Sunny's Blog: 09/01/2010

Thursday, September 30, 2010

Creative way to use E-CARDS

INTRODUCTION

(E lectronic-CARD) A greeting card or postcard created on the Web digital and sent someone across the Web. Most sites e-cards are paid for by banner ads you see while you design your card, while others use this as a way to attract traffic to the site to sell other products or services.
In addition to its own text, e-cards allow different backgrounds, images and music to be used. The cards are sent via e-mail with a link to a Web page that contains your e-card customized for a certain period of time. There are numerous sites, as well as many names for service. Use your favorite search engine and search for "smart card", "e-card", "iCard", "i-card" "Digital postcard", "digital postcard" or "virtual card." The Web site of letters most notably the Blue Mountain Arts (www.bluemountain.com).
Use

Usually an e-card sender chooses from an online catalog of postcards available a website editor. After selecting a card, the sender can customize it to varying degrees by the addition of a message, photo or video. Finally, the sender specifies the address of the email and web site offers an e-mail message to the recipient, on behalf of the sender.
Technological developments

the E-card technology has improved significantly since 1984, about the time of its creation. One of the technical aspects has remained fairly constant is the delivery mechanism: the email received by the addressee does not contain the e-card itself, but an individual link coded back to the publisher's website showing the sender's card as originally configured.
Postcards

"Postcards" use static (Non-moving) images. These were the first type of electronic card in use. The receiver sees a single artistic image, accompanied by a congratulatory message custom.
Flash Animation

This type of electronic card is based on vector animation controlled with a two-dimensional language script. The format is owned by Adobe, however, widespread use of Adobe software allows this type of card that is easily seen in most computers today. The receiver is an animated short usually 15 to 30 seconds duration. The animation often appears to have a cartoon style due to the nature of the content, although some Flash creations can be very sophisticated and realistic. A sound track that may contain speech or music usually accompanies the animation.

Flash animated greeting cards can include interactivity, for example, asking the viewer to choose an image to animate, however, most Flash e-cards are designed to convey the feelings of the sender through simple observation.

Flash animated cards are offered today by almost all major publishers e-cards and, consequently, the most used format.
Video postcards

"Video e-Cards" use a combination of custom text and video to convey the message to the recipient.

Vidwizz.com – VidWizz is a company that is allowing video and custom messaging that lets you create personalized video messages that give his words unique visual impact. Its text is incorporated into one of the videos and e-mailed whom you want.
Mobile E-Cards

With the advances in mobile technologies, multimedia messaging service (MMS), which is basically SMS image, became more popular. E-cards can now be sent to mobile devices and phones. Mobile e-cards or "MCards" as they are known are then offered by different mobile content providers and companies. Like postcards, mCards can contain multiple images, music and text messages.

One of the first companies to create MCards is a Dutch company called Mgreetings (established 2003). MCards can be sent from a PC in a similar way as sending ecards. Users can go to a website online, select a card to enter the recipient's mobile number, and that the card will be sent to the recipient's mobile phone as an MMS.
Web based e-cards of various media

The creation of the web-based card has been evolving ever more creative. The user can create online greeting cards to choose background images, drag and drop, animations, emoticons and write texts that resemble handwriting. The electronic card can contain videos and music. ZGreets.comis a website that was launched in 2007 that allows users to create postcards online that can contain multiple media. It is also noted that some animation features apply, without using Flash.

10 Creative ways to use E-CARDS

Cards mails were sent only once for fun and as special greeting cards, but online users are finding many creative ways to maximize the benefits of electronic cards. Ecards are practical, easy to ship, and no pair or a very low price. So what exactly are e-cards? E-card is another word for "electronic card" and describes any digital postcard or a greeting card sent by e-mail.

While many e-card services are free, some providers offer custom e-cards for a small fee. Both free e-cards and paid e-cards are created online using sophisticated software, interactive graphics. Let's explore 10 creative ways to use e-cards.

1. E-Card for business notes

Once companies notes delivered in print or fax but today many are turning to the use of email, especially those with an intranet system in place. Employees each have their own e-mail company. E-cards can be used to send notes creative employees. These creative ecard notes can boost morale, remind employees an event, instruct employees on a daily task, or even giving praise for a job well done. The good news is that employers can customize e-cards and sent to all employees at a time or only a select few.

