CartoonSmart.com Blog

Using stock photos in a project?

Justin — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:37:23 +0000

Yay or nay? Anyone feel like thats a cop out or what? Well I’ve used some stock illustrations in my apps. I’m not the worlds greatest illustrator, so at times I’ll go search a site like iStockPhoto for “inspiration”. And if I find its easier, and affordable to buy the art that inspires me, I’ll do it. Just check the licensing so you know you’re paying enough to use it properly.

So I got an email today from iStockPhoto advertising a new collection of art that is pretty cool, CSA Images. Most of which looks like it could have been hanging on the walls around Don Draper’s office. Here’s a brief bit about the collection…

Established by Charles S. Anderson, the CSA Images collection began in the 1970′s. CSA Images is now one of the most extensive and highly awarded collections of graphic illustrations and design elements in existence.

Over the years, CSA has created countless original photographs, illustrations, and design elements along with seeking out and acquiring entire collections of original art from copyright owners. All told, CSA has spent hundreds of thousands of hours creating, commissioning, curating, and purchasing images in addition to researching millions of historic materials for rights clearance.

I’ll post up some ones that really struck me. And here’s a link to all 5671 …

Force Perspective…Backwards.

Justin — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 18:49:42 +0000

Wanna know what that looks like. Check out this amazing video. Give it 20 seconds, and your brain will start to melt a little. And no, there’s no CGI trickery here…

Here’s how its done…

Ancient Aliens Comic Strip Tutorial and TONS of Vector Art!

Justin — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 19:30:05 +0000

Brian Zaikowski is back with another great tutorial. Again covering Comic Strips, but if you liked his last tutorial, I’m sure you’ll dig this one too. AND as an added bonus he’s including an entire poster’s worth of royalty free vector art. That means you can do whatever you want with it! Put it an app, game, whatever. You can see the entire poster of what’s included by clicking here. You’ll get that exact file in vector art form, and 89 files of the key characters in their own Adobe Illustrator file. This makes it a lot easier to import the art into Flash or another program. Interested!? Here’s the sales page!

Also my student Shane just told me he got an app in the store after watching our Flash-to-Mobile tutorials, so if you’re interested in checking out his App, go to ShapeViz.com . He built a great looking Guitar Fretboard Shape Trainer!

Noteworthy update to the Wave Attack Game Template….

Justin — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 18:20:12 +0000

…you’ve already been emailed new links if you bought this Starter Kit or the iOS Development Series . The second Xcode template is now a spaceship type shooter game. So it adds a scrolling background, particle effect, more enemies, and a few other slight mods to the code.

Also I JUST found out (like 10 minutes ago) my first student has got an app in the store using this template. Congrats Derek! Here’s a link to Wizard Warz

Another student app makes it to the store!

Justin — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 14:37:23 +0000

Alright seers, CartoonSmart student Gabriel has gotten a great looking new app into the store! Congrats. Hopefully he used his own app to foresee a future where this sells well. Good work!

Ebook Starter Kit now available as a standalone purchase (or free if…)

Justin — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 21:39:33 +0000

If you’ve already bought my iOS 6-Session tutorial course, your download link page now has a new zip for this Starter Kit. It includes many overview videos explaining how to setup this ebook (which you already knew if you watched the previous session courses) but it also includes some extra videos which cover sound fx, buttons, and particle FX. All things that can be used to tell your App Reviewer that your book is worthy of inclusion in the actual App Store (or they may tell you to rebuild it as an iBookStore product)

And if you’re not interested in learning much about XCode but you want to build an iOS Ebook, well here ya go! You can now purchase this EBook StarterKit and only learn what you need to know to get in the store. For the most part, the guide videos are pretty short, and the initial setup is darn easy (just replace the existing images “page1.png, page2.png”, and so on ). So yes, this is definitely for beginners to XCode and app submission. Just be sure you’ve got a Mac to develop on!

