Some interesting Snippets of information from Richard Galvin here - analysing some of the past enhancements that Flash CS3 gave us, and looking forward to reveal some of the features being worked on for CS4.

Added in CS3:

• Photoshop importer - although this currently has no ability to maintain a link with psd content and update Flash content automatically
• Illustrator-like Pen Tool fix (calculates the cubic bezier path in the quad-based drawing API of Flash)
• Colour coded bounding boxes relating to object type on the stage
• 9-slice scaling preview on the stage
• Copy filter button
• Copy motion tween as actionscript
• Export motion xml (to allow editing and reloading at runtime or in Flexbuilder)
• Runtime errors separated from output panel
• Checkboxes in export options for strict compiling and exporting hidden layers

Being added in CS4:

• A new workspace including a vertical property inspector (similar to Flexbuilder’s)
• Tween Tool on stage allows auto keyframe generation when attributes of an object are changed
• Object Attributes can tween independent of each other
• Tween motion path can be manipulated using bezier handles similar to the Pen Tool
• Tween paths can be copied and replaced separate of objects on the timeline.
• XFL - new export format in CS4 that saves an xml version of an FLA contained in a zip file along with a library of asset sources (images etc.)
• Hydra filter files (.aif) can be loaded and applied at runtime.

Not much online info available on this one (hence the speculative logo…) - but i suppose you could always check Richard’s blog for news updates. Can’t wait to see what else they come up with!

Lee Brimlow stepped in to cover for Mike Downey on this one, who mysteriously had a prior engagement in Milan. I get that sometimes….

Essentially Lee’s notes of his earlier pres will do just as well for giving an overview of the AIR API - you can also find details of development requirements and examples on the Adobe website

An update for Flash CS3 gives you new options in the splash screen for an AIR application fla, and includes code hinting etc. for the new commands. CTRL enter runs a debug AIR application the same way a Flash project would run a debug swf.

‘Commands menu > AIR Application and Installer Settings’, gives you AIR export options (chrome, icon, digital signature, included files, file type settings for default opener), and

‘Commands menu > Create AIR file’, exports the application to an AIR file ready for deployment.

The new native classes for AIR can be found inside the flash.desktop. package. These include:

• NativeDragEvent for drag and drop functionality
• NativeDragManager for accepting and rejecting drag events
• ClipboardFormats for reading from the OS clipboard
• stage.nativeWindow for accessing the desktop window containing the AIR application

Andre Michelle could be credited with have The Best Job In Flash currently. His presentation was about how a simple hack in the Flash Player leads to hours of fun with oscillators, resonance filters, vocoders and, errr, vibrating balls…

The usual way of producing sound in flash is to load an mp3 into the flash.media.Sound object. However, this is boring! If you use flash.display.Loader with loadBytes(), a ByteArray object goes in, and a Sound object comes out. the sources for this trick (and more) are available at http://popforge.googlecode.com

For continuous sound, you need to make use of an Audio Cycle Buffer that splits bytes into arrays of 256 chunks (apparently this is the optimal number and gives a significant speed boost). Look inside the ‘Examples’ folder in the popforge svn to find a simple setups that create a 1 second sine wave, a continuous wave stream, flange effects etc.

Other projects using the Sound object hack include:

• 8Bitboy - relive hundreds of Amiga game soundtracks with this MOD player able to emulate the Amiga’s 4 channel, 8-bit sound system.
• FL-909 - an astonishing re-creation of the Roland drum machine that launched a thousand House tracks in the late eighties/early nineties
• Hobnox - an online music community that is planning to release the latest of Andre’s work, including a revamped TR-909, TB-303, effects and mixing all available through a Flash interface. Register on the site for a chance to play with the free beta version!

Hydra is the codename for the Adobe prerelease of the AIF Toolkit. In a nutshell, it’s a language-based image manipulation tool, the output of which can be used in After Effects and future versions of Flash (and possibly Photoshop as well). Joa Ebert is one of the few developers at Adobe Labs currently experimenting with the potential of Hydra, and his presentation was all about the vast potential Hydra offers, and the possibilities that lie ahead for it’s uses.

First of all a bit of background: a pixel is not a square! It is a piece of data whose values are interpolated when drawn to screen, and can carry various types of information like RGB, CMYK etc. Pixels shaders are programs to handle pixel interpolation (among other things) and are written in a shader language that is executed on the graphics hardware. Since this is executed on the GPU, it saves processing time on the CPU.

Hydra is a shader language very similar in syntax to GLSL - the shader language used for OpenGL shaders. The language is limited, strict and type-safe, so is a little harder than actionscript initially. Code compiled with the AIF toolkit will run in the preview window, but there is currently no version of the Flash player available to test Hydra code. It is also worth mentioning that there is currently limited language support for Hydra filters running in the alpha versions of Flash 10 (no loops, no if then else), but Adobe may be rectifying this.

