Hi all,

 

We're just about finished with this website, it needs optimizing and there are a couple of small bugs here and there but I thought I would collect feedback now from people to try and make it that bit better. Please be patient with load times, it's a rich, full flash site with a lot of music. We've benchmarked and assessed the optimization methods and we will get it within 15 seconds main load and 10 seconds on each page, if not less on others.

 

It's aimed at a specific market, not the home or corporate markets but entertainment industry creatives & the clients requirements set the site so it has a high spec, so you will need 1200x1024 to view (we are dealing with a 1024 compliant version which will be available soon enough) and a pretty fast internet connection - although post optimization it will be a hell of a lot faster than it is now.

 

The sites all about the eye candy, music and showreel. The background music takes a while to fire up as it's a seperate movie & as per spec has to be top quality, high kbps mp3.

 

I hope you all like it and we can get some useful feedback for making it that bit better, we took this job on for the joy of doing something different and creating something a bit out there so we want this to be the best it can be.

 

 

 

Some notes for bits that are changing anyway:

1. Speaker loop has an extra pattern to add

2. Top left logo is animated, I need to add our movie to it though

3. Homepage logo sequence has a second pattern but I have some performance concerns about it being included

4. Vol control is being worked on as a curved controller is awkward but mute works

5. There are a few minor audio bugs which I am aware of

6. Media player will buffer at 30%

7. There will be an update with most of the above tomorrow

 

This show is more for design related stuff so we can raise the bar a little more on it and get general feedback so we can see how it might actually be recieved when its truely public.

 

 

http://www.fizixstudios.com/trailermen/production

 

- please dont test the contact form, its deliberately not hooked up right now but will be shortly & testing emails could be annoying.

 

I'm going to waffle a bit now, because this was truely a learning experience with so many factors to consider, with the CG animation, web performance and also graphics card performance (which has lead to reducing the visual intensity of the thing, which was actually greater initially). Originally the screen was supposed to transist back to the device and open again in transitions but that had to be scrapped for performance reasons - it would have made the load times incredibly high.

 

Basically I think this would make a good flash case study as the whole thing was far more difficult than we or the client were expecting, we spent so much time tweaking, playing with ideas and perfecting but I think its paid off.

I didn't get any music

You have to wait for it to load in the background...

I didn't get any music

 

 

The music takes a short while to kick in. The client requested its kept as raw, but I think it could need compressing somewhat as its too big, takes about 15 seconds to kick in here.

 

 

Can I please request nobody tests the contact form, I know its not validating input at the sec, its due to the mailer being disabled at the sec. When I hook it up in a few it will send emails and I don't want the client blitzed with 30 or more test emails as it could be annoying. Thanks.

I didn't get any music at all.. I spent 5 or 6 minutes on the site, can hear the rollover FX though.

I didn't get any music at all.. I spent 5 or 6 minutes on the site, can hear the rollover FX though.

 

 

That is odd, the media player cuts the audio at the sec as we are working on a more advanced method of cutting and restarting audio, could have something to do with it?

 

It is in testing mode atm, so I'm not doubting something went wrong though, but I suspect it was our sound cutter on the media player, hitting the mute button at the bottom should undo that.

it took awhile to load for me.... like almost a min

The music doesn't load for me either. I don't think it's worth having a full quality music file, when the average joe won't be able to tell (or care about) the difference.

 

Apart from that, the site is definitely eye catching, good job!

 

[Edit] I just found out that if I clicked on the mute button (totally hidden in the bottom left), then the music turns on!

 

Rob

Did you hit the showreel up before that occurance, its an important question because I've got the showreel cutting the music right now while I add a more seamless routing for cutting and starting the music - so it will happen.

 

The full quality audio is a required element, which under normal circumstances I would agree, it needs cutting down - the site would speed up a great deal, but the clients quite insistant on it being top quality which works out as 4MB MP3's, which take a while to get kicking.

 

I'd prefer to stream a 2MB one but at that point its too degraded for the clients tastes although I as an "average joe" doesn't know the difference.

 

So thats really down to the client, I agree it needs to stream faster and be reduced in size but to retain the quality the client is requesting I'm not sure.

Yeh I got the soundtrack playing when I hit the mute button - once I'd found it (thx Robh).

 

The soundtrack loops. It becomes very annoying to have it playing constantly. I'd recommend playing it once them looping something more ambient in the background - this doesn't have to be a huge file just some fx. You've made the impression the first time it plays - no need to keep doing it else you will p*** people off!

 

Also suggest relocating the sound controls to the top so they're more obvious - if someone's browsing in a busy office they may want to turn it off quick as it can be embarrasing.

well..i cannot finish the loading... well..its my theslowest-ISP-i've-ever-had fault though. and if i can suggest you...please consider for the "time is money" guy.

Love the design its very eye catching and in some way seemed to draw me in , i couldnt help looking through all the pages.

The music didnt start playing on its own for me, i had to click the mute button to get it playing.