Posted by rob on July 22nd, 2008
This year’s Flashforward conference is set to be an exciting one due to the fact that it’s the first after Beau Ambur and Metaliq took over organising duties. I’m pleased to say that i will not only be attending, but presenting a session on Away3d! Flashforward is the longest running Flash conference in the world, and one of the first conferences i ever attended, so certainly holds a significance for me… 
Away3d is also featuring as a Flashforward film festival finalist. If you haven’t already, i would urge you to vote for us in the People’s Choice category, which all nominees get automatically entered in. We are the only open source project nominated, so if nothing else you should do it in support of the os community and all the fantastic tools & frameworks that have helped you with projects over the years… Come on, you owe it to us! 
Hope to see you there.
Posted by rob on July 18th, 2008
I finally got sick of grey the other day, and vowed to update my blog theme before it started to affect me mentally. Having an unfashionable love of fractal art, I thought this theme was perfect (if a little brooding), and quite apt given that fractals are prone to infinite characteristics. Must dig out that julia script I’ve got kicking around somewhere to indulge in a bit of fractal procrastination…
hope you like it!
Posted by rob on July 5th, 2008
The presentation notes from my recent WebDU session “The 3rd Way - Handling 3d on the Web” can be found here
You can also find a very nice synopsis of the session on Flashmagazine.com - thanx a lot Jens!
Here are a few useful links that were included in the talk in case anyone wants to take another trip along the 3d web timeline. Cheers to everyone who attended!
VRML links:
Java3d links:
Shockwave3d links:
Sandy 1.0 ( Flash 8 ) links:
Papervision links:
Away3d links:
OpenGL ES links:
Unity3D links:
Misc. links:
Posted by rob on June 30th, 2008
This started out as a demo for the depth-of-field sprite object, but quickly metamorphosed into something involving blendmodes, bitmap sessions, marbles…
With the tiled atoms in the background, strictly speaking the dof shouldn’t be apparent at all, but i do suffer from tweak obsession, so probably best to leave it. I may do another demo soon to illustrate the DofSprite2D object in more detail. For now, enjoy! Although please don’t stare at the background too long - might do irreversible psychological damage. As usual, sources can be accessed using the right-click menu or from here.
Posted by rob on June 11th, 2008
Here Mike Downey presented a ton of new web possibilities using the Adobe AIR runtime - hence the keynote strapline: “The long arm of the web”. Sounds like a mix between a Tim O’Reilly soundbite and a totallitarian government mantra…
Happily the content was less opressive and more inspired than the strapline suggests! A few interesting facts about the AIR runtime were noted:
- Uses Webkit - the HTML engine that drives Safari.
- Includes a Javascript - Flash bridge for easier integration between technologies.
- Includes SQL Lite for database communication.
- Inbuilt remote application updater - allowing seamless upgrading for new releases of created apps.
- Background runtime doesn’t require GUI - allowing AIR apps to be created for background processes.
There was a selection of example AIR apps showcased:
- Acrobat.com for file sharing - a new online filesharing platform that can be downloaded as an AIR implementation.
- E-Bay widget - can monitor bidding progress on an active item, notify participants when their bid is exceeded and allow new bids to be placed.
- Finetune - A music player combining local desktop music with online music from the Finetune database
- Google Analytics - offers more visualization options, and data exports for excel spreadsheets etc.
Finally a few options were shown for the creation of AIR applications. Currently two methods exist:
- Using the AIR export option in the Flash CS3 update
- Using the AIR project option in Flexbuider3 (including a new components folder containing Flex components created specifically for AIR)
There was also mention of a 3rd export option in Dreamweaver, allowing HTML to be published directly to AIR, although it wasn’t clear whether this was an available release or something coming soon.
Posted by rob on June 5th, 2008
Next week I’ll be landing in Sydney to give a presentation and a workshop session all about web 3d. The workshop on the 11th will be focussing on how the Flash player can be used as a 3d engine using Papervision and Away3d, while the session on the 13th takes a broader look at how 3d on the web has progressed since the inception of VRML in 1994. While some of the old applications verged on 3d abuse, the present possibilities in Flash offer a way of marrying rich media design with simple, effective 3d UI’s that could be considered a step forward in web evolution.
I’m not looking forward to the flights, but I am certainly looking forward to the event! See you at the barbie
Posted by rob on May 23rd, 2008
This update of the Away3d engine has one overriding purpose - to make things easier to use!
The updated livedocs section of the site has been completed for all classes, with a new version available in the trunk of the svn repository, accompanying the source. There is also a new folder for demos that exists as an svn folder and a new zip file in the downloads section of the site. Accompanying these updates are a fair few framework tweaks to aid the use of the engine - my personal favourite being the new setter properties on all 3d primitives that can be adjusted on the fly!
For more information about the update, you can read the release announcement on Away3d.com.
Posted by rob on May 18th, 2008
The 3rd Adobe sponsored London Poker Tournament is now open for registration at www.pokercoder.com. For those who haven’t been before, it’s a fantastic FREE event with beer, chips and prizes all provided. Dealers at your table will be giving everyone 20 minutes of training if you’ve never played before, although Adobe are making a point this time that the event is for industry professionals only, so it may be best to brush up on your Photoshop or Flash knowledge in case of a sudden pop-quiz…;)
Date is the 27th May, 7pm at the Loose Cannon Poker club in Cannon Street. Hope to see you there!
Posted by rob on May 12th, 2008
…now with source code!
right click on the flash movie or go direct to the source here. Obviously i can’t include the track with the download, but this is a good chance to experiment with your own music running through the demo - might look completely different!
The supplied source uses the latest code from the Away3d svn trunk. I will make sure the download zips on the Away3d site are updated with the same code asap. Some fixes were made to the BitmapRenderSession class, which has been simplified to just specify a pixel scale for the resulting render. You can get a nice speed boost with this class when using a lot of filter effects - as is the case here!
Posted by rob on May 10th, 2008
With Away3d 2.0, some interesting effects are now possible using a combination of tiled textures, ownCanvas objects and blendModes. Salt flats Ferrari demonstrates that you don’t necessarily have to raytrace a scene in order to get that reflective polished look, just use some texture mirroring trickery and a multiply blend mode!
The source for this demo also shows how a tiled texture can be transformed on the surface of an object to give the illusion of movement without having to worry about nasty clipping planes. Could be a game in this somewhere… although for authenticity, I may have to swap the F360 for a Lotus Esprit 
Away3d svn
Away3d source zip files
