I found the “Save and Compact” was missing from the new Flash CS5. At first it didn’t bother me until I copied a previous project with loads of bitmaps to act as base for a new project.
I always work this way when I start a new project: I copy my most recent (similar) project, remove the stuff I don’t need, rename some stuff and start building the new project.
No problem for as-files, but oddly enough stuff like movie clips, sounds, bitmaps, etc. you remove from your fla-file-library are not actually removed from the fla-file itself. This means all stuff removed from the library is actually just hidden (but with no way to un-hide) and will float forever in your fla-file without any use.
In previous Flash versions this problem could be solved by hitting the “Save and compact” option but for some reason they removed this option in the CS5 version of Flash.
Very annoying if you ask me because I just want to work like I was used to without fla files growing in size with each new project (for no apparent reason).
Luckily I found a very simple solution: clear everything from your library you don’t need any more and then just hit “Save as…” and save as a CS4 file. Thiss step will remove most of the overhead. After this, saving it again as CS5 file will reduce the file-size even more!
This trick is a bit more work than before (and it would make more sense if Flash did it all by itself), but atleast it gets the job done.
Hopfully an update for CS5 will get rid of this problem once and for all…
A couple of weeks ago Jürgen Sachau asked me if he could use my micro dudes for the cover of his Boings & Tickles EP. A great honor of course so I agreed and made a nice design for him as well. Here is the result:
front / back (click for full-size on flickr)
You can listen to (and download) the EP here: http://www.ektoplazm.com/free-music/outolintu-boings-tickles/
…well, this blog for instance… (not totally new, but renewed anyway 
). I haven’t been paying much attention to this blog lately but now it’s time to bring it to life once more!
As of February I quit my job and started as a freelance Flash-designer/developer (by the name of Power-up Media) so it was time for a fresh start all together; I finally made a decent main site (http://www.powerupmedia.nl/), I restyled this blog (hope you like it) and moved it to a new domain (http://blog.powerupmedia.nl/). The main site still needs a little tweaking and it needs a lot more content, but it’s a start…
At the moment I’m trying to figure out what to do with my labs section (http:/labs.powerupmedia.nl/). I’ll probably combine it either with the main site or with this blog but whatever it’s gonna be, you can expect some changes there as well.
All said and done I’m now open for Flash- and/or design-jobs so if you got any work laying around please don’t hesitate to contact me…
Wouldn’t it be just great to see one of your own digital creations manufactured as a real life teddy-bear?
Well, it so happened I entered a contest (at tedde.com) which might make this possible.
The chalange was to create a new design for their “Tedde”. The shape of the tedde was a given and you were only allowed to use 3 colors (apart from black I guess because some early submission also had 4 colours)
Here is my submission to the contest:
You can check out the full version here:
http://www.tedde.com/store/?p=1007
If you like it please vote for it! (just one click)
Manny thanks
PS: While you’re at it, my colleague would be very pleased if you would vote for his submission as well:
http://www.tedde.com/store/?p=1011
Isn’t it just great when you are full of exiting ideas and you hands are itching to get started but then your hands also start to itch because of RSI 
I had that problem a few months ago, but now I’m up and running again and started of with a nice game: http://games.justgreat.nl/games/hoppinpop
I made this game in collaboration with a colleague of mine (Berthjan Achterop / http://www.berthjan.com/)
I started of with the coding of the engine and Berthjan made the design. After applying the design to the game I animated most of the characters to bring it all to live. The result is a “colums”-like game wrapped in a world of weird (but wonderful) creatures 
Enjoy and let me know what you think of it…
PS: here is a nice wallpaper to accompany the game