2. E-birthday cards

Date of Birth e-cards are ideal for sharing a surprise "Happy Birthday" message to your friend or loved one. You can create a custom e-card for your birthday function of his personality and you can even set a date for the electronic card to be sent on her birthday in advance to be sure! Birthday e-card messages can be personal, humorous, lovely, or romantic. You can even play music.

3. Wedding and Anniversary Cards

For weddings and anniversaries, there are a number of electronic cards to suit your style. These can be sent on the day of the wedding the bride or groom as a gesture of rest. Can be customized with unique themes to reflect the type of relationship enjoyed by the couple. Anniversary ecards can be personalized with the wedding date and number years of marriage.

4. E-cards for holidays

Vacation e-cards can be customized with themes for Christmas, Easter, Valentine's Day, Thanksgiving Day, Halloween, etc.. You can find musical ecards that play Christmas songs or romantic Valentine's Day themes. For Halloween, send a spooky one! For Thanksgiving Day, send a "thankful" ecard with fall colors, pilgrims, turkeys, or harvest themes.

5. Mother or Father's Day E-cards

For Mother and Father's Day e-cards customized with your own photos. You can also create electronic cards with special designs. If you join payment of electronic card services, the recipient will be able to print the card as a souvenir. If you have children, involve them in creating these special keepsake ecards.

6. Kids ecards

With adult supervision, children e-cards can create their own puzzles, special effects, images, and photos. Can send them to grandparents or other relatives or even friends. Puzzle e-cards are usually included in pay packages, but many special effects and images to choose from with free e-card services.

7. ECard s Invitational

E-cards can also be used in place of mailed invitation cards. You can print send e-cards to invite friends and loved ones to birthday parties, holiday parties, weddings, corporate parties, summer outings, the grid and other special features. They are much cheaper than sending the invitations, and you can always mail a few people who do not use email.

8. Friendship E-cards

Send an e-card just to say a quick hello to his friends. You can send encouraging notes, postcards, fun, and a variety of topics of the electronic cards to let them know you're thinking of them. Some of the topics to choose from including animals, congratulations, friendship, missing you, love, flowers, animations, cute, destinations, landscapes, and many others.

9. Note Thanksgiving E-card

E-cards can also be used to send a thank you note to friends or loved ones. Perhaps you received a gift and want to return thanks. You can also create postcards as a "thank-you note to clients if you own an Internet business or a business contacts e-mail.

10. Baby E-cards

E-cards also come with great themes for new babies. Submit boy or girl themed e-card or unique themes such as animals with their young or storks carrying a baby. You can write a message of congratulations the new mother and personalize the card with love.

With e-cards, you can send messages quickly through e-mail for almost any occasion. Best of all, you save time and money. You do not have to spend hours writing letters and envelopes. You do not have to pay for postage, avoiding numerous trips to the post office! Free E-cards and payment services are definitely worthwhile for greeting cards, messages, notes, and more!

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Wednesday, September 29, 2010

How to render an animation in Cinema 4D

What's up guys in this tutorial I will show you how to render an animation in Cinema 4D. This is a really great tutorial called Thats why I decided to release it. Just follow what I do and you are rendering in no time =). Remember, the codec, just scroll to the bottom of this page and click on Download www.drastic.tv Extra Tags Extra Tags] IGNORE [Extra Tags] ignore the extra tags … Call of Duty WaW new ways that I and my friend found the only way out of this board without mods JOINShi No numa DG2 ray gun wanderwaffle corrison Pack bounce over small-call person is jackbean8822 get people to join Cod World at War Nazi Zombie Glitch Shi No New Numa Swamp Mad About Modern Warfare Xbox 360 PS3 Hack giant fallen transformers Tutorial Revenge Cheats killers2kill CP 1 Wwe Adam free money Recon Armor Master Chief PS3 Microsoft ELITE Master Chief machinima prepared as Xbox 360 ® What is machinima for the next wave of audience gamertag changeExpansion, Microsoft today announced a new Xbox experience Habbo free U.S. and Canada reinvent home entertainment from the inside out, changing the way we play games, watch movies and TV shows, and even competitors in the game show becomes. It all begins this fall with a completely new look and feel that is fun, social and easy to use. Exit Sign to YouTube now! FLYING GHOST Sign in with your Google Account! This is a preview of the new E3 Xbox 360 … MONEY…

