A little more detailed animation on the backround
really funny and it makes me feel bad for cyclist!
Author Comments
My first paid animation! (For rightcharlie.com)
This is an advert for the concept of elevated bike-lanes. The idea behind it is to take bike-lanes in cities and raise them above the roads. This in theory makes cycling safer, quicker and frees up room for traffic on the road below.
For a while now I have been working for various web-development companies making flash applications (mp3 players, ribbit applications, menus etc etc) Then I finally got a job making an animation!
This project was a lot of fun. The client was by far the best I've ever worked for and gave me lots of creative freedom.
Like to say a big thank-you to Newgrounds. Without you I would never have gotten into Flash and would probably have taken that full-time position at McDonalds by now. (Instead I only do one day per week)
As a little thank-you gift to you guys, I have developed a framework that makes testing an animation much easier. (To any programmers that might pass through all it does is set up an array that plays through the movie-clips that make up the full piece, you can move the piece you want to test to the start of the array so that you don't have to sit through whatever comes before it. This assumes that your animation doesn't sit on the main-timeline in full).
This works with AS3 and if you want a copy PM me with your email address and I will send over the files with a short documentation.
Also a quick message to all the flash developers that might chance upon this. YOU CAN MAKE IT! I left college in June and I've already got too much work to keep track of. This submission is certainly not the best thing in the portal. However it meets the project spec perfectly and the Client loved it!
Hope you guys like it to...
Enjoy
(Audio was purchased on istockphoto, sorry to the guys who responded to my thread but this suited it much more, will get in touch the next time I need something)
Nice movie
The audio seemed to be a bad quality but good enough
Elevated bike lanes seem like a good idea for 2 seconds and then you realize that it would take a lot of maintenance and construction to build something that is unnecessarily complicated. In most areas where bike traffic is heavy there are usually dedicated bike lanes or trails.
Of course, none of this is your concept, you just made the flash. For what it is supposed to be, it is good.
Problem
Animation is just fine. And doing what your client wants= awesome. But this is a pipe dream and very problematic. Now first off here in the U.S., some states, if the bike traffic is high enough have bike lanes in there city. the lanes are designed to keep bikes out of traffic but off side walks. True accidents still happen but in any situation accidents will occur. The main reason they do it this way is money. Most areas have trouble upkeeping there roads never mind elevated ramp ways. That's the first problem second is Materials. I've worked with carbon fiber its strong sure, but not a "long term material". To do what is sagesteg concerete foot bridges and exit ramps would have to be made. Not above our capabilities but costly, making an entire road network thats a thid of the size of the pedestrian network. And believe me there is not always a side walk. Also the way it seems your client wants it designed it would be destroyed in the first hurricane it runs across. Another problem is you have cyclistt on the top level. Brutal. Its tough riding up hill, never mind constantly riding up a 8 foot incline. Not to mention most streets are not long enough for a feasible ramp to get to that height, that won't exaust the cyclist. A better idea is to have the pedestrians on the top level as stairs can be more space friendly, won't tire out people as much as it takes effort to ride a bike. Even if it was made of concrete and bridge materials and the bike were on the bottom it's still too costly and would end up more a hindrance than a boon. Also it would simply take too much time and money for such a small percentage of the traveling population.
odd subject matter for a flash movie
this was odd to see as a flash movie you dont normally see this type of informative thing on newgrounds nothing against it just different. the animation was alright and i liked seeing something new. i dont think the idea would work though the infrastructure would be too expensive for most city's to integrated.
Slim-Bean responds:
Cheers for the review!
I'm not sure about the cash side of things for the lanes themselves. My Client seems to know what he's talking about though... We'll see in a few years I suppose......
totally true
if there were bike lanes in my town first off that be great and elevate that be even better :)
Slim-Bean responds:
Yeah I thought the concept was pretty cool!
Who knows maybe in a few years this might be a reality...