Tag Archives: Flash

The Coulthard Challenge

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A digital six sheet game developed with Whitespace, for Safer Scotland.

Featuring 13 time Grand Prix winner David Coulthard

The game featured specially recorded voice clips from former F1 driver David Coulthard, who also appeared in TV ads as part of the same campaign.

Promoting hazard awareness on country roads

With the focus on hazard awareness, the object of the game was to negotiate the track without losing control of your vehicle. Various hazards appear around the track, such as farm vehicles, animals, and bridges. If you approach too quickly, the car spins and loses speed.

Displayed in cinema foyers right across Scotland

Taking advantage of the newly emerging interactive six sheet format, The Coulthard Challenge was featured on 50” touch screens, installed in cinemas around the country. Across the campaign, the game was played and watched by tens of thousands.

Built using the Citrus Engine and Starling for Actionscript

The game is built with Actionscript and deployed to Adobe Air for Windows. The project takes advantage of the up and coming Citrus Engine, a game engine which utilises the efficiency of the Starling framework for Actionscript.

You can play an online version of the game - this version was developed in HTML5, so there are some variations in graphic and sound quality.

The Co-operative Revolution

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The Co-operative Revolution is a graphic novel – published by the Co-operative – to celebrate the history of the Co-operative movement that began in east Lancashire in 1844.

In collaboration with Rapp UK, and Illustrator Polyp, my role on this project was to produce a digital version of the novel, to be featured on the Co-operative website.

Bank Of Dave

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This one page website tells the story of Bank of Dave, a Burnley businessman’s effort to set up his own financial institution.

Commissioned by Channel 4, the site was built to promote the documentary of the same name, aired in July 2012.

The website is a one-page scrolling site, navigable via mouse wheel and arrow keys.

It was made in collaboration with Whitespace Edinburgh.

Scott’s Abbotsford

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This is a series of interactive exhibits for the visitors’ centre at Abbotsford House, in the Scottish Borders. Abbotsford is a historic house near Melrose, which is famed for being the residence of historical novelist and poet, Walter Scott.

Architectural Designs

One of the centrepieces of the exhibition, this interactive piece gives visitors the chance to explore some of the fascinating sketches and plans that were used to build and decorate Scott’s Abbotsford.


Visitor Feedback

Visitor feedback is important to the visitor centre at Abbotsford, and they were keen to gather this feedback in a rich and engaging way. Visitors are taken through a series of questions to guage their reaction to the exhibiton, and profile their demographic.

After they have offered their opinion, they can investigate the trends of previous visitors, through a live infographic.


Ballads and Folk Tales

The Ballads and Folk Tales piece was designed to showcase a range of ballads and poems read by local people near Abbotsford.

Users can access audio excerpts of the poems through the touchscreen interface, as well as finding out information and viewing traditional artwork of the period.



Great Scots

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This game was commissioned by Scotland.org, to be featured on their website as part of Scotland Week 2012.

Great Scots is a fun game that gives players a chance to test their knowledge of famous Scottish inventors.

Collaborating with Edinburgh agency Whitespace, my role was to carry out the build phase of the game, which included a variety of interactive programming and animation tasks.

The game was implemented using Adobe Flash.

Online Drinks Checker

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A follow up to the Supermeals Recipe planner, this web app was commissioned by NHS Change4Life as part of a nation-wide campaign to encourage more responsible drinking habits.

As with the Supermeals application, this was created in collaboration with Essex-based agency Antbits, and I was responsible for development of the application’s rich user interface, and integration with server-side functionality.

The app provides an easy way to enter alcohol consumption, returning information about units consumed, the calorie content of the drinks, and the money the user could be saving.

Based on this information, the app offers health tips that are tailored to the consumption habits of the user, and lets them email this advice to their own address or that of a friend.

Supermeals Recipe Planner

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This web app was at the forefront of a British NHS nation-wide healthy eating campaign in early 2012. The full campaign was promoted across a range of channels, including TV and national press, and received a high profile launch on New Years Day 2012.

In collaboration with Essex-based agency Antbits, I was responsible for development of the application’s rich user interface, and integration with server-side functionality.

The primary aim of the web app is to simplify meal planning, by automatically suggesting seven days of meals.

For each meal, images, recipes and nutritional values are provided. Meals can be swapped if required.