Optimizing Flash for the iPhone or Android

Justin — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 16:24:40 +0000

So I guess all I talk about on this blog is how to make apps now, but hey, that is kiiiinnnda the future of things for us illustrators, animators and web developers. And I’m sure I’m not the only one steering you toward app development, if you aren’t already, so by now hopefully you’re getting the hint. But this is good news for anyone not on the Mac (or just resisting learning XCode), Jeremy Hicks has returned with the beginnings of an epic course in Optimizing Flash for the iPhone (or Android). I have to keep reminding myself to write “or Android” when describing this tutorial, because writing less-bloated code is better for any mobile device, but I feel like this course is iPhone specific because Jeremy just went through hell and back to forge his Flash-made iOS app, Yin the Master of Yo, into the smooth-running application it is. I’ve played the app many times now, and it runs faster than anything else I’ve seen on the iPhone that Flash has packaged up. And for a buck, you can see for yourself too. Think of it as a $1 tip for sharing some of what he knows for freeeee….

… but that video is only the first 45 minutes of a MUCH longer course where Jeremy reveals all his newfound tricks. The tutorial focuses a lot on optimizing Actionscript 3 (as opposed to teaching the basics) so for those of you already familiar with AS3, you’ll be surprised how you can completely trim the overhead out of the language and get your app running at 40-60 frames per second. And aside from just the code, you’ll see how to create sprite sheets and do everything possible to make a fast app.

So stay tuned for details on the rest of the course. Actually we have a few more hours in the bag, so if you’re really jonesing for what’s already been recorded, post a comment and maybe we can do a pre-release type sale. Enjoy.

And I’m back!!

Justin — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 16:15:06 +0000

Actually I haven’t been anywhere, but I did forget to post anything here on the blog. Oops. Well whats new??? I’ve got a new Brian Z tutorial to release very soon. And in my Holiday relaxation time, I’ve been tinkering a bit more with Box2D, and a heck, I’ll admit I’ve been more than tinkering. I put together a free block stacking game. Its in the mighty hands of App store reviewers now, but if you guys wanna looksie, you can click below. I won’t say this is a drinking game, because I shouldn’t encourage such behavior, buuuuut in college I used to play an actual block stacking game called Super BlockHead (you stack blocks till they fall) and a fun add on rule to that game is if you knock over the stack, guess what, take a drink. I can only imagine how fun it would have been if I had any friends to play it with me. (kidding, I had one or two friends =)

Anyway, the Box2D template gave me the idea to revive the ancient art of block stacking, so I gave it a ninja twist with some different pieces. And the rest of the code, like occassionally switching the pieces to dynamic or static, I’ve already taught in Session 4 of my iOS course. Just sayin’ is all. =)

And yes, this is what I do in my free time. Amuse myself with games only I would play. But if I were born in a different time, I’d probably be painstakingly painting miniature pieces for a train set that goes around a little village in my basement. Which gives me an idea for a new app actually… hmmmm… Train Stacker.

Available NOW!

Oops forgot to mention this. Two new tutorials on Box2D and Cocos2D

Justin — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 03:36:28 +0000

Forgetful me, I forgot to mention here on the blog that I sent out two new zips of movies for previous buyers of my iOS tutorial series, both of these on Box2D (and Cocos2D) So far we’ve dropped a bunch of ninjas into the Box2D world and defined exact collision shapes around them. And looked at switching the shapes between being dynamic and static, which basically means, they either participate in the physics collision world or they don’t. You can read full details on what’s been taught so far at the tutorial details page. But here’s the fun part…

What’s ahead! OR should I say, what’s ahead?? You can help me decide, but here’s where I’m leaning. Lets make an Angry Birds style game. That hugely popular game is programmed with Box2D, so why not lift the veil on whats going on there. Thinking about whats involved isn’t that far off from some of whats already been taught.

Anyone like that idea??

All of CartoonPaint’s tutorials for $25 AND another new app!

Justin — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 17:04:24 +0000

My friend Chad just told me all his site’s lessons are on sale in a big ol’ Holiday bundle for only $25…

Also Jeremy Hicks, who taught a lot of our After Effects courses and one of our first iPhone tutorials, has just released a VERY fun Yo Yo app. And this was made using Flash CS5.5 so Jeremy will be teaching a lesson soon on how to seriously optimize Flash for packaging an iOS app. And this app definitely has convinced me Flash can be used to develop a game with a great frame rate (which was previously a hurdle I ran into). So it’ll be interesting to see what Jeremy did to make this run so well.

Click to View in iTunes store