Sunday, March 10, 2013

Xiao Xiao


Xiao Xiao
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Xiao Xiao (Chinese: 小小作品; pinyin: Xiǎo Xiǎo Zuò Pǐn) is an internet Flash cartoon series by Chinese animator Zhu Zhiqiang, featuring stick-figuremen performing choreographed fight scenes. Some of the cartoons are interactive and game-like. All cartoons are in the Adobe Flash format, although Xiao Xiao #1 was originally in AVI format. It has now been converted to Flash format.
"Xiao Xiao" literally is the Chinese character for "small" repeated twice in Mandarin Chinese; here this reduplication connotes an affectionate diminutive – an equivalent might be the English expression "itty bitty" or "lil' old". Each Xiao Xiao cartoon is given a Chinese title with the adjective "Xiao Xiao" preceding a descriptive noun phrase. Xiao Xiao #1 was originally titled "Xiao Xiao Zuo Pin", which translates to "A Little Bit of Creative Work". Since then each Xiao Xiao cartoon has had a different noun succeeding "Xiao Xiao" – #4 is titled "Little Sheriff", and #7 is titled "Little Movie".
The term has gradually shifted meaning from the cartoons themselves to the main character, an anonymous black stick-figure – in this context it means something akin to "little fella", appropriate since in most perspectives Xiao Xiao and his fellow stick-people appear tiny and childlike, with disproportionately large heads and small limbs.
Xiao Xiao is placed in various dangerous situations to prove his martial arts prowess, often against other stick figures who appear more or less identical to himself. Usually other stick figures are also black, but can be other colors, and Xiao Xiao's perpetual nemesis is the Boss, a purple stick figure who commands the enemy sticks and appears to be Xiao Xiao's only peer in ability.
Others have seized on Xiao Xiao's popularity to make animations exploiting the easy-to-draw style of stick figures and minimalist backgrounds, often creating cartoons that are sequels or takeoffs of the official Xiao Xiao cartoons, especially Xiao Xiao #3.
Episodes
·         Xiao Xiao #1 is a simple fight between two stick-figure men, parodying the look of Hong Kong martial arts films by taking the level of violence in the fight to extremes.
·         Xiao Xiao #2 adds interactivity; the stick-man (Xiao Xiao) faces a series of physical challenges, the outcomes of which depend on the player's timing. The game contains many features that would later become a staple of the Xiao Xiao series, including revamped animation and character design, most notable the introduction of the series' main antagonist, "The Boss" (although he is not referred to by name until Xiao Xiao #3), a magenta-colored crime boss who acts as the final challenge of the game via a boss fight.
·         Xiao Xiao #3 is a kung-fu style fight scene in a simple line-drawn building; Xiao Xiao faces off against a seemingly endless series of stick-man opponents (actually around forty enemies) using fast-paced martial arts moves; the simple background, two-dimensional movement, vanishing corpses and regenerating enemies call to mind side-scrolling games. The encounter ends in a final showdown between Xiao Xiao and a purple stick-man labeled "Boss" (another video game reference) in a fight that parodies multiple scenes from The Matrix (especially Xiao Xiao's last move, a slow-motion air kick which resembles that of Trinity at the beginning of the movie as well as using a sound clip straight from the movie). The visual theme of Xiao Xiao, a plain black stick-man, fighting against a purple stick-man Boss, remains constant throughout the series. This is the best known Xiao Xiao animation, and has been shown on MTV. This Xiao Xiao is one of the more famous and thought of as the one hardest worked on, and is noted to be one of "the original stick fighting flash movies", and sets the bar for the many stick flash movies.
·         Xiao Xiao #4 is an interactive first-person shooting game in the style of Virtua Cop, casting the player as Xiao Xiao in the role of a Western-style sheriff complete with cowboy hat and six-shooter. It ends with another scripted fight scene with the purple Boss (which parodies another scene from The Matrix).
·         Xiao Xiao #5, billed as a "Battle to the death... and beyond" returns to the two-dimensional fighting-game-reminiscent side-view style of #3. This time Xiao Xiao and the Boss duel using various conventions from anime and manga, exhibiting supernatural powers such as the use of magic spells, the ability to pull weapons out of hammerspace and to continue their battle through astral travel after death. It is notable for its comedic ending, where an ambulance shows up in the middle of the fight, taking the two character's dead bodies away. The two look at one another, then both run after the ambulance.
·         Xiao Xiao #6 returns to Xiao Xiao #2's style but this time with a bit more of a plot, forcing the player to button-mash Xiao-Xiao through a barroom brawl.
