Mark Schuster
Posts: 691
Location: Welwyn Garden City, United Kingdom
Registered: 25 Jan 2006
|
Is Flash the future?
Posted: 16 May 2008 at 13:29 GMT
updated: 16 May 2008 at 13:57 GMT
|
|
Flash panoramas seem to be of far greater quality than they were a year or so ago and so I am thinking of using it exclusively in future and abandoning Quick Time/DevalVR completely. Although not universal, Flash seems to be the most common plug-in, for Windows at least, and even if a visitor doesn’t have it the name Macromedia or Adobe inspires confidence in its safety (unlike DevalVR which, tiny and excellent as it is, has no Windows signature but a name that sounds a bit like the Devil to the uninitiated - a virus perhaps. – Fiero doesn’t agree with me.)
So is Flash to be recommended and is it and corresponding HTMLs generated with Pano2VR good enough. (Pano2VR is the only application I have for Flash panoramas – easy to use but a bit limited).
I’ve got Pano2QTVR Pro, without Flash, which seems a much more flexible programme, at least when using it for QTVR/DevalVR with its excellent HTML templates, so should I spend another £27 pounds on a Flash upgrade?
Most pleasing for me are panoramas displayed with Flash Panorama Player, but I have no idea if FPP is a substitute for pano2QTVR or Pano2VR. So far as I know, there isn’t a trial version of FPP, so to try it I’ll need to layout £36.
If you guys recommend it, I don’t mind that, but what does it need and what does it provide. Can I simply load equirectangulars into it and if so JPEG, TIFF or what-have-you? Can I load .mov files? Can I load a set of cube faces? What else?
As well as Flash panoramas, what else can FPP provide? Cube faces, conversion back from cube faces to equirectangulars, QTVR etc.
Important for me, can I superimpose still text on a rotating panorama, include MP3 and MIDI sound? Hot spots? What else?
For simplicity, what I don’t want to do is offer visitors a choice of panorama viewers, so if it’s to be Flash, it has to take me well into the future.
Or is there something better out there I just haven't thought of?
Look forward to your recommendations,
Mark
|
|
alert moderator
|
|
Doug Aurand
Posts: 471
Location: Albuquerque, NM, United States
Registered: 2 Jan 2008
|
Re: Is Flash the future?
Posted: 16 May 2008 at 14:23 GMT
updated: 16 May 2008 at 14:26 GMT
|
|
Mark
Flash isn't the future of VR photography, its definitely part of the present and growing.
But I don't see Java viewers disappearing anytime soon, the same with the QuickTime Player
Deval is an excellent plug-in for viewing QTVR images, but just doesn't have the market penetration of Java, Flash or QuickTime. What I've observed is the general web surfing public is resisting the installation of single purpose plug-ins these days.
I use iPIX which has both a Java Viewer and a plug-in. When I deliver commercial job, I used to give my customers working webpages with both the Java viewer and the iPIX plug-in. Part of this "two-viewer" approach was necessitated by their older Java Viewers having a limit how big an image it could display, so the iPIX Plug-In had to installed if the person viewing the images wanted to experience the larger images.
That limitation in the Java Viewer largely disappeared at some point because ver. 3.22 can display 1.5MB images and iPIX/MEV just released ver 6. So I stopped including webpages that used the iPIX Plug-In even though the navigation was easier, rotation was smoother and the controls more intuitive.
In some form or other almost all the major viewers support insertion of text and links to sound in one way or another.
Personally I don't think offering a single technology is a smart decision if you're selling your Virtual Photography work. I'm not a big fan of Flash, mostly because I've seen too many websites where the Flash developer turned it into a demonstration of what they could do instead of a tool that serves their customer's best interest. My biggest complaint is Home Pages that take more than 30 seconds to load because of some multi-megabyte Flash movie. More than 15 seconds is really too long.
