Hey !
As now all have noticed, FlepStudio continues to live mainly thanks to the sponsors.
One of these is Flashloaded, makers of excellent components for Flash.
This article is dedicated to one of the components of Flashloaded which is called 3D wall.
What is it ?
A stunning 3D image gallery! Truly beautiful.
Moreover, in my opinion, has a price fair and accessible.
What target / level of users is addressed?
Certainly for beginners who want to achieve amazing effects and outside the town without using Actionscript or interpolations on the timeline.
But not only, it’s good even for advanced users that requires a fast tool to save precious time in creating an image gallery of sheer impact.
Having said that I decided to write a review on this fantastic component.
I’ve created some examples:
let us see it…
Installation
Be sure to have the last version of Adobe Extension Manager installed on your machine, or download it here.
Double click on file 3DWall.mxp and it opens the Adobe Extension Manager.
Acept the disclaimer.
Reboot Flash or refresh the components panel!
You will find the component in components panel of your Flash under a new folder named 3DWall.
Creating images and thumbs
First of all we need to create a folder with the images we use for the gallery created by component.
Then I create images and previews with names equal. For example, if the first image is called img_1.jpg, his thumbnail should have the same name.
Suppose that we create a folder named wallimages and inside put the images.
Then we must create a folder inside wallimages, which called thumbs for example, in which we previews of the images.
The names of folders will be included in an XML file.
Next I explain how to do that.
Creating an XML file
To ensure that the component runs and knows where are the images which must load from outside, you need to create an XML file with the following structure:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<gallery imagesFolder="wallimages/" thumbnailsFolder="wallimages/thumbs/">
<img src="1.jpg" width="500" height="375" />
<img src="3.jpg" width="500" height="375" />
<img src="5.jpg" width="375" height="500" />
<img src="6.jpg" width="500" height="375" />
<img src="7.jpg" width="375" height="500" />
<img src="8.jpg" width="375" height="500" />
<img src="9.jpg" width="500" height="375" />
<img src="10.jpg" width="500" height="375" />
<img src="11.jpg" width="500" height="375" />
<img src="12.jpg" width="375" height="500" />
<img src="13.jpg" width="500" height="375" />
<img src="14.jpg" width="500" height="375" />
<img src="15.jpg" width="500" height="375" />
<img src="16.jpg" width="500" height="375" />
<img src="17.jpg" width="500" height="375" />
<img src="18.jpg" width="375" height="500" />
<img src="19.jpg" width="500" height="375" />
<img src="20.jpg" width="500" height="375" />
<img src="22.jpg" width="500" height="375" />
<img src="23.jpg" width="500" height="375" />
<img src="24.jpg" width="500" height="443" />
<img src="27.jpg" width="500" height="375" />
<img src="28.jpg" width="500" height="375" />
<img src="29.jpg" width="500" height="375" />
<img src="30.jpg" width="375" height="500" />
<img src="31.jpg" width="500" height="375" />
<img src="32.jpg" width="500" height="375" />
<img src="33.jpg" width="500" height="375" />
<img src="34.jpg" width="500" height="375" />
<img src="35.jpg" width="500" height="375" />
</gallery>
In the gallery node there are 2 attributes (imagesFolder and thumbnailsFolder).
In these 2 attributes must include the names of the folder images and previews.
Then insert a node (child of the node gallery) for each image:
Each child image contains 3 attributes: src, width and height.
How value of src attribute insert the name of image. In width the width of image and so on.
Managing component
Once the component dragged on stage, we open the window “component inspector.”
It opens a window with different parameters configurable.
About all these parameters I dwell only on the first: XMLSource.
In this we have to specify (by entering the absolute or relative url ) where the XML file is ( because it has informations of the pictures ).
All other parameters exclusively operate the effects we want to apply image gallery.
Requirements
Adobe Flash CS3 only.
Windows o MAC
Publish settings
Flash Player 9 or +
Actionscript 3.0 only
Rating
frequency of use: Essential
complexity: Plug and Play
stability: Robust
popularity: innovation
total: excellent
See you next !