·         Xiao Xiao #7 and #8 are the most elaborate of the animations, forsaking the side-view of previous Xiao Xiaos for a fully three-dimensional, cinematic camera view throughout. Once again riffing on films like The Matrix, they depict Xiao Xiao's infiltration of the Boss's mansion and his pursuit after the Boss escapes. #8 ends with a "To Be Continued" message and has yet to have a sequel, though given that the ending is a bit of an anticlimax, and that two more flashes unrelated to this one came out after it, the message may have been ironic.
·         Xiao Xiao #9, a departure from the rest of the series, is a fully interactive beat em up game in the style of Final Fight and Streets of Rage where Xiao Xiao uses Guy's moves. Rather than a plain, pen-and-ink background, the background is this time a full-color, realistic re-creation of a desk ostensibly intended to be Zhu's (the computer monitor has a screenshot of Xiao Xiao #3). As with other Xiao Xiaos and the original beat-em-ups that helped inspire them, Xiao Xiao must fight through a series of stick-thugs before confronting the Boss.
·         Xiao Xiao #10 or Xiao Xiao: Mall Brawl appears to have been created by Zhu as an advertisement for the CityPlaza mall in Hong Kong; it is an altered version of Xiao Xiao #3 wherein the main character/hero is a red stickman (to match the CityPlaza logo) and the background has been embellished to make it resemble the inside of a shopping mall. You can also see the original black Xiao Xiao making a cameo appearance for a short while. He is in the background and doesn't fight, but simply rides past on a pair of ice skates. Also, a scene from Xiao Xiao #3 is also playing on the TV during the fight. Contrary to belief, Xiao Xiao was not initially aired on MTV, but originally was viewed on the Flash animation super community known as www.Newgrounds.com.
·         Xiao Xiao Beer Ad #1 appears to have been created by Zhu as a Chinese advertisement for Heineken Beer. This one is one of the more recent movies and also is the first to feature eyes and facial expressions on the stick figures. The movie starts with odd coding lines moving down the screen in a style similar to the matrix and then it zooms in on a Heineken Beer bottle. The scene then changes to the original black Xiao Xiao holding a Heineken Beer Bottle and a bo-staff. Suddenly some enemy stick figures appear and try to steal his beer. Xiao Xiao fights them off with his staff in an action packed fight scene, while keeping the bottle safe. After the second to last grunt falls, one last one appears and attempts to shoot him with a pistol. Xiao Xiao proceeds to skillfully dodge the bullets and then strike the ground with his staff, causing a massive crevice to crack open in the earth and the foe falls right in. The movie ends with Xiao Xiao holding up the bottle and smiling, then it shifts to a Heineken advertisement saying "Get Connected, Heineken."
·         Xiao Xiao Beer Ad #2 is the sequel to Xiao Xiao Beer Ad #1 and uses the same style, as well as picks up immediately where the last one left off. It also appears to be a Chinese Heineken Beer advertisement as well. After the one enemy stick figure falls into the crevice, he then jumps out, hinting that he must be the Boss. This one then proceeds to create physical doubles of himself in a manner similar to Naruto's Shadow Clone. The stick figure and his doubles then charge toward Xiao Xiao. He then fights off the enemy stick figures with his staff and slays every last one of them. After the last one is defeated, a car drives by him. Xiao Xiao scratches the side of the car with his staff. A stick figure then emerges from the back door and he slams him down immediately. After that, Xiao Xiao proceeds to drop the staff and fly into the air, Superman style, and then lands on top of a giant Heineken Beer bottle. At the end, the scene once again shifts to a Heineken advertisement saying "Get Connected, Heineken," but with Xiao Xiao standing heroically on top the bottle.
Characters
·         Xiao Xiao
Xiao Xiao is the protagonist of the series. He is a martial arts expert, as well as an elite assassin. His skills are unmatched, and the only person who comes close is the Boss.
·         Bad Boss
Bad Boss is another martial artist, and appears to be some sort of a gang leader and the main antagonist of the series. He is the only one who can give Xiao Xiao a decent fight, and has been beaten by Xiao Xiao on multiple occasions. His name is a reference to most video games, in which a very difficult character near the end is called a boss. The Boss usually appears inmagenta.
·         The gangs
Various-colored stickfigures who are beat down by Xiao in a matter of seconds.
Legal dispute
In June 2004, Zhu filed a lawsuit against Nike for plagiarizing his cartoon stickmen in their commercials. Nike representatives denied the accusations, claiming that the stickman figure lacks originality, and is public domain. Zhu eventually won the lawsuit, and Nike was ordered to pay $36,000 to the cartoonist.