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Buying the Right Karaoke Machine for You

As with any cyberbanking accessory there are abounding factors to accede and karaoke machines are no different. The capital affair to accede is how you are traveling to use the karaoke machine. If it is a toy to play with again it would not accomplish faculty to buy the top of the band archetypal with every feature. The added ancillary of that would be that you would not wish to buy the cheapest archetypal if you were planning to use it in a business establishment. The basics of karaoke systems are the same, there is a cassette orKaraoke Machine cd amateur that plays karaoke cds which are cds after the capital articulate track and a microphone that allows a accompanist to alter the missing vocals with their own voice. The lower end and atomic expensive models do not accept abundant abreast from this. If you do not crave any appearance again this is the advantage for you. Often these machines can be begin priced amid ??35 and ??50.

A affection that abounding humans like is the adeptness to angle up the karaoke system to a adviser that will affectation the lyrics forth with a brand that informs the diva of if the chat is declared to be sung. Sometimes this adviser is allotment of the apparatus and sometimes you can angle the apparatus up to a television set or a computer monitor. Often this akin of apparatus will accept a few appearance such as adjustments for the arrangement of vocals and music. Again there are furnishings that can be added to the voice, the a lot of accepted of these would be reverb. Reverb is an aftereffect that mimics the way that a articulation would animation or reverberate about an ambiance such as an auditorium. Because a lot of professionally recorded articulate advance accept reverb added to them it sounds added “natural” to add the aftereffect to the singer’s voice.

The final primary affection of a karaoke arrangement would be the adeptness to almanac the performances. The superior ranges added in this affection than abounding of the others. To accomplish a recording for you and your accompany to accept fun with you do not charge a top end apparatus but if you are absent to accommodate a able akin recording the karaoke apparatus will charge to be appear the top of the line. These machines can run anywhere from ??150 to several bags of pounds.

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Monday, September 27, 2010

Online Education – Japan, Esl, My Secrets With Japanese Mountains

Japan was my ahead chronology. I norm, it was my smallest movement for work/workshop incessantly from my system. Effort to think up being in the shoes of star insolvent in physiography. Of range, the animation was there, as with the shaking affection of being lost.

You are righteously, I undoubtedly got lost – exactly like when I was in my younger years and in spite of in my private countryside. So – it could be, I haven’t mastered my predilection for places. But hence, when you’re at the fringe of the thirst quencher, you will hear all that’s inside.

Japan is adorable. The rudimentary peak I stepped in its land, I felt there was article consecrated and restful in Japan. Blast was fragrant and state-of-the-art, as its world. Clime was chilly and my carrion approved of its coldness. Parks were nurtured with beginning flowers and flying birds to and fro. Around was in such manner spruce up, as if Japanese blast sweeps tarnish dime a dozen.

Esl Lessons

Japanese children were and so on adorable, with it, and integral of dynamism. If you dance with them, they’ll dance with you, and plummet with you, and delight arduous. They don’t endorse of routine moments, on the grounds the ESL trainer must be all there and deviceful. The derivation came even so bustling with the cooperation of everybody and letting each junior quantum what he/she has worked with (storyboard, puzzle, seatwork).

Learned adults liked to get down pat more about society, precedent, nourishment, and notwithstanding God. Discussions /conversations were bettering for both learner and tutor study collectively: the first-year student acquirements English and the abecedary knowing about japanese tact.

An enterprise

When I got lost, japanese people were in this way brand to stimulate me. They kept me reliable and made unfailing I got the properness rides going to places (because I couldn’t plead japanese). I toured places riding on a scale and dividing rides with good japanese mothers and students, not knowing where I was headed (outstart till twilight). What I could conjure up was the caring japanese bibliosoph who much brought me to the tier capacity. I wasn’t able to fork over her anything at all in avail for her generosity, but in the differences of our capacity and morality – I shared to her a pass pad of St. Jude. She embraced it with a joyful smile.

