Turntable Viewer version 2

I’ve just released version 2 of my Turntable Viewer to showcase rendered turntable clips on the web.

Major new features in version 2 are:

• Implemented a loader for jpg/png/gif image sequences.
• Implemented a theme option to create a custom theme for the viewer.
• Included better documentation.
• Changed to a more flexible Creative Commons license agreement, which allows the viewer to be freely used on commercial and corporate websites as well. Go nuts!

I rewrote the entire application architecture from scratch since the last release to be fully object oriented for easier additions of new features. I will be occupied with some work in the coming weeks so I decided to take a snapshot of the current version and release it today as I won’t have time to look at it again for the next month or so. There was a few more things I wanted to add and some things I wanted to fix, so I guess I’ll make another update later this autumn when I get some time for it.

In the meantime, enjoy this new version, I hope the inclusion of the image sequence loader will be useful and make it much easier to use.

Grab the new version of the Turntable Viewer »

Cheers!

Screenshot of the flash Turntable Viewer

I’ve got several requests about it lately, so today I made the ‘quick-n-dirty’ release. With quick and dirty I refer to that I haven’t had time to write any proper documentation or add all features that I’d like it to have for a public release. I did add the option to customize the control bar’s colors through an external XML file today though.

I’m very busy at the moment, so instead of holding back the release until I get time to finish everything I want, feel free to use this version if you’re one of those hardcore web people who don’t mind poking around a bit yourself to learn how it works.

Check my included example html, xml and swf files in the archive to learn how you can set it up and do some customization. At the moment you need to convert your rendered sequences to a swf file (like the ones in the example folder) so you need a flash authoring application to do that. That will change for the next version where you will be able to use an image sequence of jpg or png files instead without the need for any flash authoring whatsoever to use it.

Download the Turntable Viewer here.

Enjoy!

Screenshot of the Flash Turntable Viewer

If you want to use it for your site, you can download the Turntable Viewer here »

Now when my portfolio update finally is around the corner, I wanted to have something like this to accompany the content I’ll put there. And it will also come in handy for my ZBrush sketches and doodles here in the journal. So expect to see lot’s of more turntables to spin around in here.

Other than making a new design, the structure of the website has changed. And for the few subscribers I do have, the URL to the feed has changed. I’ll have the old URL redirecting for some time, but to make sure you keep the subscription live, please update your RSS/feed reader to the new correct URL.

The RSS feed for artstorm.net is now located at: http://www.artstorm.net/feed/

Anyway, I was so bored with my old design, and it was way to much work to add new portfolio items and such so I didn’t really bother keeping it updated. Which was pretty evident as most images in the portfolio was from 2004 and not much has been added since.

Well, I’m thrilled to finally have got rid of the design in the screenshot below, I was so bored with it.

Artstorm V3 Design - Now put to eternal rest!

I’ve been using Wordpress for the blog part of my site for about a year, while the rest has been my own PHP/MySQL scripts that I’ve put together when time permitted. It was a pain keeping the code updated as well as going through all the necessary steps when I wanted to add new content to the site.

And as I’ve seen Wordpress progress the last year, I’ve felt for sometime that it had everything I needed to drive every part of the site with it. So I threw out all my own scripts, installed Wordpress for the entire site and spent the weekend making a new, fresh look to get rid of that old depressing brownish disaster.

Well, I’m very happy that I took the time to do this update, and I managed to fix almost everything during the weekend, I just have some minor things left to tweak (mostly texts) and then I can let it go and just focus on adding content. Woohoo!

Well back to work, new stuff to be added shortly!

This whole update started with that I got fed up with Blogger for my blogging needs and decided to make the switch to Wordpress. Blogger has worked okay for me in the past but lately I’ve got the feeling as an FTP blogger I got left out of all the new love. So with the move to Wordpress I am indeed very happy now when it’s finished, as I have much more control over the blog part of the artstorm site than I ever had before. The unpleasant part was that I was running on a Windows server earlier and had to make the switch to an Apache server to be able to run Wordpress. And it also took me some time to customize my Wordpress template to the artstorm look.

