This is a continuation of Show & Tell #7′s round up. Check part one here.
HTML5 Games
So where are the HTML5 games? I thought the “Flash-killer” had arrived?
Actually, there have been some cool HTML5 based games knocking around recently. These are mostly proof of concept games though, and nowhere near the level of Zombie Tycoon etc. Come back in 10 years for that.
Here are a couple of nice ones though that are worth a look…
Actionscript legend Grant Skinner was commissioned to create this one for Microsoft’s IE9 Beauty of the Web campaign. It’s a classic tower-defense game but some nice touches in there. Most interesting is Skinner’s EaselJS Javascript library that makes the HTML5 transition easier for people from a Flash background.
Really like this one. The game premise is bollocks but the attention to detail and the implementation of physics in a JS game is impressive.
One that’s been grabbing headlines this week is URL Hunter. This game is unique in that the whole game takes place in the address bar of the browser. Obviously, it has much more appropriate applications but this is a pretty inventive demo of how HTML5 exposes the browser history via an API. Access to this API should help as we see more complex sites and web-apps that require stateful behaviour without a new page request.
Hadouken!
Wallaby
Another headline grabber from Adobe this week was the launch of codename ‘Wallaby‘. In a nutshell, Wallaby takes a Flash file (.fla) and converts it to a HTML5 version. It’s not quite a magic bullet yet as there are some pretty major features that aren’t supported yet but it shows some definite promise. I’ll hopefully do some experiments myself and report back.
Motion Graphics Design Lecture
We also had a chat about the Motion Graphics Design lecture that I’ve covered in detail already here, check it out.
Here’s a run-down of what we covered last night. It’s link heavy so you’ll find lots more info if you go exploring a bit more. If it doesn’t make sense shout out in the comments and I’ll catch you up on anything you missed.
Molehill
This changes everything. Again.
This week Adobe released their pre-beta (they call it an ‘Incubator’) release of what will eventually be Flash Player 11. Codenamed ‘Molehill’ it caused massive excitement at Adobe Max (see previous Lab post here) and it’s making waves all over again because now we can play with it ourselves. So if you’re feeling adventurous (this is pre-beta software remember, I’m taking no responsibility if your machine melts down), download the Incubator Flash player and join in the fun.
If you’ve already got Flash Player 10.2, you should already be seeing performance boosts on video sites such as YouTube and BrightCove thanks to the new StageVideo API. StageVideo hands off the processing of video to the GPU so there’s less strain on the CPU. Get it? If not, trust me on this, utilising hardware acceleration like this dramatically improves performance. PixelBender was a start, and 10.2 continues this approach.
Molehill is taking the focus on improving performance on to the next logical step, 3D. You can see the performance in this video with some pretty hardcore environment mapping and interactive reflective surfaces.
One of the areas that I’m expecting to see some really exciting innovation is in web-based gaming. The Max Racer demo that I featured in the previous post looks really incredible and I love this one… Zombie Tycoon.
3D gaming in the browser has come on loads in recent years, the main players being Unity3D and Shockwave (and possibly Virtools) but they’ve all struggled to gain widespread penetration. Others like Quake Live have developed their own bespoke browser plug-ins that have some pretty impressive performance but have stubbornly remained stuck in their niche. Flash has lagged behind with 3D performance but Molehill has changed all that. Combine that with Flash’s 99% penetration and super-fast upgrade adoption and you’ve got a perfect storm for game developers.
If you fancy playing with some more demos, check out Lee Brimelow’s collection of links to lots more cool Molehill demos. Hours of fun!
This is a part one of Show & Tell #7′s round up. Check part two here.
Skype has always been one of those things that seemed too good to be true for me. Free phone calls, of any length and with better-than-landline sound quality. Sure, they had their pay-as-you-go calls to landlines etc but with the cheap-calls market as saturated as it is, that never seemed like a long-term business plan to me.
Sell-outs
Today, Skype announced on their blog that they’ll be introducing ads to their software. Thankfully, Skype are savvy enough to know that intrusive ads mid-conversation would cause a lot of people to hang up permanently. In their post, Skype were quick to point out that “The ads won’t interrupt your Skype experience. You won’t suddenly see annoying pop-up ads or flashy banner ads in middle of conversations.”
