Josh Sager Media: Creative Technologies Blog

So this morning I decided I would join the ranks of the rest of the world and I’ve joined Flickr. Honestly I don’t know what has taken me so long. Most likely it’s because my SLR is on the fritz and thinking about taking nice pictures bums me out.

Any how I put a flickr badge to the right, and I’m looking to post more images from the up and coming events like bootCamp, Pittsburgh Podcamp 2, and my PTI Brush up.

Ohh yeah and my wedding. It’s going to be a busy summer

Tonight’s meeting was fantastic! Not only was it a Software Giveaway Meeting, tonight was the big announcement of the New Adobe CS3 Software. Which made me even more excited. I almost ran every stop sign just to get there. No worries we arrived safely. And by we, I mean I was able to charm Rach into coming to the meeting tonight. Free software does a lot things.

As we waltzed into the main room I was immediately showered with hello’s and handshakes. The Flash users group is almost like a monthly reunion of geekdom. We all know why were are there and we totally embrace it. Tonight was no different. Spirits where hight, food was free, and we were all about to lay our eyes on the new Flash CS3.

The meeting started off with a great demonstration of Flash Games created and ported for the Nintendo Wii. Which in my mind, is a huge. This is the beginning of independent game development and distribution for a console system. No longer do developers need complex tools and SDK’s to create console games. It has the potential to consider Flash as a viable game development tool. I know that Flash games are not a new thing, but,leveraging a game controller on a console systems is a very big thing! The possibilities are very intriguing.

From wii to quicktime. Ben fired up some videos on some new features of Flash CS3. There were 10 things that were pointed out, and I’m going to try to remember 5. Here goes nothing

1. New GUI look. Panels can be docked to an icon mode, which is very handy especially on a laptop
2. Quciktime movies can now be rendered to play the same things as a flash preview. Doesn’t sound so cool huh? Well before nested movie clips wouldn’t render. Everything had to be a graphic. Ben created a snow effect. Rendered it out WITH an alpha channel and plopped it right into After Effects. Can you believe that? Flash is now a motion graphics tool
3. The ActionScript IDE has code collapse and comments buttons. (yeah!)
4. Animation can now be copied and pasted to other movie clips… (wait for it) via actionScirpt. OH SNAP!! Das right. Create any animation you want. Right click and copy animation to ActionScript 3.0. Open a anew file with a movie clip. Paste and ba-da boom ba-da bing. Animation. This will allow animators and coders to be friends.
5. PSD and AI support for importing in Flash. Now this was something I expected, but the level in which it happens is very amazing. When a PSD is imported into Flash a popup with all of the layers gives the user quite a few options in how they want Flash to handle it. Very very slick.

Then came Free Software time. Heather won the first round and Ian won Cs3. So congrats to both of them. I hope they really enjoy it!!!!

Thank you Ben, Wayne, Joe, New-Perspective, Adobe, and Apple for a great night. It’s great to share in the jovial geekdom with other Flashers. There is a lot of really cool stuff going on in Pittsburgh and I’m very excited to be apart of it.

Rules for putting on a bad presentation.

1. Hype up a web cast that breaks in the middle of your presentation.
2. Open the floor to Q&A in the middle of the presentation
1. Have the first 4 questions ask about flaws in your software
3. No back up projector screens or computer (learn from Steve Jobs. He always has a back up)
4. Take a potty break in the middle of the announcement

I have to give them credit for winging it, this is a really tough spot to be in, but this is no way for a large company to be acting in front of the entire world.

http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/launchevent/webcast/

We are only a few minutes away from the big announcement. I’ve been all over adobe’s website today checking out all of the cool features. Great collateral!!!!

Web Premium
http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/web/?xNav=WP

Design Premium
http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/design/?xNav=DP

Great Flash Brochure
http://www.adobe.com/creativelicense/

As I stepped outside this morning to make my way to work, I could sense that today was going to be a good day. The air was fresh, the sun was shining, the temperature warm, and the birds extra chirpy. It’s as if mother nature knew that today, Adobe will be launching their new CS3 software.

If you in the Pittsburgh area we are having a launch event this evening at out Flash User’s Group Meeting in the strip district. Ohh yeah I almost forgot, if you show up you can win a FREE copy of the new CS3 software, so there is really no reason you can’t stop by.

As for the new software, I can not wait to see it in action. I’m truly giddy like a child at x-mas. I haven’t been this excited since… well the Flash 8 launch, which was at 8-8-05 at 8:00 am (very clever).

Honestly look at the new Flash, it looks very slick, and AS 3.0 is awesome!! How could you not be excited. Not to mention the integration with Photoshop, which I am extremely intrigued by. I have very high expectations for this suite and I really hope that Adobe delivers.

ps thanks sweet discord for the CS3 Scoop.
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I just found the cnet article. I’m reading it right now!

Master collection is $3000!!!!

And Mac’s got screwed!!! CS3 Software will only run on intel based Macs!!!

What a bummer. The biggest software announcment ever and it’s become overshadowed by a web leak. Welcome to the big leagues. Adobe, meet microsoft and apple. They are pros at this sort of thing.

(see the cnet article here)

Come to our meeting and win CS3!!!!!!!!!!!!!

pittmfug.org

I knew I should have screen capped it!! Earlier today on amazon there was a link to cs3, but it’s now going to a 404. CS3 is not supposed to be announced until tomorrow, further more the listing said it wouldn’t be out until April 20th. I think somebody at amazon accidentally posted the information early. Whooops

The original post and link are below.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000NDICK4?tag=weeno&camp=0&creative=0&linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=B000NDICK4&adid=1E8C8VJ4GBB5MPP8GWXN&

A friend sent this over to me. Can you believe it? Flash and Dreamweaver are now CS3

Other software includes:
Adobe InDesign CS3
Photoshop CS3 Extended
Illustrator CS3
Flash CS3 Professional
Dreamweaver CS3
Acrobat 8 Professional

All for $1600 US. Could be worse right?

This sketch was created for fakeDane over at thisTimeForReal.blogspot.com. Earlier last week he had asked me to do a sketch of him. Unfortunately I don’t know the really identity of this web alias, but I thought it would be fun nonetheless. So fakeDane whoever you are I hope you like the sketch.

Day 14 of the sketch blog is officially the end of this competition. Thanks to broken pencil studios, and Sum of David for their participation. To clear some things up, I actually did not win. While I was away at the Spring Break Conference I chose the Athens night life over my own contest. Whoops So congratulations Sum of David aka Rachel, you have met all of the criteria and have posted all 14 days.

Despite me losing my own contest I have learned some things about myself.

1. A lot can happen in 14 days
2. I can make time to sketch if I really want to
3. I made a fuss about doing some of my sketches, but deep down I really looked forward to doing them everyday
4. I’m much more likely to stay consistent with something if there is a life cycle to it. When the time line is infinite I have a much harder time sticking it out when life gets in the way.
5. Rachel is a great artist and seeing her posts really pushed me to try other things outside of my comfort range
6. I will definitely do something like this again, possibly themed next time
7. The sketches only took about 15 - 20 mins and mostly allowed me to unwind and relax
8. Wacom tablets aren’t really all that bad
9. Alias Sketch is amazing!
10. Sometimes making new content will get you posted on someone else’s website (look under the March 23rd post)

Since I was the subject of a portrait sketch I asked Rachel to return the favor this evening. It’s far from perfect, but it has some likeness. Only one more day to go yeah!!!!