Author Archives: Juliana Payson

So you want to begin #HTML5 Animation?

A while ago we produced the HTML5 Cheat sheets that went down a treat amongst pro web developers. But what about those of us who are completely new to HTML5 and want to take advantage of it’s powerful features without the in depth coding knowledge?

I researched and put together a list of the top 5 Animation suites to get you a head start on creating some punchy graphics for your web pages.

1./ Purple – $20 Mac OSX App for HTML5 iPhone, iPad and web animations

Hmmm, this was the cheapest of all the apps, looks beautifully built. But it has strong limitations in that it’s only for Mac users and that there are no mouse over or button animation features. Another nasty hiccup was browsing their demo site, I came across a browser incompatablity issue and graphics wouldn’t display. The animation demos looked nice on my iPhone but didn’t scale and couldn’t interact so there is still some room for improvement.

“SAY WHAT!@#%^!? – I thought we were supposed to be moving away from Flash and all it’s hiccups!?”

Yes – currently unless your browser supports ‘WebKit’ Extensions, you can’t view the work you put all that effort into. Purple say that in the next update of Firefox 5, this compatibility issue will be resolved, and therefore their HTML5 WebKit animations will be supported.

2./ Tumult Hype – $50

The graphics user interface of this suite seems particularly well thought out. You have the full options of animations given to you whether you are trying to create mouse-over animation etc. I Love this suite and at 50 Squids I think they hit great affordable pricepoint with me. Now if only I had a mac. Hype is only available for Mac and they have no plans to produce a version for windows.

3./ Hippo – $30

They have gone to the effort of creating some really easy to understand tutorials for their software suite. The pricepoint is a really attractive low $30, matched only by the fact the tool feels a little clunky and buggy at times. This seems to match the windows platform hiccups as a PC user I have steadily gotten used to. The demos in their gallery show a great range of capability with mouse-over animation and button functions recently added. The Developers behind this tool are active which gives me great confidence there is more to come with this animation suite, and their support team seem really approachable. Definately a thumbs up for the beginner with HTML5, including anyone fearful of animation and timelines.

4./ Adobe Edge – $PREVIEW

Adobe Edge is in preview beta release so grab it while you can. I was quick to end up being disappointed, just like Flash was known for it’s user ‘unfriendly’ workflow. Adobe Edge starts off appearing to have a more intuitive layout, but seems to be lacking many editing tools. I’m sure this is just a limitation of using the Beta release, but I’m sorely limited to be able to create new concepts when I want to trace different shaped paths, or cropping windows.

5./ Sencha Animator – $199

Wow this suite has it all, but the beginner can be easily scared off or confused at the layout of the purchase pages. Sencha has been around the longest and probably has the most stable editing suite out there. There is an amazing array of tools coding window, and even a nicely laid out support forum. But where this is let down is that it’s currently the most expensive on the market, and as a beginner sure enough it’s the lowest priced software Sencha is offering, but look down the list or at the sidebars and there’s a lot of cross navigating to developer architect tools, higher priced packages, amazing training courses in different softwares, and you suddenly become bewildered at your first attempt with coding HTML5 to think; ‘maybe you should get used to a simpler tool before investing 200 bucks?’

Summary of HTML5 Animation tools

Overall I think Tumult Hype is the winner for me, because of it’s GUI useability and function range. So much so I might have to go out and purchase a Mac just to get on this editing platform. In the mean time Hippo Animator will do as long as I can cope with it’s buggyness. I must have crashed the software 3 times in one session already!

Interstate Skills Training AKA Systems Bootcamp

IMH is taunting our techie knowledge-base this week as we flew in Trey from our Virginia Beach office to take the lead with training our new associates here in Los Angeles.

We have recently increased our Los Angeles division with new hires to manage our ever-growing server systems. Rather like Jordie LaForge heads up engineering of Star Trek, we had Trey to bring our guys up to speed with hands on training while under Nerf Gun attack from the marketing department.

His specialty is the systems-specific, advanced-level training, which comprises mostly of investigative analysis work to proactively reach out to our customers before they hit a resource issue. Our Systems team are the core the company stands on and will handle customers who may have advanced concerns like being unable to handle server problems themselves in case they couldn’t figure out their root access.

Trey is successfully flying home to Virginia Beach this evening after commenting

“Well the turbulent weather wasn’t expected from LA” – Yes we had ‘electrical storms’ here! “…and I think I successfully trained our systems core team to manage any high pressure situations” – (That marketing team improvised and simulated using Nerf guns from across the office heheh.)

InMotion’s Open House Friday!

Office Party Friday!

We were all excited to unveil to the masses the office space we had worked so hard at into making our own. The doors opened to the office kids (children and friends of the Owner and Associates of the company) who were already pretty familiar with showing us around our ~~playroom~~ work space.

A recurring theme in and throughout the office are colored big-ball lighting arrangements, yoga balls, and koosh balls. Something already in place before the party started but set the fun theme up for our guests.

We had our own bartender, buffet, and rolling TVs set up to distract us from working while the guests poured in from building management to neighbors and friends.

Our New Creative Office Space

We’ve moved! There’s been quite an effort put on by our West Coast team to make our new office our home away from home.

The entire office was hands-on and inspirit with getting settled in, breaking the usual routine of working at the desk. Everyone took the time to figure out their Krypton Factor with assembling the IKEA furniture; and a few of us anticipated office deliveries as if it were Christmas time. Not to mention, we’ve all joined in to have our say with everything from changing light bulbs (Yes! How many office managers does it take to change a light bulb?) to hanging artwork on the walls. It’s been light fun, but underneath we really respect the extra effort our colleagues have put in just to make this a smooth move.

The 5,200 sq. ft. office space in Los Angeles hosts the Marketing HQ, and is not to be confused with our 18,000+ sq. ft. Virginia office which houses our heroic 24/7 call center and team of some 150+ associates! More pictures to come in a later post.

Not only is the creative space updated to reflect our aspirations of the modern workplace, but we think the move has culturally refreshed our team-spirited atmosphere. We can all pride ourselves with ownership of the office, and that certainly helps out when it comes to keeping the new kitchen clean. Sorry, I meant keeping the open office space tidy! You know, ’cause we’re not all office computer geeks that live on ramen noodles over here.

A few things we’d like to rave about that really make this office a cool place to work are:

Scribble walls for Whiteboard Wednesdays, where anything rules, nothing is wrong and allows for creative thinking!
Screen projector (which one of our team members fitted out with Apple TV) so we can broadcast our ideas to the group via our laptops, iPads and iPhones.
Rolling TVs! For holding “Wizard of Oz” Skype conferences with big-heads back in our Virginia office.
Scrabble. It fills our open office suite.

We’ve had the building management conducting tours of our office space up on 11th floor heaven just because we’re too cool tenants.

Check out some of the photos below:

Cool Tool For Illustrating your Blog Posts

Bloggers out there! Ever struggled to find the right imagery to accompany your articles? I found a cool web browser based sketch pad called OdoSketch.

It’s intuitively simple to use; minimal tools, and so with hardly anything to complicate the task, I compiled my sketch using only my laptop touch pad.

Graphics designers will be pleased to see a palette of beautiful neutral colors, rendered onto a textured canvas to make it look better than your own real-life scribbles on paper.

So – now whenever you’re stuck with what to illustrate your writing with, you can create something online and embed it with the provided embed codes. It even renders a live, fast forward version of your sketching, to bring it to life for a few seconds.

I’ve found another use for it, to use my sketches as title cards along with any other future video tutorials I do.

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