Saturday, March 9, 2013

Adobe Flash Professional


Adobe Flash Professional icon.pngAdobe Flash Professional

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia                                 
Adobe Flash CS6.png
Adobe Flash Professional
 is a multimedia authoring program used to create content for the Adobe Engagement Platform, such as web applications, games and movies, and content for mobile phones and other embedded devices.

History

Adobe Flash Professional is the successor of a software product known as FutureSplash Animator, a vector graphics and vector animations program released in May 1996. FutureSplash Animator was developed by FutureWave Software, a small software company whose first product, SmartSketch, was a vector-based drawing program for pen-based computers. In 1995, the company decided to add animation capabilities to their product and to create a vector-based animation platform for the World Wide Web; hence FutureSplash Animator was created. Initially, the only way to deploy such animations on the web was through the use of Java platform; however, the Java platform was later replaced with the Netscape's plug-in architecture. The FutureSplash animation technology was used on several notable websites such as MSN, the official The Simpsons website and Disney Daily Blast of The Walt Disney Company.
In December 1996, Macromedia bought FutureWave and so re-branded and released FutureSplash Animator as Macromedia Flash v1.0. In 2005, Adobe Systems acquired Macromedia; subsequently, in 2007, Adobe Flash CS3 Professional, the next version of Macromedia Flash was released.

