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Input on my site :)

6

6914708

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 14, 2003
304
0
I am updating my site from the summer version to the fall. Let me know what ya think. The main pages are all updated, but all the subpages are still on the summer theme. Thanks! www.kurtdenison.com

Also if you want, listen to some of my music I'm workin on, and give me some comments! _/workinprogress.htm

Kurt
 
I like the site a lot! Just two issues, given the laid back and quiet nature of the images, I would have liked slower transitions from one to the other. Second, the quality of the pics (not the content, the pixelation) is robbing the beauty of the images and the site. How are you resizing them? I have not seen the quality of the original images, but from experience, my guess is that the resize step is causing a loss in quality.

The site looks very nice!!
 
I agree, the bright and fast transitions from picture to picture on the homepage are kind of distracting, it made me want to quickly click one of the links before having a chance to look at them and decide where I want to go. All in all, good site though, it looks very nice.
 
i was feelin they were a bit fast after the fact also. I am going to clean that up in the morning. Also for the quality factor, for the most part the images i use are of larger quality (some lower), then i save for web in photoshop and select jpeg medium quality. The ones that are of lower, do end up coming out a little fuzzy, and over a little time i want to filter that stuff out. Should i be going with a better quality? I try and keep load time down as much as i can, but still keep a fairly quality image. For the journal section, does anyone have any suggestions on how to speed up the load time, or what i should do for that. I feel the way im laying it out is effective for now, but it seems to load slower than i was thinking. It is just saved at 8 quality on flash 7. thanks for the comments!

Kurt
www.kurtdenison.com
 
6914708 said:
i use are of larger quality (some lower), then i save for web in photoshop and select jpeg medium quality.
Click to expand...

I have often found that I get better results when I do not use the presets in Photoshop. Make your own action and you will see better results without a hike in filesize.
 
6914708 said:
For the journal section, does anyone have any suggestions on how to speed up the load time, or what i should do for that.
Click to expand...

Did you consider a preloader? They are easy to make. It usually keeps your audience from giving up.
 
ive researched how to add a preloader in before, but i have no idea how to do it now. Do you have any good links to how to do it, or some advice? I have been wanting to add them for quite some time. Thanks!

Kurt
www.kurtdenison.com
 
My only gripe (like everyone else) is the flash to white on the transitions-- I think maybe a cross-dissolve would be better then a flash to white-- kind of startling.

I liked it! Great site overall!
 
Ugh! Those photo transitions are annoying. Get rid of them and maybe put a button for a slide show if someone wants to sit through it all. I'd much prefer to see thumbs and pick the ones I'm interested in.

Aside from that, the design is nice and I like the layout. Good job.

D
 
6914708 said:
Do you have any good links to how to do it, or some advice? I have been wanting to add them for quite some time.
Click to expand...

There is a recent post by angelneo about the site http://www.tylerproject.com. Maybe angelneo can tell you exactly how they did that, as they did a neat job. If you want a generic tutorial, I can send links I clipped a while ago.
 
The Past said:
There is a recent post by angelneo about the site http://www.tylerproject.com. Maybe angelneo can tell you exactly how they did that, as they did a neat job. If you want a generic tutorial, I can send links I clipped a while ago.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I will try to be as clear as possible. Actually there are several ways to do it, so I will briefly touch on one.

Create a preloader scene that consists of 3 frames. First frame (you can make this a range of frames) initializes all the variables. Second frame do recurring function call to itself to check the total byte size loader. The third is the ending sequence.

Oh well, I did a sample flash file for you to download and have a look.
sample flash file
 
angelneo i really appreciate the subtle qualitys of your site, its somewhat where im trying to go with my site, but i lack a very good knowledge of flash. I dont really understand the instructions, which probley sounds dumb. I am going to slow the animation at the begining way down today, research loading animations, and post tonight. Thanks a bunch for the input its a great help.

Kurt
www.kurtdenison.com
 
I haven't had a chance to do much on it lately, but I've been using pre-loaders in quite a few places on one of my sites - www.gone3d.com

They're easy to do, and you can find plenty of tutorials online. www.flashkit.com is a good start, but do a google search on flash preloader tutorial and you'll find plenty - one of them will be easy to modify and use on your site.

Which version of flash are you using.

D
 
6914708 said:
angelneo i really appreciate the subtle qualitys of your site, its somewhat where im trying to go with my site, but i lack a very good knowledge of flash. I dont really understand the instructions, which probley sounds dumb. I am going to slow the animation at the begining way down today, research loading animations, and post tonight. Thanks a bunch for the input its a great help.

Kurt
www.kurtdenison.com
Click to expand...

Keep it up, you will get there soon. I started off with little knowledge in flash as well and I am now building a flash multi-playing game with its backend server application. I will try to help you if possible whenever you need with my limited knowledge.
 
I did a lot of reading on pre-loaders and still dont quite get it, but am gonna keep pushin to figure it out. I am starting to understand it. I took everything into consideration, and cleaned a few things up a bit tonight. Slowed down the opening animation. And got rid of some style things that I didn't like much in the other version.

Kurt
www.kurtdenison.com
 
Looks nice. I have at home some old preloader tutorials that worked for me. I will send them when I get home over the wekeend.

Having both fade-in and fade-out gives you the same effect wothout having to slow down any more.
 
Ok, so now you're flashing to grey - any reason for the flashing? Why not a simpler/smoother transition. The blinking is a bit much.

As for preloaders, they're not that difficult once you understand them, its just a bit of coding. Simple ones use the first frame in the time line with a stop();, when the file is loaded, the code jumps you to frame 2. Not much more too it. Putting a small, looping animation in a different layer in the first frame gives you something to look at while it loads. Once you get the hang of it, then you can add feedback, % loaded, bytes, etc. For now just go with an cycling animation so you know it working.

If you want to give us a sample of what you're having a problem with, I'm sure there are plenty of members who could help.

Also, what version of flash are you using.

Good luck,

D
 
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