Japan gave me a outbreak of a succession airing, no continuance would to the end of time go beyond. I constrain secrets with the Japanese mountains, flutter, and parks. And world without end, moments in that parcel of the rising tan are etched in the gist of my being.

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Saturday, September 25, 2010

Pikachu’s Adventure (Wii)

As some may know, I am an avid Pokémon fan, and I had some cash to burn on video games. So, looking around, I decided I would buy Poképark, for no apparent reason, blindly not reading any reviews before-hand. Little did I know, this game would be monotonous and boring to me.

In this game, you play as Pikachu, who has been sent to the Poképark by Mew to…fix it. You have to collect 14 shards to make everything better. However, when you arrive to the park, the leaders have shut down all the amusements, so it’s your job to make everything fun again and open the park to other Pokémon.

The main problem right away is the control. While there is no rush right now, Pikachu is controlled by the Wii Remote on the side, with the D-Pad moving it, jumping with 2, and dashing with 1, while using Thunderbolt with A. The camera will not like you though, following Pikachu at a low angle, and making areas where you must jump up platforms extremely difficult. Pressing B will only centre the camera, and it will never move to help in situations. It just lays there idling away, and only turning when you turn.

Before I get to the gameplay, the graphics are okay. There’s nothing really special looking. It just looks like Pokémon Channel on the Wii, with 193 Pokémon in it, including popular 4th generation Pokémon like Munchlax, Bonsly, Turtwig, and so on. However, the areas look so barren and repetitious that you’ll require to use the on-screen map to navigate around, which is hidden by pressing B and Start (and they never tell you that).

Otherwise, the Pokémon themselves do their stereotypical Anime grunts. They don’t use their RPG cries, but their Anime voice-actors just saying their names. That’s fine, but there’s not really much to say. The music isn’t bad, but it is slightly distracting to the atmosphere.

But the gameplay is as boring as watching a TV that is turned off. You basically run around the areas to talk to Pokémon to become their friends, by playing a Skill Game. I’ve experienced four: a chase game (where you run after the Pokémon and literally bash into it), a hide-and-seek game (where you try to find the hiding Pokémon, sounds hard, but they tell you where it is anyway), an obstacle course (where you jump a series of platforms (which are quite large, and there’s about 3-5 of them) without falling off, and a fighting game (where you either bash into your opponent or use your Thunderbolt). These games are extremely easy, and are repeated in the game probably over 100 times. And there’s not much difference each time you do it.

However, the actual mini-games themselves are okay. I only played two: one where you move the Wii Remote up and down to run a race (ugh…), and another where you have to time your swing to go as far as possible. They have both been okay, but they both last less than 20 seconds. You can play as about 25 different Pokémon, but it’s the same deal every time, just that some can go further or some can run faster. These games are too easy though.

And that’s it. The only thing you have left to do is run around and find berries (which you get plenty from doing mini-games anyway) which are the currency of the game. You spend them on playing the mini-games and upgrading your skills (for the battle skill games).

Poképark is okay, but the main problem comes towards its unintentional target range. Pokémon, while aimed towards kids, has a great depth to adults as well, training their Pokémon to become the ultimate they can be, with EV training and having specific natures to get the best stats. Poképark is severely aimed towards kids around 7 of age, and that is mainly evident in its repetitious gameplay and push-over difficulty. This makes the game something that you might want to get for someone of that age. If you’re over that though, you might as well skip the game, because it will lull you to sleep within an hour of playing.

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Friday, September 24, 2010

How the Internet has Improved Access to Animation

Disney embraces social media even more, I drool a little

If you read some of the tweets from Disney’s most hardcore (mostly Florida-dwelling) fans yesterday, you’d have thought that the company emptied a big barrel of acid over Cinderella Castle while they were forced to watch, thunderstruck. In fact, what really happened is that expectations were not managed all that well. You can argue til you’re blue in the face over whether Disney should know better than to announce a marketing campaign as if it’s a major upgrade to the parks or whether the fans should know by now that Disney always does it this way but both of those would be missing the point in a major way. In fact it is an exciting announcement for two reasons: firstly, it’s a fun addition to a holiday – something I think it’s much easier to appreciate if, like me, you can afford to go every few years, not weeks – and secondly and more importantly, it’s a major adoption of social media on a massive scale.