Versions

Release
Year
Description
FutureSplash Animator
1996
Initial version of Flash with basic editing tools and a timeline
Macromedia Flash 1
1996
A re-branded version of the FutureSplash Animator
Macromedia Flash 2
1997
Released with Flash Player 2, new features included: the object library
Macromedia Flash 3
1998
Released with Flash Player 3, new features included: the movieclip element, JavaScript plug-in integration, transparency and an external stand alone player
Macromedia Flash 4
1999
Released with Flash Player 4, new features included: internal variables, an input field, advanced ActionScript, and streaming MP3
Macromedia Flash 5
2000
Released with Flash Player 5, new features included: ActionScript 1.0 (based on ECMAScript, making it very similar to JavaScript in syntax), XML support, Smartclips (the precursor to components in Flash),HTML text formatting added for dynamic text
Macromedia Flash MX (6)
2002
Released with Flash Player 6, new features included: a video codec (Sorenson Spark), Unicode, v1 UI Componentscompression, ActionScript vector drawing API
Macromedia Flash MX 2004 (7)
2003
Released with Flash Player 7, new features included: Actionscript 2.0 (which enabled an object-oriented programming model for Flash, although it lacked the Script assist function of other versions, meaning Actionscript could only be typed out manually), behaviors, extensibility layer (JSAPI), alias text support, timeline effects. Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 included all Flash MX 2004 features, plus: Screens (forms for non-linear state-based development and slides for organizing content in a linear slide format like PowerPoint), web services integration, video import wizard, Media Playback components (which encapsulate a complete MP3 and/or FLV player in a component that may be placed in an SWF), Data components (DataSet, XMLConnector, WebServicesConnector, XUpdateResolver, etc.) and data binding APIs, the Project Panel, v2 UI components, and Transition class libraries.
Macromedia Flash 8
2005
Macromedia Flash Basic 8, a less feature-rich version of the Flash authoring tool[citation needed] targeted at new users who only want to do basic drawing, animation and interactivity. Released with Flash Player 8, this version of the product has limited support for video and advanced graphical and animation effects. Macromedia Flash Professional 8 added features focused on expressiveness, quality, video, and mobile authoring. New features included Filters and blend modes, easing control for animation, enhanced stroke properties (caps and joins), object-based drawing mode, run-time bitmap caching, FlashType advanced anti-aliasing for text, On2 VP6 advanced video codec, support for alpha transparency in video, a stand-alone encoder and advanced video importer, cue point support in FLV files, an advanced video playback component, and an interactive mobile device emulator.
Adobe Flash CS3 (9) Professional
2007
Flash CS3 is the first version of Flash released under the Adobe name. CS3 features full support for ActionScript 3.0, allows entire applications to be converted into ActionScript, adds better integration with other Adobe products such as Adobe Photoshop, and also provides better Vector drawing behavior, becoming more like Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Fireworks.
Adobe Flash CS4 (10) Professional
2008
Contains inverse kinematics (bones), basic 3D object manipulation, object-based animation, a text engine, and further expansions to ActionScript 3.0. CS4 allows the developer to create animations with many features absent in previous versions.
Adobe Flash Professional CS5 (11)
2010
Flash CS5 was released on April 12, 2010 and launched for trialling and normal buying on April 30, 2010. Flash CS5 Professional includes support for publishing iPhone applications. However, on April 8, 2010 Apple changed the terms of its Developer License to effectively ban the use of the Flash-to-iPhone compiler and on April 20, 2010 Adobe announced that they will be making no additional investments in targeting the iPhone and iPad in Flash CS5.
Other features of Flash CS5 are a new text engine (TLF), further improvement to inverse kinematics, and the Code Snippets panel. 
Adobe Flash Professional CS5.5 (11.5)
2011
Flash Professional CS5.5 was released in 2011. It includes improved support for publishing iPhone applications, following Apple's revision of their iOS developer terms. Flash CS5.5 also contains several features to improve mobile app workflows across devices. Some examples are: Content scaling and stage resizing, copy and paste layers, sharing symbols across FLA files, symbol rasterization, incremental compilation, auto-save and file recovery, and integration with CS Live online services.
Adobe Flash Professional CS6 (12)
2012
Adobe Flash Professional CS6 was released in 2012. It includes support for publishing files as HTML5 and generating sprite sheets.

Stykz


Stykz

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Stykz (pron.: /ˈstɪks/ stiks) is a freeware multi-platform stick-figure animation program, developed and maintained by Sons of Thunder Software, Inc. It is similar to the popular Pivot Stickfigure Animator and builds upon many of the features from it, also adding its own functionality. Version 1.0 for Windows and Macintosh has been recently released. A version for Linux is being developed and is in an internal beta phase, and will be released as a Public Beta when it is ready.

Development


Stykz in early development stages
Near the middle of 2007, Ken Ray, a freelance software developer and consultant, began writing Stykz after discovering the limitations of Pivot, and the fact that there was no solution available for Macintosh users (forcing them to have to resort to using an emulator or virtualization program to run Pivot). Pivot was also no longer under active development (its last "release" being in 2005), so the fixes/additions that Pivot users were asking for were likely not coming any time in the near future.
Ken had been creating software using Revolution for a long time and knew the benefits of its cross-platform development and deployment capabilities, along with built-in drawing and painting tools that could be scripted to allow the end user to implement them. So he decided that it was time to develop the first cross-platform stick figure animation program that would address the limitations of Pivot and also continue to be actively developed and influenced by feedback provided by its end users.
Development continued off and on through 2008 until December 25, 2008, when the first Macintosh Public Beta was released. This date, affectionately dubbed "Stykzmas", became the first time the public had ever heard about Stykz. Ken decided to release the Macintosh version firstbecause of the needs of the Macintosh community, plus the fact that Windows users already had a stick figure animation tool.

