Imagine…
by Glen Rhodes on Jul.12, 2010, under Bloughts
Something I felt inspired to put together:
Around the world in 6 days….
by Glen Rhodes on Jan.30, 2010, under Bloughts
I just thought I would share the past wondrous week I’ve experienced… The image says it all… it starts at the green line, and ends at the yellow line…. Let me tell you openly… the jet lag is hell. I think even my sense of gravity is reversed…. who knows..
Writing from the train…
by Glen Rhodes on Oct.01, 2009, under Bloughts
This is a cool new first. I’m sitting on the train, using my phone with bluetooth, posting on my blog. Cool. Not sure how to upload photos from the camera on the phone…. but that’s next time – my battery is at 19% – but it ushers in entire new possibilities for workflow.
What is my recording, mixing, orchestrating and mastering?
by Glen Rhodes on Jun.24, 2009, under Bloughts, My Music
People often ask me, or simply give me blank stares when I describe what it is I do with music. See, I’ll often go to a site, record the singers, musicians, etc. I’ll then end up with a “raw” source sound. I try to separate different classes of sound from each other. Often times, the working space is not ideal for that – it’s not a studio.
For example, I’ll get the choir on one microphone in one part of the room, the piano on another microphone, and then another microphone for the soloists, if there are any. I’m thinking specifically about a recent recording I did for a local high-school, and how I took the raw sound, and (in my opinion) made it sound very professional. Read on, and specifically, there’s a little Flash toy I made that allows you to flip between the untouched raw sound, and the finished sound, after I have done all the stages in my process.
(continue reading…)
Some Inspiration…
by Glen Rhodes on Jun.22, 2009, under Bloughts
Most people have seen the inspirational poster that shows a basketball sitting on the floor and an empty net hanging in the background, and the message below is “You will always miss 100% of the shots you don’t take“.
My wife and I thought of a different take on it; one that is positively oriented rather than almost like a ‘warning’.
FlashForward: Live From New York
by Glen Rhodes on Jun.14, 2009, under Speaking
Outside my hotel room window - Empire State Building peeking out.
I’m sitting here in the internet cafe at the hotel, The New Yorker Hotel, for Flashforward. What an amazing conference so far. I did my talk today – it was lots of fun. Everyone was really responsive and I didn’t even notice that I had gone 15 minutes over my 1 hour.
New York city is also amazing at this time of year. It’s so busy at lunch there’s hardly room to walk, but it’s better in the evening. Haven’t done much sight seeing yet, but I’ve walked up along Broadway, Madison avenue, 5th ave, and seen a bunch of things. Here’s the view from my hotel room. That’s the empire state building 3 blocks away.
Times Square
Legends Symphonic Composition
by Glen Rhodes on Jun.14, 2009, under Piano & Orchestral
This is a song I wrote for my “other gig” with Harpo Productions for her huge Legends episode. This was used as a theme and on TV spots / commercials / promos for this landmark ABC prime time special. It has a huge symphonic sound, and it is one of the accomplishments of which I am most proud.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Macromedia Flash Professional 8 Game Development
by Glen Rhodes on Jun.13, 2009, under Books
Well, the new book is out It’s called Macromedia Flash Professional 8 Game Development.
Paperback: 528 pages
Publisher: Charles River Media; 2 edition (June 1, 2006)
It’s not a “brand new book”, it’s a “Second edition”. For those who don’t have the original, it’ll be all great and new to you. For those who have the original, you’re going to find a few updates and items for Flash 8 (and that’s especially what Flash 8 is good at; games)… To me, the entire tile-game engine in Flash 8 is worth its weight in gold.
It’s a great book, and I hope people enjoy it – it took a bit of work to put together.
I’m really excited about it, and it covers some of the best things that Flash 8 has to offer in relation to games. It’s currently being used as curriculum material at many educational institutions around the world.
We cover full tile game development (like Super Mario) making use of the BitmapData object in Flash 8, and you’ll get to learn all sorts of amazing things and effects that can be specifically applied to games.
Introduction to Game Development
by Glen Rhodes on Jun.13, 2009, under Books
Here’s a book I wrote a chapter in recently, and it’s a book I’m immensely proud to be a part of.
This year I had the honor of writing a chapter in a truly amazing book. The book is called simply “Introduction to Game Development”, published by Charles River Media, and it is a whopping 1000 page hard cover.The book is written by 27 of the worlds best game designers, developers and artists. I did the chapter on Flash games. This book is the first of its kind – it covers every facet of game development yet it is not lacking in detail. (continue reading…)
Creating a Dynamic Soundtrack
by Glen Rhodes on Jun.13, 2009, under Magazine Articles
Practical Web Projects, May, 2005.
This is an article on how to use Flash to create a dynamically generated soundtrack. Using a careful blend of musical elements, with matching tempos, one could transition between different feelings and intensities of music, without a seams in the transition.
Making a dynamic soundtrack where music seamlessly shifts to match the visual subject matter.
Music is perhaps the most powerful tool we have at our disposal, as web and Flash developers, for drawing an emotional response from our visitors. For years, Hollywood has used music to enhance a scene and give it maximum emotional impact. In fact, music in movies often strictly guides our emotions along, making us feel certain ways from moment to moment; suspense, relief, suspense again, relief, more suspense, disaster, relief.
The ability of the composer to move the music smoothly from one state to another is something that we can imitate when we create dynamic soundtracks in our websites. Essentially, we’re going to be using several pieces of music and tying them smoothly together, changing based upon what we’re viewing on the main site. The music will be seamlessly transitioned from one piece to another.
The trick here is that all the pieces of music must have several fundamental things in common. First, they must all be in the same key. In order to transition from one piece to another, crossfading smoothly, we can’t use two pieces in harshly opposing keys, otherwise, as they fade, the sound will be jarring. Secondly, all the pieces must have the same tempo, or speed. This is necessary for them to “line up” properly.
In Flash, we’ll be using the Sound object extensively. We can have up to 8 sounds playing at once in Flash, and we’re going to take advantage of this. Our dynamic soundtrack will consist of 7 possible genres of music. Each genre consists of a single looping piece of music, 16 seconds in length. At the launch of the Flash site, all 7 pieces will be started, and set to loop indefinitely. The volume of all these will be set to zero (silent). We then smoothly fade between them to create our dynamic soundtrack.