The ads will initially feature just on the ‘Home’ tab but I’m sure over time we’ll see them introduced elsewhere too. More interestingly though will be what level of targeting they’ll be able to provide. Ads will be location-targeted by country as you’d expect (though you can opt out of this) but what other data can Skype glean from your calls?
Google Voice, only available in the US at the moment, is a free service that routes all your calls through one number, so that all your phones ring at the same time and you have one centralised voice-mail. Oh, and free voice-to-text transcription. Sound confusing? There’s an explanatory video here that shows just how compelling an offering this is.
Google Voice caused a lot of concern about privacy when it launched but it seems to have settled now. The temptation will be huge for Skype to offer an extra level of personalisation to their advertising offering, I’ll be interested to see how this goes for them. Hopefully they won’t go the way The Onion predicted…
After the fun of Ignite Bristol‘s recent SS Great Britain event (this one was hilarious!) we had another great event for the creative-minded of Bristol – this time in the form of an evening of talks by some pretty amazing motion graphics designers that gave some valuable insight in to the minds and creative processes behind their work. The West of England Design Forum did a great job lining up the formidable talents of Jack Laurence (Moving Brands), Shane Walter (onedotzero), Charlie Mawer (Red Bee Media) and Matthew Rudd (Rudd Studio). Unfortunately, The Mill had to pull out due to “unforeseen client complications” (we’ve all been there!) but it was a sell-out event nonetheless.
Personally, I think W of E Design Forum missed a trick not having at least one of their speakers from the interactive side of motion graphics design. Here’s a snapshot of what they were talking about.
Jack talked through some of the work that Moving Brands do and mainly focused on the rebrand of Nokia they did that swapped the old “hand-in-hand” schmaltz for the more modern style you’ll recognise from anything post-2007. Still conveying the core message “Connecting People” but giving it a much more up-to-date feel.
Moving Brands created a ‘living identity’ that uses Processing to generate 3d visuals dynamically. This way they created tools that could be given to all the brand managers internationally. Tweaking a few settings they could create animated or static artwork that was unique and fitting for their uses and also stayed consistent with the overall brand identity. Smart stuff.
Processing, if you haven’t come across it before, is an open framework based on Java that allows for some pretty rapid experimentation with generative art, without getting you bogged down in the complexity of Java programming. Check it out here.
Also nice in his talk was a mood video Moving Brands made for Nokia, not for public consumption, but just as their response to the brief and to show their interpretation of the brand. Lovely stuff.
Shane is something of a rock-star of the motion graphics world. CEO & Creative Director of onedotzero, he’s a busy guy and it’s not surprising when you see the scale and number of festivals and events that onedotzero run worldwide. Adventures in Motion 2010 was a big success this year and you can check it out here. He was just back from their latest festival in St Petersburg that looked pretty cool. I’ll definitely be marking Adventures in Motion in my calendar for next year!
Charlie gave us a brief intro to what Red Bee Media do, and they do a lot… rebranding BBC1, BBC3, Dave, Virgin1, Disney, Discovery, ESPN, Canal+… pretty much every TV station has had the Red Bee treatment. On the night, Charlie took us through the work they’d done for Belgian children’s broadcaster KetNet. They did a great job of creating reusable and adaptable stings and idents for KetNet that allowed them to keep the visuals fresh and interactive by integrating programme trailers, live action presenters and also user generated content. The case study is on their site here.
And finally we had Matthew Rudd, of the eponymous Rudd Studios. When he walked out first I thought he was a recent art-school graduate but it became quickly apparent he’s an insanely accomplished and talented visual artist.
Matthew’s session was an inspirational meander through his background as an artist and how he applies that thinking to his work. Along with some of his own photography, Matthew showed how art informs his thought process. For example, the way that Picasso’s cubist paintings and also David Hockney’s photo montages (pictured) capture the same moment from different angles led directly to his recent work for Channel 4.
Given that the existing Channel 4 idents were so still popular, Rudd came up with the elegant solution you can see in the video above. Using this simple device of splitting the screen to show the same animation from different perspectives managed to breathe a whole new life in to their idents without clashing with the existing ones.
The best ideas are often the simplest. Inspirational stuff.
Follow Shane on Twitter:
@shane_casey 
Here’s a run-down of what we covered last night. It’s link heavy so you’ll find lots more info if you go exploring a bit more. If it doesn’t make sense shout out in the comments and I’ll catch you up on anything you missed.