Usage

Stykz is a frame-based animation system where a user creates and manipulates stick figures composed of "segments" (limbs) and "nodes" (joints). Segments can be created and manipulated directly on the Stage (the main window) through the use of the tools in the Tools palette:

Features

Because Stykz was built based on Pivot, they share many similarities. Stykz has almost all the features in Pivot except sprites and background image support. More features will be included as the software develops.

Tools

The Select tool lets the user move figures and pivot segments around nodes, and can be used to create, distort, or stretch segments while the Subselect tool lets the user select individual segments for the purposes of changing just the selected segment's properties such as color, thickness and angle. Figures can be created, distorted or stretched directly on the stage.
The PolyFill tool lets the user fill in areas of a stick figure by creating a polygon which is "attached" to several nodes of a figure. The Add Line and Add Circle tool lets the user create new line or circle segments to an existing figure.

Figure Manipulation

Once a figure has been created, it can be scaled, rotated, colored, and moved to wherever the user desires. Individual segments can also be modified, changing the stacking order of segments, or changing the individual segment properties.

Document/Figure Management

Stykz also allows for working on multiple documents (animations) at the same time, and figures can be transferred between documents through the use of copy and paste. Stykz animation documents are saved with the "stykz file" format (*.stykz), and hold all the frames of animation within. Stykz documents can also store certain meta-information about the document like Owner and Description.
It also features a Library where the user can store figures for later reuse. Figures in the Library are stored in a "styk file" format (*.styk), which can be transferred to and shared with others.

Pivot Stick-figure Importation

Stykz also lets the user import Pivot 2.x and 3.x "stick files" (*.stk) and can convert them with almost 100% fidelity (although there are some differences between how Pivot and Stykz manage circles that could require certain rare figures to require some sort of "tweaking"). Figures containing sprites can be imported, but the sprite in the figure will be ignored and the rest of the figure will be imported. There are future plans to support sprites in Stykz; when that happens, sprites in Pivot figures will be imported.

Playback/Export

As the user creates their frames of animation, they are represented in the Frames palette. The animation can be played back inside Stykz, and the frame rate can be adjusted anywhere from 1 to 33 frames per second. When the user is ready, they can export their animation to one of several formats: QuickTime movie (*.mov), Animated GIF (*.gif), or series of sequenced GIF, JPEG, orPNG images (one for each frame). These formats can then be moved to a movie editor or Adobe Flash in order to add sound or special effects if desired.

Bugs

As with all new software, Stykz still has some bugs. Some are (but not limited to) a save glitch, inability to hand type numbers and use arrow keys, removal of the task bar, shutdowns, and others.

Major Milestones

Stykz 1.0 (pre-release versions)

These versions were released at various stages to validate features and identify bugs to be fixed for 1.0's release. The first public beta release for Mac was on December 25, 2008 and the first public beta release for Windows was on February 22, 2009. Several Beta and Release Candidate versions followed.

Stykz 1.0

This is the official release of Stykz 1.0, and was released on November 26, 2010.

Stykz on DarkDemon.org

On November the 26th, Adam Davis of DarkDemon.org announced Stykz 1.0 and created a separate forum for Stykz on Darkdemon. Users feel that this may replace Pivot in the near future, however the Stykz section is not as active as the Pivot sections of Darkdemon.org.

Media Coverage

Stykz was reviewed by Chris Pirillo (of TechTV fame) on his video blog, live.pirillo.com, on July 14, 2009.
On October 5, 2009, DAWN.com, an independent Paktistani web-based news service, covered Stykz in their 'YOUNG-WORLD' section.
On January 24, 2010, NCS-Tech (a site dedicated to providing information about K-8 educational resources) reviewed Stykz as a resource for kids to use to expand their creativity skills.
MakeUseOf.com reviewed Stykz as one of three stick figure animation programs on June 24, 2010.
In addition to the above, Stykz has been reviewed on several software application download and review sites, such as FreeDownloadaDay.com and The Kim Komando Show. 

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