The campaign is called Let the Memories Begin, and it’s a two-part strategy. The new holiday element is the inclusion of a nightly slideshow projection onto Cinderella Castle (WDW) or It’s A Small World (DL) of photos of revellers taken around the parks; something that was derided as a ‘screensaver’ by some fans. The even more social element is actually an advertising campaign; users submit video, photo and text content about memories made at the parks, and Disney selects and uses these in its advertising. One TV commercial has already been constructed with submitted videos.

To find out more you can:

Read the full press release and view the video at The Disney Blog (an excellent site for considered commentary).

loading etc at www.DisneyParks.com/memories

Why were fans disappointed then? Well, there had been rumours of a Monsters, Inc. coaster at the Studios (and of all the parks, HS needs the most revamping) or the addition of Spain to the World Showcase in Epcot. But those rumours probably didn’t account for the fact that Disney is massively revamping Star Tours in two parks, building the Art of Animation resort hotel, expanding in China, re-staging much-loved attractions like Captain EO and carrying out a huge, expensive update to Fantasyland in the WDW Magic Kingdom. With wobbly visitor numbers due to the global financial problems, Disney’s already committed huge amounts of money to park updates, so it’s hardly surprising that they’re committing another chunk to tempting more people through the doors as well as keeping the existing fans happy.

I think it really is exciting to think of your picture being projected against Cinderella Castle. I’ve written before about my first Disney trip, complete with charmingly gormless photo, and you can guarantee that child would have wet herself with delight if it had happened. I would be ridiculously excited now that I have better bladder control. But what’s even more exciting is the thought of, as a dedicated fan, having those memories recognised and having them appear in Disney’s marketing. Because it’s basically taking what we’re already doing with our blogs, forums, tweets, videos etc and applying a megaphone to it. We’re already telling the world how much we love Disney, and now Disney’s realised that helping us do it makes us feel special and potentially benefits them massively (and let’s not forget, Disney making more money means those precious park expansions can continue to happen).

I understand that the annual passholders who go several times a year every year want to see something new, but when that gormless four-year-old was watching a parade in the Magic Kingdom less than 30 years ago there were just two parks there, and one (the then EPCOT Centre) was only two years old. Now, in Florida alone, there are four main parks, two water parks, swathes of shopping areas, new dedicated resorts for Disney Vacation Club members… you name it. Disneylands Anaheim and Paris have expanded massively and there are cruise liners galore.

Disney’s social media team, in particular the Disney Moms Panel (and just to be clear, you don’t have to be a parent, or even female, to apply) has an enormous job to do; it takes some time for me to go through all the messages to Dogs Trust every day and that’s 100,000 people on a Facebook page and under 15,000 on Twitter – huge, important numbers to us, but nothing like what Disney is dealing with. For us it’s absolutely essential that we reply to everyone we can and make sure they get the answers they’re looking for, because these are the people that make our work possible and they deserve the best we can be. Yet because of the scale involved it can be a disappointing experience messaging Disney in the social space unless you’re talking directly to someone like Thomas Smith or Laura Spencer, who are both excellent. Disney’s found another way to interact and reward instead; it’s less conversational – it sort of turns broadcasting on its head by broadcasting back the message to those who produce it – but no less powerful. They’ve taken the most simple route by addressing the fan’s strength in creating material and the organisation’s strength in broadcasting it.

