Who CAN'T read Flash ?

General Forums Blender and CG Discussions
1

Right now I don’t know who I am reaching with these tutorials.
That some, few or many, just don’t like them is understandable : it’s the liked minds factor.
What I want to know is if there are people who actually can’t play them and why ?
Can it be remedied ?
What form of file would be more accessible to them ?
Pdf, ps… html is an obvious option, especially if you’re not writing the tutorial… :stuck_out_tongue:

I personnally use Win 2K and Linux and I can read Flash on both after a rather effortless plugin installation.

I rarely come close to a Mac machine but I guess that they can read Flash as well. Am I right ?

What about the different BSDs ?

What about all the favours of Unixes ?

I need info !..

(A tutorial ? :wink: )

Thanks to all who will help.
:slight_smile:

Jean

2

what if I am too lazy?

Yeah, installing flash is easy, but I don’t see it as worth it. Most of the time I see flash is advertisements, which is too much.

every tutorial I’ve seen done in flash could be done equally well (or better, animation annoys me) in another medium.

for pdf people have to install adobe acrobat reader (or gview or something else which escapes me atm)

the macs I’ve played with had flash. How it got there I don’t know.

I would doubt it. And if it were possible, would those people install it? Is it really that necescary?

I beleive I have flash installed in windows, not linux.

3

It’s your right.
Somehow I doubt it but I don’t want to unwittingly spoil a hard earn repute here.

Yeah, installing flash is easy, but I don’t see it as worth it. Most of the time I see flash is advertisements, which is too much.

I hate Flash too. If there’s no ‘Skip that Flash Intro’ button I don’t even bother to visit the site. I never visited Shockwave’s site, never played a game in Flash.

My tutorials are nothing like that.

The only thing I ever appreciated in Flash is some legitimate art sometimes done with it.

every tutorial I’ve seen done in flash could be done equally well (or better, animation annoys me) in another medium.

Which ones ?
That’s the best format I found until now. Which doesn’t mean that it is flawless. Unless you’re counting Java applets or ActiveX ?
Just kidding. :smiley:

for pdf people have to install adobe acrobat reader (or gview or something else which escapes me atm)

That’s life in the CyberWorldddd (echo here)
I consider PDF as a possible alternate offering myself, no more.

I would doubt it. And if it were possible, would those people install it? Is it really that necescary?

Those are the answers I am trying to get in ThisThreadddd (some more echo : I paid for that special effect ! Must use it.)

I beleive I have flash installed in windows, not linux.

Try to have a look at one of my tuts, if you dare ! (what ! no more echo already ! Cheech! )
Just deactivate the javascript (you hate that too don’t you ? :wink: ) of your browser and stretch its window, so the ad bar to the right will fall off your screen.
That’s what I do.

Thanks for the info sir.

Jean

4

… maybe it was your tutorial? (in flash)
was recent, and I forget what it was on
(whatever it was, it was short or I didn’t go the entire way through it)

I just don’t like waiting for animations to finnish playing so that I may go on to the next step. Non interactive formats don’t have this problem at all.

5

There’s a ‘skip anim’ button in my last two tutorials, but I get your point.
I made the animations as short as possible and none last more than 10 seconds. Most are 1-2 seconds only.
The fact that you likely already know much of the matter explained might not help either. Hence the skip anim.
Nevertheless most people learn faster with these new Flash tutorial than with my old html ones.

In any case it is quite interesting to learn how you see it.
Hopefully you’ll find something to make you happy somewhere else.

Jean

6

I have to agree with IamInnocent. I tried out Wink myself and it really impressed me: I made a 12 screen shot tutorial at work in 10 minutes. Animation is minimum, but essential: cursor/pointer movements. And the best part is that the Wink tutorial is very compressed. The 12 screen tutorial in 640x480 resolution generated some 60kB Flash file!

-More K-

7

the tuts are great :smiley:

keep 'em coming

I’m using xp and redhat 9

there’s just one thing…

how about adding some nice soft background music, and a beer :wink:

cheers

lilo

8

:smiley:

You don’t have it ?
Funny, I have it here !
:wink:

Seriously, almost, what I miss the most compared to video tutorials is seeing real gestures and hearing a real human voice.

Jean

9

To tell the truth I just don’t like Macromedia for some reason. They make me paranoid like M$ does. They’re really neat but I’m just not familiar enough with them.
Now if you made the tutorials as a .blend/text with animations for download… this would be very cool. I’d like to see the entire internet downloading .blend instead of .swf. I know, I’m a helpless dreamer living in the future but I really am greatful to the OSS community and believe in what they are doing. I have flash on the much disdained windows side of my box but I rarely go there anymore. Too heavy a yoke for me but still useful for some tasks.

lilo wrote:

how about adding some nice soft background music, and a beer

Make mine homemade blackberry mead, goat cheese and someclassical please

:wink:

Geez, am I rambling or what?
Yes I have pdf, ps, and of course html and you are gonna force me to swf aren’t you?? :o

10

I understand : the similitudes are eerie.
At least the .swf format is open. Hence Wink owes nothing to Macromedia.
Yet one needs the Shockwave plugin…

Now if you made the tutorials as a .blend/text with animations for download… this would be very cool. I’d like to see the entire internet downloading .blend instead of .swf. I know, I’m a helpless dreamer…

You’ve planted a seed in my mind there. I mean : I know of demo files and attempts to make some .blends pass for tutorials. They’ve never been too popular.
None of them are what I look for : a format that is accessible to every level of users, fun and easy to follow. But is there not some way to make it really, I mean really good ?

