Categories
Urban papercraft

Urban papercraft: Custom vibe

Update #1: Everything about this project seems to have disappeard, and that is the reason this post seems to empty… If you know about the new location or a gallery; just let me know.

Custom Vibe, a site about designer toy customs and ‘making new friends’, has a little paper fella that you can customize.

There are some great entries already: check the gallery for the latest updates.

So download the blank template and start customizing.

I have seen this site before, but never gotten around blogging about it, untill Nice Bunny made a custom for it: so
[via Nice Bunny]

Categories
Design Grumm

Son of a Grumm – part 2



Son of a Grumm, originally uploaded by Matthijs Kamstra aka [mck].

A image that I made to promote Grumm and Son of a Grumm in particular on mySpace.

It seems to be working: the group of digital friends is slowly growing 😉

Read more in a previous post or about the Urban Papertoy book

Categories
Design Grumm Urban papercraft

Son of a Grumm

Matt Hawkins started a book about papertoys which will be publish early 2009 (read more about this in a previous post).

I contributed Son of a Grumm, which is an exclusive custom Grumm design, to this book.

This is: Son of a Grumm

Son of a Grumm

If you curious about the first half of the papertoys for the book (working title ‘Urban paper’), goto the Custom Paper Toys-account at Flickr.

if you want to more about Grumm visit it’s homepage and perhaps make a custom.

Categories
Design Flash

Firefox and sIFR don’t play nice

A few days back I noticed that my sIFR (wikipedia about sIFR) headers that are links didn’t work anymore. I really couldn’t remember doing that before, sIFR links always worked and now they only worked in IE7 but not in Firefox.

Today I decided to fix the problem (or remove it 🙁 ) and it was not very difficult.
One visit to sIFR website and my answer was there:

sIFR 2’s links do not work with the new Flash Player 9,0,115,0 if a hover color is specified.

I just had to replace my old sIFR and generate new .SWF font files.

For the people that don’t know sIFR:

sIFR is meant to replace short passages of plain browser text with text rendered in your typeface of choice, regardless of whether or not your users have that font installed on their systems. It accomplishes this by using a combination of JavaScript, CSS, and Flash, which renders the font. It degrades gracefully if Flash is not present. sIFR 3 is open source and licensed under the CC-GNU LGPL.

Categories
AS3 AS3 migration Flash

From AS2 to AS3 – Where did it go – onRelease

Last year I started working with AS3, and after having some startup problems, I’ve made my first application in it (not online yet).
The strange thing is, I started a new project and when I had to make a button from a movieclip, I immediately wrote it in AS2… 🙁

That AS2 is embedded deep into my brain and probably more people have this problem.
So I started this series of post about the stuff that’s changed in from AS2 to AS3.

I will probably regurgitate what other people already wrote something about, but it’s my “travel” trough AS3 land.

onRelease

One of things I use in every application that I build is onRelease.

This is what the ActionScript 2.0 Migration has to say about this:

ActionScript 2.0 ActionScript 3.0 Comments
onRelease() EventHandler flash.display.InteractiveObject dispatches event: mouseUp Replaced in the new event model by a mouseUp event.

In AS2 I know 3 ways to use it:

Categories
Grumm Urban papercraft

Paper Toy Book preview

Update #1: I got the complete list of paper toy designers from Matt Hawkins


Paper Toy Book preview, originally uploaded by Custom Paper Toys.

Last year I was invited to joint a group of 24 of the most talented paper toy designers in the world. Matt Hawkins (you know him from his site Custom Paper Toys or his contributions to Paperforest) started a book which will be publish early 2009.

On the image you see the first half of the papertoys:

Just visit flickr and see the notes on the picture, so you see who made what….

My toy is the one with the gun: I call it Son of a Grumm.
When I have my own pictures of it, I will post it here

Categories
Animation Flash Open source / Freeware Tools of the trade

Convert SWF to AVI – part2

How to convert a SWF to an AVI (without spending any cash)? I have written about this question before [Covert SWF to AVI (SWF2AVI or SWFtoAVI)] and my answer was back then: swf2avi, a freeware project by Mario Pizzinini.
SWF2AVI is not an active project (last update from 2002-08-27), but does the job very well.
I’ve used it a couple of times, and when you know who this program works, you get the result you need.

Back then I didn’t have an alternative, but I do now!