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Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Loading spinner animation using CSS and WebKit

It’s hard to stifle a smile any time I get a glimpse of the future thanks to WebKit-based browsers like Safari and Chrome (and their mobile counterparts on iOS and Android devices). That happened today when I discovered a way to make an iPhone-style spinner without any images, just CSS.
First attempt

I have been working on a project that targets mobile WebKit browsers so it was natural to explore using -webkit-animation to handle the image rotation. My initial idea was to use a single PNG image as a mask over a colored background which makes it possible to change the color of the spinner in code. Here’s how that looked in CSS:

p#spinner {
height: 62px;
width: 62px;
overflow: hidden;
background: #000;
-webkit-mask-image: url("data:image/png[...]");
-webkit-mask-size: 62px 62px;
-webkit-animation-name: rotate;
-webkit-animation-duration: 1.5s;
-webkit-animation-iteration-count: infinite;
-webkit-animation-timing-function: linear;
}

This is how it looks in a browser: Image mask rotation demo

The examples in this post all target WebKit browsers so I’d suggest you fire up Chrome or Safari for viewing the demos. Better yet, try a mobile WebKit browser.

It felt like a win to use a single-frame PNG image instead of an animated GIF but it didn’t look right. Webkit animations smoothly tween rotations so I ended up with what looked like a rotating image instead of the sharp ticking I was going for. Still, masking is an impressive technique that I’m sure will come in handy in another project.
CSS-only, no images

After several failed attempts to make the animation step-based, I still couldn’t get the effect right. I decided to look again into how I could do it without the image. A quick search led to a post by Kilian Valkhof who had a good idea for the basic technique. The first step is to create the bars of the animation by sizing and rotating them around an axis.

[...]

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Utilize Your Art Skills to Digital Animation

From the most mind-bending parts of the Matrix series to animated heroes such as Batman, professionals in digital animation are behind some of the most eye-catching aspects seen on the big screen, online and on TV. Digital animation has come a long way and it is actually so popular it is being used to propel movies, video games and even ads into the mainstream. Now is a great time to enter this field because the industry is growing and presenting many unique job opportunities in Canada and abroad.

With the ever-changing digital animation market, competition is fierce. You’ll have to bring your most artistic creativity, which means understanding composition and having the ability to draw. Whether you’re creating computer-generated images or a storyboard, you’ll need a grasp on basic art skills. Digital animators should also know the technical side of the industry because computer generated imagery careers are becoming more technological. Some software 3d modeling program must be mastered. Another important skill for today’s digital animators is the ability to tell a story. This includes having a good sense of timing and pacing and knowing how to get your characters to express themselves in a way that is credible. Lastly, digital animation is not a field in which you work by yourself. Therefore, teamwork is essential. You may have to follow or give direction, communicate clearly and make the product come together to appear as if one person created it.

Jobs in the field of digital animation vary, and include 3D character animators, lighters, modelers, riggers, level designers for games, texture artists, technical directors, compositors and visual effects supervisors. Most animators, however, complete some common tasks in a normal day’s work. For example, digital animators are involved in drawing the storyboard and creating models. They then design an animated environment that includes background, sets and objects as well as characters. The next step is to create each frame, work out the timing of movements and make sure it all meets the script and soundtrack requirements. Throughout the process, the use of computer software is incorporated.

Centennial College’s Digital Animation Program has been launching the careers of digital animators since 1996. In a 14-month span you will prepare for work film, TV, broadcast and game design. The program offers a project-based learning approach that gives students 24-hour, 7-day-a-week access to labs and workstations. Small sized-classrooms and one-on-one instruction also provide students with detailed learning and the opportunity to have all their questions answered. They are also well trained in life drawing, acting for animation and storyboard training. Aside from courses such as Broadcast Design, Character Animation, and Drawing for 3D Modeling and Animation, the school provides an opportunity for a field placement so that training can be applied to the real workforce. As a result, one important outcome of the Digital Animation program is that students produce a demo reel to showcase their abilities.

In order to apply for Digital Animation at Centennial College, students must present at minimum an Ontario Secondary School Diploma (OSSD) or equivalent or be 19 years of age or older. They are also required to possess compulsory English 12C or U credit or skills assessment, or equivalent. Lastly, English proficiency, a program admission session and a portfolio review are required. Your portfolio may include 10 to 15 pieces such as illustration, photography, video animation, computer generated artwork, music, performance art or publishing.

