An iPhone made app from the CS5 Beta

I read about this from iSmashPhone.com Which I just noticed is a great domain name, and also a tragic reminder that I just broke my screen. Actually, smashed is more appropriate than broke. Broken implies it doesn’t work. It works, its just smashed. Anyway, if you don’t feel like clicking that link back there, the only real news here is that someone who did get a chance to Beta test CS5 (like non-Adobe staff ) has a Flash-made app in the App store. This puzzle game here…

And if your first thought when looking at the screengrabs from that game is “sigh… another puzzle game”, well heck, you might be right! Who knows, at $1.99 its iffy. Edit: Its free!!  And hey, they made a nice mini-site for the game …(note to self, steal)

O.M.G. Someone posted all the title cards from T.M.M.o.F

T.M.M.o.F is short for The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack which is a pretty darn decent show on Cartoon Network. I’ve seen probably 10 now and its definitely an awesome show kids and usually a half-awesome show for easily amused adults (like me). But at this point in my life, ANY cartoon I can have on with my 14 month old which is not Dora or Diego is great.

Anyway, about the show titles! They are often the most arteestic part of the show, and I went searching for these a few weeks ago and came up empty, but have stumbled onto the mother load today. Here’s a link to them all, and I’ll post some of the best below…

Anchor Squirty Cream is what now?

Someone showed me this very cute, very involved Flash site, and after playing in it for 5 minutes, I’m still not sure what this company does, or sell, or whatever. Although my best guess at this point would be that they actually sell some sort of squirty cream and the site is just for kids to play around with. Anyone know for sure?

Who wants a Flash caricature of themselves?

My friend Andy  is giving away a Flash caricature this Christmas, you know a drawing of yourself. Which you could use for email signatures, letterhead, vanity plates (both license and dining), Cafepress products, or you could just sit outside tattoo parlors and try to convince people you should be on their bodies. Here’s where to enter… http://www.flashbooty.com/holidaycharacter/ ..also there’s a game you can play afterwards.

Wanna see a guy rock out on a Speak n’ Spell!

Check out my friend’s friend workin’ his Toy Volcano, a mad-science instrument made from a Speak n’ Spell…

Also his website is equally sweet, FavorsAndFriends.com Go down the Expert Path to see the Flash island below. And hey, anyone this cool must have an album right? Check it out on iTunes!

Big time discounts at Toon Boom until Jan 4.

Just got Toon Boom’s latest newsletter and noticed some nice holiday savings.  Pretty sure the bows below make them holiday savings. Anyway, Animate is only $499 ( or $449 if you get the download version). Also upgrading from Animate to Animate Pro is only $539.  ’Tis a great way to spend some of that post Dec 25 cash infusion from all those relatives cool enough to realize all you want is cash these days.

Bummer. New Flash CS5 Beta testing. Public that is.

Yay. Adobe emailed me today. Well not just me, a lot of other people too. I wish I were so privy-ledged. Official word is that the Flash CS5 Public Beta has been cancelled. Thats not a huge deal for me, because to be honest I’ve never actually gotten into testing any of Adobe’s stuff before, so it wasn’t really on my radar  (actually the whole CS5 Suite hadn’t crossed my mind recently either). I have been invited a few times to beta products I wasn’t that interested in, but obviously for this next version of Flash I would have jumped into my Beta suit with a NoDoz half down my throat and quad shot of espresso. Flash CS5  is a big deal for two reasons.

1. Hopefully it works terrifically because Flash CS4 crashed so much. Wait, that was a past tense usage of “crash”. It crashes. A lot.

2. The whole iPhone app export thing. I suspect the obvious, which is that, Adobe isn’t ready to unleash hell on the App Store yet. Or possibly Apple isn’t ready for that yet either. And what better way to screw things up then have thousands of developers submitting crap Apps.

Some good news today though, FlashMagazine.com emailed me this same news today (you can read a similar post to mine here) and tucked in their article was a link to update Flash CS4, which I don’t know how I missed before. But yeah, there’s a 10.0.2 . And what’s crazy to me is that the Adobe Updater  app is constantly in my face and I’ve never once seen this update. So either I already have it and just forgot I updated, or I’m just blind when it comes to that occasionally obnoxious Updater app. So anyway, just a reminder to anyone with CS4 to get that update. And hopefully in a few months Flash CS5 will the be the new coolness again.

Speaking of cancellations, whats up with me?

For the first time in probably 3 or 4 years, I’m definitely not releasing a tutorial within a 4-6 week span. I’m very, very busy finishing up an iPhone Game which I think is worth putting this much effort into. I’ve been at it for probably 2 months, and hopefully in a couple weeks will be done. I don’t want to talk about it too much until its really ready (and approved and in-store), but I will say this. I had to ask my wife to drive me around recently and get the car up to 60 mph to test this game at high speeds. That might make it sound a little too cool, but travel speed is definitely an aspect.

Also after this game is done, I can safely say, I will be teaching all future iPhone tutorials. The things I know how to do now, are outnumbering things I haven’t tried. And all those kind of “fundamentals” I had trouble with for months are long gone, and I think I can teach those to ya’ll in some ways that will make more sense than anything I’ve read in my training books. BUT (here comes the sell) that recent CartoonSmart tutorial which compared some Actionscript to Objective C is what kick-started me back into action. Then after that I hit the training books hard , and here’s a list of what I thought was worth buying book-wise.

Anyway, thats the news. And if anyone wants to comment below about Flash CS5, the iPhone, or Avatar, please do. Wait, where’d Avatar come from?? I’m seeing it in less than 3 hours. Rephrase that.  I mean, I’m going to see it in less than 3 hours. Apparently I’ll be watching the movie for 3 hours. And hopefully seeing new colors today.

Some Animation from Andy at FlashBooty!

Here’s a fun little tune from my good friend Andy that runs FlashBooty.com …

Pretty sure Andy  came up with the tune first, then realized it fit recent events quite well. Much like Nostradamus  ( << the correct spelling there had way fewer o’s in it than I thought)

Augmented Reality Business Card!

You’ve seen this before on this blog, now gawk at it again! More Actionscript 3 Augmented Reality…

You can read more on how this is done at James Alliban’s blog. And maybe I can convince this guy to teach a lesson at CartoonSmart. I’ll email him now.

Super pump-up speech by Ralph Bakshi

Oops, I meant to post this two days ago, and as usual I forgot to actually check to make sure my computer did something after clicking something else. Anyway, below is a great interview tipped off to me by Elias Dancey. It comes from a Comic-Con panel with Ralph Bakshi. And like a wise old Jedi he’s got some nuggets of wisdom for us younger saber wielders.   After the interview, check out some of the related stuff Youtube has posted. Pretty wild, definitely some of it is racy. And sadly somewhere in my DVD collection there’s an unwatched copy of Wizards that I’ve had for probably a decade.   The first 40 seconds are skippable, but afterwards get ready to be schooled…

And again, thanks to Elias for showing me this. He’s got some awesome work of his own too. Here’s his Vimeo page and professional links: MadeInEastwood.com and DrawnInEastwood.com