And the alternative, in my opinion, is better and more user friendly: http://www.avi-swf-convert.com/
swf avi convert screenshot

SWF>>AVI

is a more recent project (the last update is from 2005-07-20), and does the same thing as swf2avi but has some extra very handy features:

  • Drag and drop files in the converter
  • Play the file in a small popup
  • Select an output folder
  • Set output frame rate
  • Batch Convert: convert more then one SWF to AVI
  • Profiles: you can create custom conversion profiles whereto the SWF can be exported (captures size, output size, frame rate and rotation)

But it doesn’t convert sound and interactive animations may not be properly converted

It’s an freeware program, which does what it says: it converts SWF to (uncompressed) AVI. So if you need a compressed version of your animation you need another program to do that (something to write about in another post). SWF>>AVI is a Windows program which needs Microsoft .Net Framework (it will be automatically downloaded and installed if required).

The same rules (code) apply to SWF>>AVI as it did with SWF2AVI
It’s smart to use frame based animation, although it seems that SWF>>AVI is faster in grabbing the images, so timebased animation is can be an option if you don’t care for an exact export.
Otherwise use the code posted here for you convenience:

Categories
Urban papercraft

Urban papercraft: Shin Tanaka (part 4) – Sneakers

I read in an article about Shin Tanaka that he started creating paper models and templates for all his favorite sneakers he couldn’t afford when he was a student…
We seem to like the same sneakers!

Nike

One of my favorite Nike is create in paper by Shin: the Nike Air Force 1 is created by Shin in paper and can be found on the internet:
NIKE AIR FORCE 1 paper model and LMAC BABESTAS
NIKE AIR FORCE 1 paper model and LMAC BABESTAS
download the Nike Air Force One (.PDF) here.

Update #1: The internet is always changing, so some links are no longer available. I found the template somewhere else: http://www.instructables.com/file/FUURPWYFM2KBS4W/

And the Nike AF-1 can be found here:
Nike AF-1
http://www.govacant.com/shin.html
(or download the Nike AF-1 here (.PDF))

Shin has even had an exhibition with these sneakers:
Shin exhibition

Onitsuka Tiger

Shin also worked together with Onitsuka Tiger and created a template for
Onitsuka Tiger – Mexico66.
Onitsuka Tiger - Mexico66
You can create your own Mexico66: just download the blank version here: Onitsuka Tiger – Mexico66 (.PDF).

This project has it’s own Flash site: http://shin.onitsukatiger.co.uk/.
And you can send in your customs on the same site.


If you want to know more about Shin, just read the interview with he did with PingMag: read the interview.
Categories
Urban papercraft

Urban papercraft: Shin Tanaka (part 3) – Boxy

Last week I talked about the collaboration between Shin Tanaka and Nooka: nooka boxboy.
Nooka boxboy

Which was a good reason to visit Shin Tanaka site, and there it was: another cool papercraft project called BOXY (traveling over the world).
BOXY -traveling over the world

Shin wants custom designs for BOXY, but instead creating a downloadable link on his site (like Spiky Baby or Mask Hoody), the designer has to take a picture of his design and send it to Shin. He will put it on his site, and you will get your 15 minutes of fame….

Want to? Go to the page that explains what you need to do!

You should visit the BOXY page, because there a regular updates, but you can view a couple entries here:

BOXY by Shin TanakaStart slideshow here

BOXY_photo_%5BBrat%5D

BOXY_photo_%5BDarkHorse

BOXY_photo_%5Bfacu-el%20artesano%5D

BOXY_photo_%5BGonzalo%5D.jpg

BOXY_photo_%5Byebomaycu%5D.jpg

BOXY_photo_%5BROGER%5D.jpg

BOXY_photo_%5BNA762%5D.jpg

BOXY_photo_%5BDamien%5D.jpg

Boxy_photo_%5BAndrew_Loveland%5D.jpg

BOXY_travel/Boxy_photo_%5BPHIL%5D.jpg

BOXY_photo_%5Bangello_garcia_bassi%5D.jpg

Boxy_photo_%5BScott_Pollard%5D.jpg

Categories
Urban papercraft

Urban papercraft: Shin Tanaka (part 2) and Nooka

Shin Tanaka, one of my favorite urban papercraft artists, teamed up with Nooka.
Before this post I had never heard about Nooka, but they make very nice watches (which are difficult to find in the Netherlands).

Nice to know, but what has that to do with papercraft?
Nothing and everything, in a collaboration between the two, they created a papercraft project with the name “nooka boxboy“.
Check out NOOKA Collab | SHIN TANAKA.

Or some of the pictures:




And you can also submit your own designs, although I’ve been checking this site regularly but haven’t seen any updates in the Gallery.
But submitting won’t hurt, or you can make a custom just for yourself: save the nooka boxboy blank template and start designing.