Want to enter ThinkQuest next year.

V-P

I'm planning on entering ThinkQuest with 4 of my friends next year, and out of all of us, I'm the most experienced, and that's not very good. I need some help on some basic Flash Website creation. Any help you guys can give is appreciated. Tutorials, tips, hints, samples, whatever...

V-P

cmon guys....

RWB

try pixel2life.com for help with flash... but what is thinkquest?

V-P

RWB wrote:

...but what is thinkquest?

check it out here:
http://www.thinkquest.org/competition/index.shtml

V-P

It might be easier for you guys to help if I told you what I needed help with one by one:
1st: A logo, I have't talked to my friends yet, but since it has to be educational, and we have this unbelievably great forum , I was thinking of doing it on Computer Hardware, and putting together your own rig. So I need a fitting logo for that. BTW, I'm thinking of making th whole thing in Flash, so...

RWB

For proffesionalism sake, I'd go the route of only accentuating a site with flash instead of making a whole site in flash. Not sure what all your site is going to have, but believe me.... a site looks much better in the eyes of judges who know their stuff if it's not 100% flash.

V-P

I would, but I don't know the first thing about CSS, HTML, or XML, and I know a wee little bit about Flash...

RWB

Let me tell you this... ONE DAY. Spend a single day building a test site with CSS and HTML and believe me you'll know it. CSS is confusing only becuase how simple it really is, especially if you have dreamweaver. The only downsides to doing this is that you'll need to test the site in multiple browsers and make sure it shows up properly in each one and you loose a day learning something new. But the rewards are great, it seems this competition is about building a site about a topic for general information right?

RWB

Take a look at CSS Zen Garden.... http://csszengarden.com/

It's a series of links to the same site over and over, but each one looks way different, granted some of these are a bit advanced, but the great thing is that you can look at the code they used! Once you get used to knowing CSS you'll know what to look for.

V-P

RWB wrote:

Take a look at CSS Zen Garden.... http://csszengarden.com/

It's a series of links to the same site over and over, but each one looks way different, granted some of these are a bit advanced, but the great thing is that you can look at the code they used! Once you get used to knowing CSS you'll know what to look for.

I'll take a look RWB. Thanks and let me know if you find anything. HTML, CSS, Flash, whatever, I don't care, I want to learn all of it anyway. And, about that logo, I'm sure I want to make the logo in Flash.

RWB

Flash is great for logos, you can easily animate it and do all sorts of crazy things with action script if you're willing to use it.. especially if you want it to do dynamic things like interactions with the user. Again, flash is great if used properly, but generally building an entire site, especially for informative purposes is not very professional. If it were something small, like GM's site, for Ford's where some of the sites dedicated to a truck or car may be done entirely in Flash, but the information is static and generally they won't ever update it.... it's primary purpose is a short showcase.

But buttons, media, animations, are great for flash. The information is best left to HTML and CSS. Using dividers are a god becuase you can use CSS to do insane things quickly. Create multiple appearances for a single site without changing the content.... which is why I linked to css zen garden.

V-P

Yeah, I'm looking up tutorials of css on google right now, and my head is spinning from all the syntax. Did you take a class dealing with some kind of programming, because I have never taken any computer classes, and I'm taking ORACLE next year in HS.

RWB

I did take classes, but after I had already gotten to know it a bit. I haven't done any websites in a while now becuase I do tech support mostly now, but I still remember most of the information, most notably the do's and don'ts most people and even teachers at regular colleges don't seem to know. The assistant teacher for my Advanced web design class, for example, did the "American Idiot" music video solely in flash... by himself for the most part. So these guys were definite industry pro's... and not your general certified person I seemed to get when I went to a regular college. BTW most those guys learned the information on their own... it can be easier if you have the determination to do so. With HTML though, it's NOTHING... seriously, you could memorize the whole shibang in a day. There is DHTML and stuff that is still simple enough though as well for more fun projects.

pixel2life.com has many many tutorials on these subjects. htmlgoodies.com is where I started though, like back when I was 14 or so :P can't believe it's almost been a decade LOL

V-P

RWB wrote:

I did take classes, but after I had already gotten to know it a bit. I haven't done any websites in a while now becuase I do tech support mostly now, but I still remember most of the information, most notably the do's and don'ts most people and even teachers at regular colleges don't seem to know. The assistant teacher for my Advanced web design class, for example, did the "American Idiot" music video solely in flash... by himself for the most part. So these guys were definite industry pro's... and not your general certified person I seemed to get when I went to a regular college. BTW most those guys learned the information on their own... it can be easier if you have the determination to do so. With HTML though, it's NOTHING... seriously, you could memorize the whole shibang in a day. There is DHTML and stuff that is still simple enough though as well for more fun projects.

pixel2life.com has many many tutorials on these subjects. htmlgoodies.com is where I started though, like back when I was 14 or so :P can't believe it's almost been a decade LOL

I definatly have the determination to learn it, just like I had determination to learn hardware. I'm about the same age (15) as you were when you started, so I'll give it a shot.

Buddha16

Try this site too for some good tutorials and such with all that is flash.......

Flashkit

Good Luck!! Playa!!

V-P

Buddha16 wrote:

Try this site too for some good tutorials and such with all that is flash.......

Flashkit

Good Luck!! Playa!!

Aite plya

RWB

Flashkit is definitly a great site, and not just for flash either

V-P

Ok guys... I've looked for it everywhere, but I just can;t find a tutorial dedicated to logos. I found one a while back, but I didn't understand flash enough to save it, and I bookmarked it, but then I formatted my drive.

RWB

What are you trying to find out? I mean I know you want a tutorial on a logo, but is it animiated? Or do you just wanna know....? I mean if I wanted to make a logo I just draw down several ideas and pick the best one, then work on it some more to make it better. Be sure people know what the logo means(if it has meaning..) legible, neat.

V-P

Well Actually, what I had in mind was an lightly animated (maybe just spinning or something) video card or something, as it was going to be about computer hardware, but my friends want to do something like AIDS that's heart-wrenching to kill the judges inside so that they give us the vote.

V-P

I just had an idea.... I could do AIDS or whatever, have th logo as a protien, and I could add links to Folding@Home everywhere, and maybe suggestteam 93?

RWB

well no need to suggest it though that'd be nice, you could use team 93 as a source of information complete with quotes from teammembers and such. Plus tehre is a big faq and a bunch of information about F@H here at short media.

V-P

Just went to Barnes and Nobles because I wanted to get the U.S News College rankings, and my mom wanted to get some cookbooks, and gues what section caught my eye? The computer programming section --- ****loads of Flash and stuff, so I got Macromedia Dreamweaver 8 for Dummies, Macromedia Flash 8 for Dummies, and CSS Web Design for Dummies. I gas i ma a dumi?

RWB

There is a really fun book called PHP Programming for Gamers or something... shows you how to make various games online from chess to a neat little MMO game Not too thick either. But that is for fun, and I never finished it fully becuase some of it didn't work grr

V-P

So I talked to my guidance counseler and asked her if it would be possible to make it into a club next year so that we could stay after school to work on it in the school's labs, and so the school woul by Flash, Dreamweaver, etc. She said she'll get back to us tommorow. Hope for the best!