I haven't quite made the decision of whether I've going to renew my iPIX Interactive Studio license in Sept 08 and am really looking at RealViz Stitcher Unlimited (I already have PTGui 7.2) becasue of its broad range of output formats and file types. That's why I have the iPIX Format Pack for IIS, it lets me output a number of formats & file types.
In particular the Shockwave W3D format both IIS and RVSU can produce has proven useful in a Macromedia/Adobe Director Projector I had made to play from a CD. It becoming a valuable way to demostrate my work and doesn't require the user to have another "player" preinstalled, like QuickTime. The W3D format works in Director 8.5 and later with no Plug-Ins (Extras).
My appraoch had been to have as many formats & file types available as pratical, while recommending the one I think will serve them best.
One other reason not to offer just Flash is if you want to do work with companies like Marriot or Starwood Hotels (Sheraton and Westin), their websites only support Equirectangular Projections viewed with the Java PTViewer. Marriott also supports iPIX. Last I knew, neither was supporting Flash Virtual Tours.
Doug Aurand
Albuquerque, NM
|
|
alert moderator
|
|
emarts
Posts: 58
Location: United States
Registered: 16 Jun 2005
|
Re: Is Flash the future?
Posted: 16 May 2008 at 14:24 GMT
|
|
I started fooling around with FPP and I really like the simplicity of it. The only problem I have with Flash VRs is that the image seems to continue a bit once you let go of the mouse. I know it's a smll thing, but can that be turned off?
I think doing VRs in Flash will become a standard. You can't argue the fact that Flash is so popular. I only see it getting better.
|
|
alert moderator
|
|
Hans Nyberg
Posts: 713
Location: Denmark
Registered: 28 Aug 2005
|
Re: Is Flash the future?
Posted: 16 May 2008 at 14:45 GMT
|
|
emarts said: I started fooling around with FPP and I really like the simplicity of it. The only problem I have with Flash VRs is that the image seems to continue a bit once you let go of the mouse. I know it's a smll thing, but can that be turned off?
That is fully controllable in very small steps.
Use the editor and you can see how the parameters works.
the parameter for it is friction.
Reduce the friction to 0.5 and you have no movement at all after you leave the mouse.
I would say 0.7 to 0.82 is a nice area
Hans
|
|
alert moderator
|
|
Doug Aurand
Posts: 471
Location: Albuquerque, NM, United States
Registered: 2 Jan 2008
|
Re: Is Flash the future?
Posted: 16 May 2008 at 14:58 GMT
|
|
I've always liked the "slow stop" that FPP and Deval have instead othe sudden stop the other viewers have
Doug Aurand
Albuquerque, NM
|
|
alert moderator
|
|
fiero
Posts: 243
Location: La Rioja, Spain
Registered: 6 Jul 2005
|
Re: Is Flash the future?
Posted: 16 May 2008 at 15:12 GMT
updated: 16 May 2008 at 15:13 GMT
|
|
Mark Schuster said: ...the name Macromedia or Adobe inspires confidence in its safety (unlike DevalVR which, tiny and excellent as it is, has no Windows signature but a name that sounds a bit like the Devil to the uninitiated - a virus perhaps. – Fiero doesn’t agree with me.)
Yes, I agree with you, but it's difficult to change a name when a lot of users identify the name already (more than 1.6 millions of users, 120000 new users every month). Maybe DVR (or similar) is the best option that could be identified by old and new users.
I think Flash is the future for a lot of things... Anyway always it's better to have different alternatives to do the same thing, or some special cases are better covered with a specialized tool (for example local playing or other issues...)
regards!
|
|
alert moderator
|
|
gus
Posts: 372
Location: United Kingdom
Registered: 19 Jun 2007
|
Re: Is Flash the future?
Posted: 16 May 2008 at 15:17 GMT
|
|
FPP is cheap, and very, very customisable. The thing is, regardless of what you may read, to use it to its full potential, you WILL require coding knowledge.
You can try to follow the information and tutorials that accompany the package, but trust me, it won't mean much unless you can code Flash. You will probably be able to make a simple page, but that’s only scrathing the surface.