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Monday, September 20, 2010

Gameloft NFL 2011

Last year’s release of Madden NFL 10 took place a month after Gameloft debuted NFL 2010, its effort to stake an early claim to iPhone and iPod touch football fans. Following Gameloft’s now standard playbook, NFL 2010 arrived at an $8 price tag and drew everything from its audiovisual presentation to its gameplay from recent handheld games on competing devices, getting enough right in the process to merit a flat B rating. As soon as Madden showed up in the App Store with superior graphics, controls, and color commentary, Gameloft dropped its price, and has since sold at a discount relative to EA’s title. An iPad-specific version of NFL 2010 was released in April, quickly withdrawn from the App Store due to bugs, and then re-released to a generally mediocre reception from players.
This year, Gameloft bowed NFL 2011 for the iPhone and iPod touch at $7, while EA followed a week later with Madden NFL 11 at $8—a modest premium that will no doubt change over the next year. But there are actually two versions of Madden now: a separate $13 “HD” version for the iPad has different menu layouts, tweaked in-Game camera work, and the promise of a free “Vintage Voltage Football” mode to be added in a future update. EA also promises to add a wireless multiplayer mode to both the iPhone and iPad versions of Madden; Gameloft hasn’t made any such assurance. For the time being, there’s no iPad version of NFL 2011.
iPhone/iPod touch versus iPhone 4 versus iPad
There’s good news for iPhone and iPod touch players: the graphics on both NFL 2011 and Madden NFL 11 have been improved from last year’s versions, adding additional polygonal detail to the players and improved stadium textures, as well. iPhone 4 owners are in particular luck due to full support in both titles for the device’s Retina Display, which enables the character models in both games to have imperceptibly tiny edges and blend in more realistically against the field. (Our larger screenshots show the iPhone 4 graphics scaled down to 600 pixels wide, while the prior-generation iPod touch and iPhone screenshots are smaller, at full 480-pixel width.)
That having been said, Electronic Arts has done a better job of optimizing its game for the Retina Display. Player names are legible, on-field graphical overlays look TV-quality—better than on the iPad—and even the menus look as if they’ve been designed for high definition rather than just upscaled from lower-resolution artwork. Character models are impressively smooth in detail and animation on both games, though Madden does more frequent and impressive close-ups, and has acceptably detailed crowd animations to make the backgrounds more interesting during its frequent 360-degree field camera spins.
The camera spins highlight one of Madden’s biggest problems on both iPhone and iPad platforms, however: a less than totally smooth frame rate. When the camera turns on either platform, you can see it stuttering through several degree adjustments, and though the game runs acceptably fast on the iPhone and iPod touch during plays, the iPad version feels less optimized, and each platform shows a sluggishness in post-play cinematics that detracts from the otherwise impressive presentation. Gameloft tends to limit the number of players on camera after a play, keeping the frame rate smooth for the shrugs or fist pumps that follow any major development.
Audio
Though Gameloft offers a competent base level of audio performance with the expected crowd noise, tackle grunts and voiceovers, NFL 2011 includes neither color commentary nor full play-by-play, so the stadium cheers, horns, and whistles are frequently all you’ll hear after major plays—touchdowns and field goals excepted.
Madden NFL 11 is a different story, coming alive with voice samples. Huddles end with “break,” plays start with “huts,” and more or less constant color commentary is interrupted only at the start of plays, continuing through your selection of the next play. The crowd noise, whistles, and voices are more energetic, too, helping Madden’s sonic environment to sound more realistic and exciting. Music plays during both before games and whenever you pause it, unlike NFL 2011, which has only some generic pre-game rock music that transitions to a different track for the coin toss. There’s no question that EA has both more and better audio on its side here.
Gameplay and AI
Both games include all of the NFL teams, licensed player names, and four basic play modes. The first is a Quick Play or Play Now exhibition game, which EA equips with weather, day/night, team, and uniform choices, while Gameloft takes you directly into a game with your favorite pre-selected team, but no other selectable options. Next is a regular exhibition game with full team choices—plus, in Madden, the aforementioned other options—alongside a full-season mode, and a playoffs-only mode, each solely for a single player until and unless the companies add online multiplayer modes.