When the user is happy with their suggestions, they can download all the recipes as a PDF (which also includes a full shopping list).

A secondary function is a recipe finder – the user can search the recipe database, based on meal type, or their own search terms. Again, they can download each recipe as a PDF.

Outcomes

The application was extremely successful, picking up massive user numbers (no doubt helped by the high profile advertising campaign), and providing Antbits with their most successful ever NHS tool.

All this despite scrutiny from certain areas of the national press, criticising the campaign for its “nanny state” connotations.

The Daily Mail were, naturally enough, outraged by the whole thing. They probably helped drive a large percentage of the traffic, though, since they prominently featured a large screenshot of the web app in their coverage. Thanks, The Daily Mail!

Address to a Haggis

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This piece was commissioned by Scotland.org, to be featured on their website as part of the 2012 Burns Night celebrations.

A work of user-generated animation, the app gave users a chance to upload their own face and see themselves reciting the famous Robert Burns poem, “Address to a Haggis”.

Working with the Whitespace design team, I was faced* with the task of bringing the storyboard for the poetry sequence to life, as well as the development of the facial upload interface itself.

To add to that, the project had be turned around in little over a week to get the finished piece out in time for the Burns Night celebrations.

The interactive animation was created using Adobe Flash, (currently the only feasible technology with which this kind of functionality can be achieved) making heavy use of the inverse kinematics tools to animated the puppets in the poetry sequence.

A deliberately lo-fi art style was used, which thankfully didn’t require complex lip synching. I decided the best approach for this was to move the mouth dynamically, using code to analyse the sound wave and move the jaw accordingly.

*Pun not intended

Skillball Challenge

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Learndirect Scotland were in search of a way to increase their customer engagement and promote their offering to businesses. ”Skillball Challenge” was designed as a way to show the fun to be had while using skill in the workplace.

The game would feature fast-paced, addictive gameplay, tempting players back to try to beat their score and get featured on the high score table.

I worked with a specialised illustrator to design the game interface, and then set about building the project using Flash.

The game required me to build an Actionscript physics engine that would model the tossing and rebounding of the paper balls around the basket. The Flash application also collected player data through a form, using Local Storage to remember players details.

The game was a great success, leaving the client pleased, and seeing great rates of interaction.

Donkeymail

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Scottish Hydro Electric is the UK’s largest generator of renewable electricity.

The company wanted to increase their customer engagement, and promote the savings offered by switching to their service. “Donkeymail” was conceived as a fun way to encourage customers to pass on the message to their friends through a customised message, “spoken” by a customisable talking donkey.

My Flash skills were tested on this one, with the project requiring the integration of synthesised speech. Working with a dot net specialist, we sourced and prototyped a voice solution which allowed us to generate audio on-the-fly that was then loaded into Flash when requested.

Flash was also used for the custom avatar interface, and the lip-synching on the talking Donkey.

Donkeymail was a victim of it’s own success – the traffic on the site was so great that at one point the voice server crashed under the weight of requests.

The site was a hit with the client, the customers, as well as our own family and friends.

The cult status was confirmed when it picked up the DADI award, for Best Interactive, Entertainment Website or Campaign.

Little Book Of Money

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Scottish Widows’ Little Book Of Money is a yearly offline publication, offering independent financial advice on personal finance matters. The client were very keen to make the book work as a digital product, in an effort to capitalise on the improved reach and measurement of success.

New footage of the famous Widow was specially shot to be used in the book, a company first for an online campaign.

My expertise was used to build the overall Flash framework of the site; to source and integrate engaging animated transitions between content; and to integrate the rich video footage at our disposal.

The site’s content was maintained with the use of an innovative XML solution, which allowed for rapid updates without having to re-publish any Flash assets.

The digital ‘Little Book…’ was produced at almost half the cost of the print version, delivered in half the time, and achieved increased audience engagement.

The site was also nominated for a DADI award (Financial Services Website or Campaign).

APB Website

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Internationally-renowned games developer Realtime Worlds required a marketing site to promote their high-profile MMO, APB, pre-launch. The game featured a fully immersive world, in which gangs of criminals and law enforcement vie for control of the city of San Paro.

The objectives for the website were to showcase the game’s explosive gameplay, while also promoting the extensive customisation options offered.

My role on the project was to implement the overall Flash framework on which the site content was overlaid.

