Because Orson likes shiny things
A special post for Orson, purveyor and promoter of shiny things. A shiny new animation visually reproducing The Worst Half of College Football in the History of the Game, courtesy of the 2005 Tennessee Volunteers.
Proves the point rather well that feculence polished is still feculence. Unmitigated futility is always appalling, even in gradients.
This is actually just a sneak peak at something I’ve been working on — and continue to work on — during the off season. It’s not really ready yet, but it’s getting there. If you don’t see anything, get the most recent Flash Player. If it doesn’t fit on your screen or the formatting has gone all funky, sorry. Working on it.
The solid lines are drives, and the segmented lines are punts. Play, pause, and stop buttons will be added later. For now, if you want to see it again, re-load the page. UPDATE: [I see now that it’s repeating itself of its own free will. Sure hope that doesn’t hold true for our season.] UPDATE II: [Well, what’s going on? It’s no longer repeating by itself. Hmmm . . . Coach Cut must have visited and put a stop to it.] For a bigger version, go the Animated Drive Chart page.
Currently, the drive chart is all hand-animated (except for the motion tweens), but I’m working on (1) creating the thing dynamically with Actionscript; and (2) getting the variables into and out of Flash and ActionScript so I can just input the numbers and have it spit out the result. Think good thoughts for me because if I succeed, I’ll share with other teams’ bloggers.
I’ll do Orson’s in brushed metal gradients. In cursive.
June 1st, 2006 at 10:01 am
This is very cool (well the app is, that half of football is
certainly not). Look forward to seeing this again in the fall (again the
app, not a half of football like that).
June 1st, 2006 at 12:59 pm
Thanks, Richard. I’m hoping to systematize (is that a word?) it and improve it so that I can make them quickly. If you have any ideas on things you’d like to see or on how to improve, let me know. And thanks for reading.
June 3rd, 2006 at 8:44 am
[…] Almost just like Dawg Sports’ Kyle last week, VFRT just missed a trifecta yesterday, eliciting a nod from EDSBS on the Fanblogs deal and a very nice comment from Burnt Orange Nation’s Peter on my beta animated drive chart that included the word “ridiculously” and two instances of the word “very.” Thanks, guys. And Peter, your request is on deck. Just as soon as I learn what in the world setInterval does. Oh, and by the way, Kyle missed BON — I missed mgoblog. […]
June 4th, 2006 at 12:29 pm
hey man, i’m as colorblind as the day is long.
can you write the text next to the drives in a color
than the background color?
When the vols fumble, i can’t read the text
against the orange background.
thanks.
June 5th, 2006 at 11:38 am
Good tip, Paul. But it’s all part of the famous UT Chameleon Offense. What you can’t see can’t hurt you.
But seriously, I’ll add that to the list of many things to do to improve this thing. Appreciate the comment.
July 14th, 2006 at 7:22 am
[…] I’ve used the highlight of last year’s season: the UT-LSU game. These will look almost identical to the last one I posted, but under the hood, they’re completely different. The new one is 98% XML and ActionScript, the impact of which is that while the first one took several months to make, the next one should take maybe ten minutes. Shorter, once I get the artwork for each team done. […]