wheel? Here are (I hope) all the principle credits where they are due:

  • Jumpeye Components: purveyors of FlashEff (transition, animation, text effects), Accordion Tree menu and JCPlayer (Flash videoplayback)
  • Papervision3D: I first developed this site using PhotoFlow from FlashLoaded, an emulation of the iTunes CoverFlow browser, but I was less than thrilled with it. I thought this would be an opportunity to crack open PaperVision — you can see the results in my Portfolio section.
  • GreenSock: I'm a big fan of their TweenLite/TweenMax tweening platform, but unfortunately so is Jumpeye — which means I'm limited to using the older version of TweenLite that is used in FlashEff, so unable to take advantage of TweenMax.
  • Google Analytics: for tracking visits to the site.
  • SWFObject: For embedding the Flash - supports alternate HTML content for SEO and SWFAddress for deep linking.
  • SWFAddress: to enable deep linking.
  • Floatbox: A Javascript package to support overlaying of rich content on web pages - used by my portfolio to display certain assets.
  • Dock: My emulation of the Mac OS Dock is based on code from J.R. Graphics — which I converted from AS2 to AS3 and adapted to more closely resemble the Leopard version of the Dock.
  • HTML Table Renderer: A little component that extends Flash's pseudo-HTML text handling to support tables layouts. Shown to best advantage on the Career page (the horizontal lines are my own enhancement).

Development Tools

Principally developed in Flash CS4/FDT PowerFlasher. The logo animation was built with Swift 3D - although my choice to acquire Swift 3D was obviously based on its close integration with Papervision, in fact the animation is not a Flash animation but a traditional video rendering. Flash just doesn't support the shading and reflections that I wanted.