Much of the motion design and interaction design was carried out as part of this framework, as well as optimising the heavy graphical content of the site.

A large focus of the site was the video content, which required a custom-built video player, using advanced controls and interactive elements.

Although the game itself had mixed levels of success, the site met with positive reviews and some great usage figures: 1,239,532 unique visits in the first three months from 192 countries; 5,060,285 Pageviews; 15,000 visits a day on first week of launch; 326,000 video repost views on youtube.

The site was also nominated for a DADI award (Best Interactive Entertainment Website, Game or Campaign).

“Heavy Petal Band”

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WTF is this madness?

This is a piece I created for an Edinburgh art event in September 2011.

I used the opportunity to experiment with animation (in particular stop-motion and time-lapse), video editing, and projection mapping.

Projection Mapping – that’s always done on buildings right?

Buildings are commonly used in projection mapping, but the technique can be applied to any objects or spaces.

My set-up was quite simple, projecting onto a wall of frames, with a row of books underneath.

Did you create the images yourself?

All the imagery you see in the pieces was created from my own photography – about 300 photographs per piece.

The photos were taken and then stitched together to create the animated objects. These objects were then manipulated digitally, to be synced with the audio track.

Was there any programming involved?

There was no programming needed for the main part of the piece, but the light projected onto the books below the frames is live sound spectrum data from the audio track.

This data was processed and turned into a visualisation using Flash.

“Landscape With Cranes”

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WTF is this madness?

This is a piece I created for an Edinburgh art event in September 2011.

I used the opportunity to experiment with animation (in particular stop-motion and time-lapse), video editing, and projection mapping.

Projection Mapping – that’s always done on buildings right?

Buildings are commonly used in projection mapping, but the technique can be applied to any objects or spaces.

My set-up was quite simple, projecting onto a wall of frames, with a row of books underneath.

Did you create the images yourself?

All the imagery you see in the pieces was created from my own photography – about 300 photographs per piece.

The photos were taken and then stitched together to create the animated objects. These objects were then manipulated digitally, to be synced with the audio track.

Was there any programming involved?

There was no programming needed for the main part of the piece, but the light projected onto the books below the frames is live sound spectrum data from the audio track.

This data was processed and turned into a visualisation using Flash.

Panic The Cat

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Who Is Panic the Cat?

Panic used to be a normal kitty – until the day his owner left him to fend for himself on a Newcastle council estate, while she ran off to London with dreams of being a popstar.

Left alone with nothing to do but read piles of fashion and gossip mags, Panic grew up to become a bitter and twisted fashion expert.

In 2011, Panic was hired by Facebook game “Beautytown”, to become their voice of fashion – dishing the dirt on the biggest names in the world of entertainment.

How did the campaign work?

Every day for a month, Panic released a new celebrity put-down video. The videos were promoted daily through Facebook, along with other blog content from the character.

Visitors to the site were shown the most recent video, and given the option to view videos for the previous days.

Users were given exclusive access to tomorrow’s video by sharing the site through Facebook and Twitter.

And what was your input?

Coming in just after filming had finished, I was tasked with editing the videos and syncing them with the separately recorded voice-overs.

I then built the website that incorporated the video, audio, images, and social media components, and made them all play nicely together.

What’s the technology behind the site?

The site was built using Flash – this decision was made because the majority of the content was video and audio, and required a degree of copy-protection. The wide ranging penetration of Flash Player was also a factor in the decision.

Javascript was used to provide the social media integration, and we used a PHP script to access the live images by proxy.

“Let’s Get Fizzical”

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WTF is this madness?

This is a piece I created for an Edinburgh art event in September 2011.

I used the opportunity to experiment with animation (in particular stop-motion and time-lapse), video editing, and projection mapping.

Projection Mapping – that’s always done on buildings right?

Buildings are commonly used in projection mapping, but the technique can be applied to any objects or spaces.

My set-up was quite simple, projecting onto a wall of frames, with a row of books underneath.

Did you create the images yourself?

All the imagery you see in the pieces was created from my own photography – about 300 photographs per piece.

The photos were taken and then stitched together to create the animated objects. These objects were then manipulated digitally, to be synced with the audio track.

Was there any programming involved?

There was no programming needed for the main part of the piece, but the light projected onto the books below the frames is live sound spectrum data from the audio track.

This data was processed and turned into a visualisation using Flash.