Tokyo Starfish likes Chad...
Happy Birthday Chadster!
Chad and I have been trying to create his site for a looooooong time. I know we will eventually get it done… In the mean time I wanted to post some of the beta tests:
Old Beta: AS2. Neat little slide mechanism for the sections.
Latest Beta: AS3, Away3D…
Homepage 3D Flash
I have been working with Dave, Art Director at STC, for over 9 years. So by now we more or less share one brain. For the knappogue homepage he showed me a sketch via webcam and I knew what where we were heading. 3D Baby! And what is even better then 3D modeling/rendering? Real time interactive 3D. Now that’s magic. Ever since Flash 5 human beings have been doing 3D flash content, although at times more 3Dish. But with Flash 9 & AS3, faster CPUs and open source APIs like PV3D or Away3D it has become a new avenue for designer/developers like me. For this particular case I used Away3D. Main reasons: clean API, easy to extend and straight forward mouse interactions. The concept is simple: a fold out postcard set. Its all custom built. I had to dig deep inside the API to get it where I needed.
Check out the 3D postcards (after the age verification)
Project details:
Special thanks to Rob and the Away3D team.
PS: Can someone (Jorge or Andrew) implement the latest version of the flash… It has a way cooler intro animation, proper preload display and many tweaks… 
3D Stacks created in Illustrator...
Aside being the resident Flash & Map guy at STC, one of my main task was business illustrations… Cleaning up Powerpoint Illustrations to make them shiny and pretty. I actually started doing all the re-makes in Illustrator and gradually extracted icons and elements to use directly in Powerpoint. I tried as much as possible to add depth to otherwise pretty borring stuff. Illustrator’s 3D capability was a huge time saver.
I helped develop an icon library that is still used to quickly create illustrations. Using vector art allowed us to use illustrations for print, web, PDF and Powerpoint distribution. It also allowed me to quickly port items or entire illustrations to flash for animation.
Below are samples of some of VSNL International’s illustrations (now TATA Communications) I created.
2007 Holiday card
Every year, like clockwork, someone at STC realizes its December and we need a holiday card. For the past 3 years we actually had time (meaning 3 to 5 days) to produce some nice interactive versions.
In 2005 we created a little match game.
In 2006 I applied the concept developed for print of making new faces from cutouts of the STC employees headshots.
For 2007 I just developed an interactive 3D version of the printed card. The card was a cube with the top and bottom open. Inside were everyone’s at STC signature. Outside were the employees making the letters of the card’s words… Hard to explain, just check out the actual flash 
This last one was my first serious project using PV3D (Papervision). It also uses some of the new AS3 APIs like sound spectrum. Aside a few annoyances of Flash 9, a fun project.
Closup of the 3D render...
It was nice to walk into the Singapore office of then VSNL International and seeing the wallpaper I had designed on everyone’s desktop…
I actually don’t like to have a background (other then a solid grey or black on my desktop(s)) but clients love them. They help remind people who they work for and/or that they are on the wrong floor or wrong office. Just kidding. When rolling out a new brand it’s a good way to surprise people. IT can update everyone’s desktop overnight.
Detail of the 3D illustration
This render was used to illustrate the 2003-2004 holiday card for Great Spirits. Modeled and rendered in Lightwave. The reflections and “fast” Fresnel took for ever to render on my work computer, at the time an AMD equivalent to a Pentium 2.
Holiday Card Illustration
Flying cow render
Originally created for Great Spirits (now Castle Brands). This exploration was to be used to support the launch of a new Irish Cream drink. Can’t remember how we (STC’s brains) arrived at the flying cow idea, but I executed on it and did a quick model and renders in Lightwave. Although the idea didn’t “fly” with the client, I kept the flying cow as a visual element of wemakedotcoms. The original cow had green patches.
Original Cow
