Flash: would I need a special server for this?

[redeye be]

Hello all,

Setting:
Next week I'm starting the filming proces of a viral-intended ad for the advertising school I go to. Their way of having a really cool no-budget way of gathering e-mail addresses of possibly interested people.
The entire second bachelor Advertising got this assignment (al 18 of them )

Idea:
The idea is to make a movie - not really important what about (If I get it to work, I will of course post the result). And serve it using flash. I chose flash because it needs some functionality besides just playing movies or what I'm actually asking.
People who want to let their friends know about this movie would be able to take a webcam snapshot (or just upload a pic). This picture would then be incorporated in to the movie.

eg series of mugshots
someone takes a webcam picture and sends it to our website.
Their friends receive an email with a link to a specific movie where the pic taken by the sender is incorporated in to the mugshot series.

Solution:
This is where you come in.
I realise there will be some scripting involved, but how exactly would I go about this?
Any pointers on which technologies to use?
Would this be able using a PHP server or would something flash specific be needed?

All and any help is appreciated!

Cheers

 

[tominated]

you don't need any specific server to run flash. You can even use flash on .mac (i think)! I think you can use flash to upload stuff, but php wouldn't go astray. hope this helps and good luck

 

[redeye be]

you don't need any specific server to run flash. You can even use flash on .mac (i think)! I think you can use flash to upload stuff, but php wouldn't go astray. hope this helps and good luck

Thank you for your response.

I don't think you would need a specific server to just run a flash animation/movie indeed. This thing I'm asking is just a tad more complex (I think)

What I'm asking is more how I would incorporate the images in to the movie, and if I would need a specific backend to support doing that. Especially since it's not the goal to watch yourself in the movie, but to send it to friends who would then see you (needs a specific link and place on the server).

Cheers

 

[tominated]

sorry, cant help with that.

 

[redeye be]

Looks like I'm going to have to use AMFPHP...
I've got quite some learning ahead to pull this off. If anybody feels inclined, feel free to help a hand

 

[neut]

Flash

You may be able to pull this off in Flash with Flash's webcam access ... and a dynamic image gallery that loads sequential images. I've never worked with the webcam access before, but it seems like you would have access to the cam and build a small flash app. that takes a snapshot and then numbers it accordingly. This way it would be all automated and completely dynamic.

I've never written anything like this but it seems very possible. This would keep you within one technology, but others may have better suggestions as my scripting is limited.
_

peace | neut

 

[yagran]

ok all you need is flash and php.

as previously mentioned flash has a webcam handler which will work for the picture taking. one a picture is taken you would hen need to snd that data to a php file to write it to a jpg file, you would also name it accordingly, you would then use a php file which reads the jpg files from a directory and prints them in xml format. Flash can then read the xml from that file and load the images into flash, you could then display them on the timeline sequentially. Uploading files through flash also requires an external php file.

if you dont have a good understanding of both flahs and php then you wont be able to do this, there are many scripts which need to work well together to make this work, also you will need a fair deal of webspace to hold all of the images.

thirdly, if your end user doesnt have a high bandwidth connection then they will have trouble viewing the movies as flash is systematically poor at loading jpgs on the fly due to the way it works.

anywayz good luck, and if you do go ahead, post back with any problems with code you have and i will do my best to help.

 

[redeye be]

thx neut and yagran.

I'm just dipping my toes in loading externals in flash, seems quite straightforward.
As for using a webcam video, If the speed really turns out to be an issue (which I indeed think it might - according to your description yagran), I could get away with using just one image. Animated along a path, to simulate motion.
It looks more doable that way.
Less server space.
Smaller loading time.
Faster speed.
The shot in question would probably last only a second.
...

I'm going to dig in.