Yes I have pdf, ps, and of course html and you are gonna force me to swf aren’t you?? :o

For PDFs I still have to solve the immense file size problem.
For the time being yes, I’ll remain with Flash, but you’re loosing nothing for waiting, as we say in the Freedom language.

Jean

11

I can’t read flash, it’s not a human readable format… :wink:

Regarding embedding tutorials directly in blend file, I’ve had some talk on that exact subject with Justin MacArthur (MacBlender) and if all goes like we where we want it to, then interactive tuts in .blend file will probably be the way to do it in the future.

Martin

12

But I bet that you can read my mind right now.
:stuck_out_tongue:
:smiley: :smiley: :smiley:

Regarding embedding tutorials directly in blend file, I’ve had some talk on that exact subject with Justin MacArthur (MacBlender) and if all goes like we where we want it to, then interactive tuts in .blend file will probably be the way to do it in the future.
Martin

Would you care to be a bit more explanatory, expansive and/or extroverted ?
It might save me some useless head scratching and writing in Flash if you open up and more people get into the adventure to speed up its development.
:slight_smile:

Jean

13

there is a nice extension for mozilla/firebird called Flash Click to View which effectively manages to show a ‘click to view’ button instead of any flash animation on page. really helps against those annoying flashing ads.

you have to re-install the extension after upgrading browser, though. i found myself not viewing anything in place of flash anim after a browser upgrade (about:plugins didn’t show any problem though).

in non-animated (stills?) tutorials you don’t see the actual workflow of an advanced user, only read (maybe rather scarce) description about it. so you might spend hours to reach to those handy shortcuts/ways of doing things. in animation you see them (almost) in realtime, they’re really cought by the eye, almost unconsciously. (well this isn’t entirely achievable only by using flash, the creator have to have some skills too :wink: )

i think IamInnocent is doing really fine job right now, even if flash is some mysterious format owned by some money-hungry corporation, but i guess there is no viable replacement right now so this will have to do.

(maybe when gameblender with webplugins is revived… will then things change?8))

14

The bottlenecks are more in the technical development area right now, but I’ll let you know when we have anything usable.

Basicly, it would be a high level API build on top of the Python API (it would need some enhancement, but not many) that would allow people to “script” tutorials: mouse move, clicks, text in any window, pausing, …

Martin

15

Open and close windows, change buttons and pour some beer. OK I’ll take a caisse of it.

Jean

16

I have to say that the blender baisc_training tutorial was one of the most exciting initial experiences I had with blender. I went though it over and again until I could do it all without the tutorial and it made blender manageable for me and made me feel like an old dinosaur like myself could DO blender.

http://www.d.umn.edu/~dhomich/training/

especially the animation aspects of the tutorial.

I’d like to see the web plugin and other aspects of blender become the OSS norm for a lot of things but especially tutorials for blender. But .blends integrated with blender and browsers would be very cool also. Maybe something for 'verse " implementation. I don’t know what the h— I’m talking about :expressionless: but you get the idea.

hehe! you know how to make my day!

17

I’m an active supporter of the basic-training file (I did the translation for H@dj and added some stuff), but I must admit that I am impressed by IamInnocents Wink(s)… wink, wink…

%<

18

Well then let me says thanks for helping me walk through the blender doorway. It’s a great world of creativity and empowerment for communication. You made the very beginning easy and I’m not ashamed to say it. It gave me hope. I need more tutorials just like it on every subject. As comprehensive as IamInnocents labors with tutorials has been I can see the makings for an extremely versitile and thurough training system. Using .blends only makes sense doesn’t it?

19

Your tutes are the first time I have appreciated flash since doing the interactive tutes for deamweaver2, a couple of years ago, Also they are the only tutes I have looked at just coz they were there and interactive, most tute i just seek out when I have a problem. They are fast and precise and your language is good. Some might be too lazy to get flash but others are too lazy to read tute and do have flash. new learners can be fickle things.
Keep em coming (if ya feel like it).
Its helping broaden the accessabilty of learning.
A blender specific interactive tute thing would be great for more advanced tutes too!

I’m off to veiw the RVK II one

20

Not only can I read your tutorials, I have been very impressed and think they are GREAT and very HELPFUL!!!

Thank you so much!! And please keep it up.