So I had to rewrite all my scripts for the rest of the site, which I had originally written in ASP and used an Access database to feed the content with. As I have had my focus on lot’s of 3D work lately, the web site update had to be done in the background when time permitted, and that’s why the site has been a bit messed up for a while.

But now everything is rewritten in PHP and I am using a MySQL database instead for the content. And the Wordpress blog runs smoothly next to my other content. I decided to update a few other things with the website when I anyway was messing around with it. So I improved the overall design, to make the site easier to read and hopefully give my visitors a better view of what I publish here, as well as adding some soon to be used functionality for quickly adding flash content to the site, streaming flash video content that is. Let’s see what I might have in store in that area.

So all parts of the site has got some love and attention and been updated now. For the first time I decided to use a non web safe font for my headings. Oh, the humanity. But it just looked so good, and it’s just a small percent, mainly Mac users, that will be affected of not having this font. Anyway, it selects some pretty good web-safe font if it doesn’t exist so no biggie really.

I also updated my URL naming policy to make these transitions between server technology go unnoticed in the future. Alas forced me this time into a massive battle with my redirects to keep my Google PR for as many pages as possible despite the new naming convention. But with a little messing around with my .htaccess files the ranking seems to have passed through to most the new pages in just a few weeks, and I guess the rest are not that far behind.

Alright, that’s it for now. I hope the site will continue to run smooth and I can focus on the much needed update of content in my portfolio and add my showreel and other things to the site.

Until next time!

Artstorm Version 2 - Shortest life span ever of a design.

Designing Music: Caesars Palace – Cherry Kicks

This weekend I felt it was time to kill of that design and give the site a more simplified lighter style, which doesn’t compete with the artwork in getting the attention.

Bye bye brownie….

Artstorm version 1 - Finally Deprecated

Web Redesign Music: Bloc Party – Silent Alarm Remixed

But now I’ve got things going a bit again anyway. I moved to a new better server the last week, and the move went smooth as a baby’s bottom, and I’m up and running on a much more stable place. But stability was not the only cause of my move, I was desperately urging for some more advanced server features that I’m going to need for some things I’ve planned for the artstorm site.

Keeping secrets is nice, and what new interesting things I intend to do with the artstorm site, will reveal itself during 2006. Lot’s of my personal projects have been going on even though I haven’t really dabbled with the site, so I’ll play a little catch up for some time to get back on track with portfolio updates and progress of my short movie projects.

I also started redesigning the site about a month ago, some changes which have already gone online, but the update is still somewhere in between, so that’s why the portfolio pages for instance look a little weird at the moment, and the text layout is not really perfect everywhere.
Well, I know I shouldn’t publish half made site updates, but, well, I did it anyway. But I’ll fix it at the end of the week.

Okay, I won’t ramble on too much now. Expect a new posting soon, and stay tuned for some nice updates shortly.

Oh, the the Gothenburg Filmfestival is going on now as well, http://www.giff.se, lot’s of nice things for me to do there. Okay, that might cause a week delay until I get into the updates of the site. Film festivals always have a high priority..

Live well! I’ll soon be back!

The StormDev Website

It will contain web applications, Lightwave Plugins and Windows Utilities.
Storm|Stats will be the first software available there, which is one of the most advanced and sophisticated web analytics tools available. It’s currently in it’s last beta phase with me making sure it’s rock solid and sorting out the last things with some Flash presentations inside the app. It will be released the same day as the software development site opens.

The Avery Smartcat Website

Well, the site is there, and it will expand shortly, so it could be worth checking it out now and then, as some real cool and amazing 3D work will be available there.

Avery Smartcat – The Coolcats Animated TV Series for Children

You could almost think I’ve turned to the dark side of the force, becoming a web designer with all these sites popping up by me. But do not fear. My 3D projects are going forward as well, and the blog will get updated with them as well shortly. I DO keep myself busy. That I’ve realized.