Though there are many different facets of each title’s gameplay experience that could be individually discussed here, one standout feature in the Madden NFL 11 titles offers casual gamers a world of difference: GameFlow. With GameFlow turned on as it is by default, Madden eliminates your need to choose plays, using artificial intelligence to select running, passing, punting, or defensive plays that it deems appropriate to the situation—an optional streamlining that completely differentiates the two titles. Rather than stopping the game for a menu-based play selection mode, Madden just overlays the current play on the field as a collection of lines and arrows that you and the team are supposed to follow, disappearing once the action starts. Though the arrows could stand to be a little smoother visually, the concept here is great, and the game’s action and intensity factors go up radically, akin to watching a football game on TV without any commercial interruptions. At any time, you can flip GameFlow off or on, gaining manual access to a detailed, segmented playbook, and you can redraw offensive or defensive plays with “hot routes” as well. Play selection is considerably easier and faster on the larger iPad screen, which EA has reformatted to display more options at once.
While NFL 2011 from Gameloft doesn’t have these features, it does have a GL Choice feature that lets you see the game’s suggested plays off to the far right of the playbook, and an editor that lets you change passing routes to your preference. The artificial intelligence has been improved to make games more competitive, though it’s still behind Madden’s AI, and occasionally stutters in situations where real players would unquestionably have reacted rather than just stood around. It needs to be said, however, that both games have moments—blitzes, tackles, and attempts at catches—where the players just don’t seem to be interacting realistically with one another, leading to crunches of multiple bodies in small spaces, and animations that are clearly not as cause-and-effect as one might hope. It’s as if both Gameloft and EA were able to achieve the benefits of truly 3-D graphics engines only by giving up the per-player AI that Apple’s CPUs might otherwise be capable of.
Control is somewhat spotty on both games regardless of the platforms they’re running on, and we’d like to see EA and Gameloft really focus on improving the way they handle buttons in the future. Each company uses a virtual joystick and ever-changing buttons to let you know what you’re capable of doing with the player you control, but the buttons fade in and out contextually—on Madden on the iPad in particular, there are times when the buttons don’t appear until a split second before you catch the ball or take control of a defensive player. Consequently, there are moments when both of the games feel like you’re not really able to take full control of the action as you would on a handheld device with dedicated buttons. Both games use tap-to-pass buttons that let you as quarterback touch any color-coded receiver to receive a pass, but focusing on the receivers’ ever-moving downfield positions prevents you from seeing blitzes in progress. EA tries to offset this with a second set of contextual receiver buttons closer to the bottom of the screen, but there’s just too much clutter on a cramped iPhone/iPod touch display.
Conclusions
After playing both NFL 2011 and Madden NFL 11, there’s no question that EA has shown up for this season better prepared—both companies have improved on last year’s iPhone and iPod touch titles, but EA has made bigger strides, and the overall experience of playing Madden is closer to what you’d expect from the game on a competing console, or even watching a real season on TV. Between its more polished graphics, superior gameplay options, and realistic audio, Madden NFL this year merits a high recommendation on Apple’s pocket devices, and is a great value for the $8 asking price. The less expensive NFL 2011 is still worthy of a general recommendation, but even at its lower price, it’s far enough behind EA’s effort that something new is going to be needed to make it stand out against the Madden juggernaut. Perhaps universal iPad/iPod/iPhone support could be Gameloft’s advantage going forward.
Apart from the absence of multiplayer functionality in the initial versions of Madden, EA’s only major weaknesses are in the iPad version of the game, which benefits from considerably more screen real estate and in some cases more interesting camera views of the action, but suffers in frame rate, sometimes also in animation and on-field overlays, as well. The higher price tag and the fact that EA’s even charging twice for what’s essentially the same game demand a superior level of overall performance, yet after playing Madden NFL 11 on the iPad and iPhone 4, the pocket sized version felt more polished and impressive. Future optimizations and additional features may distinguish the versions going forward, but for now, there’s little justification for spending $21 to get both iPad and iPhone/iPod versions. We’d call the current iPad version worthy of a general recommendation at this point in time—it’s good but not as smooth as it could and should be.

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