Joa brought up some interesting theoretical scenarios for exploiting Hydra’s speed for serious performance gains in the next version of the Flash Player (most of the examples shown running in AIF were at over 1000 fps!) - but only if Adobe allow decent access to the hydra platform when running. Things like realtime physics, audio processing, 3d graphics etc. could all take advantage of the acceleration it would give, so if your interested in seeing such things in Flash 10, get on down to the Hydra Forum and make your feelings known!

More information on what is currently possible with Hydra can be seen by visiting Joa’s blog, or the Hydra Gallery at Adobe Labs

This presentation came with the opening caveat “Red5 is not just for flash video!” But possibly more importantly, Red5 is not just an open source version of FMS. While it’s true that it offers streaming media, live broadcast subscription, shared objects and application logic that is all possible in FMS, there is also Flash Remoting, life cycle data services, built-in Java frameworks, Ruby integration and Python integration on offer, with more features being added…

One of the major bonuses of the Red5 server being Java based is that it will run on any platform that supports Java, with a simple one click installation! There are great tools for development (like eclipse jdt), plus many varied libraries and already a lot of Java developers with the required knowledge to be developers for streaming services.

Find out more of how to setup a red5 server, create your own java extensions for custom functionality and run test applications in eclipse by going to Chris Allen’s blog

Also available to purchase is a new hosting service for red5 which you can find at http://www.red5server.com

And you can download the server itself (for free) by going to http://osflash.org/red5

Here Carlos went on a revealing journey through the design and development methods used in the construction of the Sony Bravia website (released late last year) and gave a quick showcase of the current progress in his latest project for Absolute.

Nice touches to the interface were highlighted, such as the option of mouse or keyboard control, the perspective twist (seen above) to give a more interesting movement to the tv boxes, the fading zoom used in submenus and the saving screen states that retain the last viewed frame of the submenu when zoomed out.

Some of the more subtle design approaches of the interactive screens were highlighted, such as the use of filters in the lightcycle screen, 3d sound in the sound room, and pre-rendered animation for the droplets with randomised color.

The new work done for the Absolute site (In An Absolute World) uses groups of 3d blocks using 2d physics for navigation, that allows the user to directly push and pull blocks around in a realistic manner. Each box is actually a single item of content, that can be clicked on to open in an unwrapping 3d fashion. I’ll post an update link here when the site goes live.

*UPDATE* - site is now live, check out http://www.absolut.com/iaaw 

This presentation had John Grden and Trevor Burton introducing their latest project - a Java/Flash based online MMO called Paperworld. The entire project will be released open source in April, but for now the demos shown gave a good idea of what we can expect in the coming months…

Paperworld consists of two parts - an extended Red5 framework on the server side streaming multiplayer data, and a custom Papervision3d framework on the client side rendering the 3d view. Presently there are many utilities and modules tools being developed and pooled for use by other developers and designers, to aid things like avatar creation, loading and movement management.

The Paperworld framework relies on precalc’d 3d transformations on the server that are pushed to the client - partly for speed reasons and partly to maintain coherence in multiplayer movement. The Flash client smooths server proxy positions and the current local position of your avatar to give a motion that is a little more robust to fluctuations in latency. To get round the problem of larger 3d environments choking on download bandwidth, the Paperworld server does not use sharedobjects, but has relevant set selection - a technique which checks how far away an object is from each player, taking into account direction of movement, to intelligently load content

Currently a website exists for people to register their interest in the project, so if you would like to be kept informed of updates and releases of the Paperworld framework, goto http://www.paperworld3d.com and sign up!

The second Adobe sponsored poker tournament is upon us! Last one was great fun, and surprisingly cheap (as Adobe picked up the tab for all food, drink and poker chips).

The event is happening Monday next week (25th Feb) at the Loose Cannon Club near Cannon Street tube. Even if your a poker noob, i’d strongly recommend you give it a try as no one stands to lose anything. People who make it to the final table will each be rewarded with an Adobe product of their choice, with the overall winner also receiving an Adobe Max Europe ticket, and of course the much sought-after Adobe London Poker Tournament winner’s bracelet. Registration is madatory and space is limited - go to www.pokercoder.com to sign up.

Recent updates to the trunk build of Away3d include a revamped 3DS file importer. Enhancements include:

• Multiple mesh support
• Automatic texture loading
• Individual material support for faces

The update is based on AS3 code supplied by Masi Woermann, to whom i now owe a beer . You can download the source for the demo above by using the right-click ‘View Source’ option on the background of the swf

Plans to include auto texture loading for other formats that allow it are in the pipeline…

Strata’s Live 3d tool already allows the export of 3d content created in packages such as Maya, 3d Studio Max and Strata’s own Strata 3D CX in an optimised java applet for the web. The Away3d Team have partnered with Strata in order to allow the export of 3d content in Flash, providing more compatibility thanks to the ubiquity of the Flash plugin.

This should be great news for any designers using 3d in Flash - and opens the door for future collaboration aimed at improving the workflow for 3d Flash projects. For the full story go to http://away3d.com/away3d-enters-into-partnership-with-strata