I realised this soon after I purchased FPP, and decided to employ the services of a programmer to create me 2 or 3 different templates of interactive pages that I saw online and liked. I then asked for an in-depth explanation/manual of each parameter used in the HTML and XML file, and how to change them for subsequent projects.
Now, all I have to do is change the parameters for each project.
If anyone is interested in this approach, please PM for his contact details.
|
|
alert moderator
|
|
Mark Schuster
Posts: 691
Location: Welwyn Garden City, United Kingdom
Registered: 25 Jan 2006
|
Re: Is Flash the future?
Posted: 16 May 2008 at 16:07 GMT
updated: 16 May 2008 at 16:08 GMT
|
|
Fiero, you say, Yes, I agree with you, but it's difficult to change a name when a lot of users identify the name already (more than 1.6 millions of users, 120000 new users every month). Maybe DVR (or similar) is the best option that could be identified by old and new users but you might remember I contacted you by e-mail about this very early on, and later in this forum. Non-the-less, it is your DevalVR which brings old and tired QTVR to life, so I hope you can find a way around the name for your splendid application.
Mitsubish had to do so for its Pajero car in Spain and Latin America, I'm told.
Wish you well,
Mark
|
|
alert moderator
|
|
Mark Schuster
Posts: 691
Location: Welwyn Garden City, United Kingdom
Registered: 25 Jan 2006
|
Re: Is Flash the future?
Posted: 16 May 2008 at 16:21 GMT
updated: 16 May 2008 at 16:40 GMT
|
|
Gus,
What you say about needing to write code bothers me. I'm not great at HTML and no good at all at Java Script, but aren't there templates provided with FPP, or third parties, which can be easilly modified?
Doug,
Thanks for the detailed reply. I'm an amateur (still) but should a future client have specific requirements, be sure I'll comply. But you have given me a very good idea just how many viewers there are out there.
Everyone,
No one yet has anwered my questions of FPPs input/output requirements.
Edit Hans gave me a lot of these answers while I was writing this. Thanks Hans
Thanks all,
Mark
|
|
alert moderator
|
|
Hans Nyberg
Posts: 713
Location: Denmark
Registered: 28 Aug 2005
|
Re: Is Flash the future?
Posted: 16 May 2008 at 16:34 GMT
updated: 16 May 2008 at 16:41 GMT
|
|
You can use Cubefaces and movies and if you restrict the size to 8191 pixels length you can also use cube-stribes or cylindrical and equirectangular.
The size restriction for the single files is not FPP but a Flash thing introduced in the newest flash version.
I recommend cubefaces but movies are also OK for single pages.
The ones at panoramas.dk are a mix. You may see the difference in loading.
I do not think the coding is difficult for single pages.
There are some templates for this in the tutorial and you can just exchange the files for the toolbar to your own.
I believe there are a lot of news coming soon for FPP also. Read the interviw with Denis at VRMag
www.vrmag.org/vartist/VR_industry/THE_FLASH_PANOR...
Hans
Hans
|
|
alert moderator
|
|
Mark Schuster
Posts: 691
Location: Welwyn Garden City, United Kingdom
Registered: 25 Jan 2006
|
Re: Is Flash the future?
Posted: 16 May 2008 at 16:49 GMT
updated: 16 May 2008 at 16:51 GMT
|
|
Hans,
Thanks, you tell me about inputs. What about outputs? For instance if I start with an equirectangular, can I make cube faces or re-convert to equirectangular with FPP like I do with Pano2.... apps, for instance.
Mrk
|
|
alert moderator
|
|
Ken Warner
Posts: 322
Location: Mammoth Lakes, United States
Registered: 14 Aug 2004
|
Re: Is Flash the future?
Posted: 16 May 2008 at 16:55 GMT
|
|
The next generation of Java will fix the long standing memory limit problem along with adding new features like quick start.
You can get more information and a beta version of the Release Candidate here:
jdk6.dev.java.net/6u10ea.html
|
|
alert moderator
|
|
