Flash on the beach is just around the corner, and this year I’ll be heading down to Brighton as a speaker, something I’m fairly chuffed about. To me, FOTB is the jewel in the crown of European creative conferences and an event i feel truly honoured to be a part of.

As an added bonus, I get the chance to stretch the legs of a brand new talk entitled Flash 11: get ready for gametime. The subject on discussion should be fairly obvious, but I’m hoping the content will hold a few surprises, in particular towards people who’s main games background has so far been exclusively in Flash, such as myself. Although I’m pretty sure i won’t be surprised by it, unless i get someone else to write it for me…

I’m told there is only a week of standard ticket sales left, so if you’re still considering going along but don’t want to pay full walk-up price, time is running out! The main presentation I’ll be giving will be pretty much for everyone, although I will also be preparing a little something extra in an Influxis kickback lounge short session, for those who want to get a bit more techy. You know who you are, you geeky freaks

see you at the bar!

Well, it was going to happen sooner or later, but i think most of us weren’t necessarily expecting it to happen today!

Earlier today at the Flash Gaming Summit keynote, Adobe announced its incubator program for the current Flash Player 11 and AIR 3 builds, which gives public access to the new features of Flash 11 as they are developed, including the current state of the GPU-accelerated Molehill APIs. After the announcement, Away3D 4.0 Alpha (codename Broomstick) was released on away3d.com, with all code and examples uploaded to the Away3D googlecode svn and mirrored source repositories appearing on Github. The Away3D Team have been  working very hard to get to this point, and all credit must go to them for the incredible job already done on the engine.

The above video shows one of the code demos (ShallowWaterDemo) published in the example sources in action. In order to compile and run these sources you will need to follow the instructions on setting up your development environment on the Adobe Labs Wiki for the Flash Player Incubator release. You can see this and a variety of other demos running live over at http://away3d.com/away3d-4-0-alpha-release-broomstick.

It is important to stress that at this point, both the Flash Player Incubator release and Away3D 4.0 framework are in an alpha state and are therefore only to be used for prototyping and demonstration purposes. However, with the Incubator program, Adobe have opened the door wide for user testing and feedback on the planned features of the next Flash Player, which should ultimately lead to a better developed, more stable release. So cheers go to Thibault Imbert and everyone involved in the Incubator program at Adobe!

More updates on Away3D 4.0 will follow on away3d.com and the Away3D google group in the coming weeks, so be sure to keep an eye out for new demos & resources.

Picture: Higgs boson simulation, Cern (Mette Høst)

At the beginning of March I will be heading over to Amsterdam to attend the FITC conference, the annual excuse for designers & developers to get together in one of the coolest cities in Europe for two days of inspiration the dutch way… and I’m very happy to be presenting a brand new talk surrounding the programmatic approaches and practical implications of computer simulations entitled Simulating the Real. The talk is aimed at a broad audience so don’t be afraid to come along if you’re a non-programmer; a degree in particle physics is not required!   As a point of relevance, I will also be looking at how the GPU accelerated Molehill APIs announced at last year’s Adobe Max conference will affect the capabilities of the Flash Player in the area of simulation, with the help of the latest Away3D codebase.

The FITC organisers have kindly created a special discount code for any members of the Away3D community – simply type “Away3D” into the discount code box on the registration page to receive a massive 10% discount on any conference pass! Hope to see you there.

For anyone looking for a christmasy e-card at this time of year, look no further than Santas search, a fun, customisable animation using Away3D. We have even been sent our own personalised greeting from our good friends at JiglibFlash, which you can view by clicking here or on the screenshots below… elves packaging up a perfect 3D gift of The Essential Guide to 3D in Flash, EvoFlash Disconnected demo and Prefab3D, to the sound of a rocking christmas tune.

2010 has been a year of collaboration for us, so I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all the people who have been involved in or encouraged Away3D development in some way, including JiglibFlash, EvoFlash, Influxis, Adobe, Prefab3D, Friends of ED, HaXe, the Away3D community and of course, the Away3D Team. Have a great Christmas & New Year everyone!

The Max conference in LA was a memorable high point this year – not only was Adobe’s hardware-accelerated intentions for the next Flash Player made clear, but the Away3D Team got their first chance to air some demos of the forthcoming Away3D 4.0 release that will be supporting these new capabilities.

If you haven’t heard the news, the next major Flash Player upgrade from Adobe will include an extensive 3D API that will support direct paths to OpenGL and DirectX-based 3D rendering on the GPU, as well as a new software 3D renderer fallback that will aim to provide the vast majority of computers with fast, reliable, 3D rendering in Flash. Armed with “Molehill” (the codename for these new 3D APIs) performance is set to increase to around 1000 times what can be squeezed out of the current Flash Player. Flash game makers, designers, and developers will finally have the option to use console-quality 3D graphics in their 3D Flash creations.

A large number of the Away3D Team have been working closely with Adobe to create an easy upgrade path for the Away3D engine, providing the same easy to use Away3D framework at a high level, but plugging directly into the exposed hardware APIs at a low level. A recording of our Max session New 3D features for Flash (which was jointly shared by myself & Richard Olsson, alongside fellow 3D coder Anton Volkov from Alternativa) can be found at http://tv.adobe.com/watch/max-2010-develop/new-3d-features-for-flash/ or by clicking the link below.

The presentation shows some amazing demos running realtime accelerated 3D from inside the Flash Player, with the help of our 4.0 prerelease build. The public beta of the new Flash Player is planned for release in the first half of 2011, and will be complemented by a public release of the Away3D 4.0 engine, enabling the Away3D community to start developing faster, smoother and less processor-hungry 3D Flash content as soon as the capabilities are available.

I’m also pleased to announce that we have been offered an opportunity to present content from our Away3D Max session at the upcoming AUG XL conference in Amsterdam on November 17th. This time I will be joined on stage by another key Away3D developer in the new engine upgrade – the extremely hardworking & talented David Lenaerts.

If you can’t wait for the pres (or the public beta) to get a glimpse of the 3D possibilities unfolding, be sure to check out the high-quality videos below of two current Away3D 4.0 demos.

Last week the latest Away3D release was launched – the FP10-only 3.6.0 version which added some much needed memory and speed optimisations to the main branch of the engine. Now, these updates have been transferred to an interim 3.5.2 version (one that requires no code refactoring) and an equivalent FP9 2.5.2 release, both of which try to includes as many of the bugfixes and optimisations from the FP10 trunk code.

The announcement of the new release appeared alongside a new Away3D demo called BattleCell, the result of a recent collaboration with Influxis which uses both the extra power of the new engine and the peer-to-peer capabilities of Flash 10.1 to produce a realtime 3D multiplayer prototype. Special thanks must go to Influxis dev Sean McCracken, as well as Away3D coders David Lenaerts and Fabrice Closier, and 3D designer Federico Selmi for their hard work on the project.

The demo uses a newly developed API for multiplayer games over RTMFP (the new P2P protocol available to Flash 10.1 users). What this allows is many live data connections directly between clients with little to no latency, creating the perfect environment for some serious fragging fun! BattleCell is the name given to both the demo and the underlying AS3 API, the latter written by Sean in order to easily connect multiple users and pass data between clients.

The BattleCell demo is a typical FPS Deathmatch-style game, complete with room allocation, choice of weapons and a large play area for you to roam. Obstacles in the game include lifts, teleport windows, acid baths and secret tunnels to assist your attacks… but be careful who is lurking round the corner!

The new 3.6.0 version of Away3D has a completely remodeled core to take full advantage of all native 3D APIs in Flash 10, which results in more stable and less memory-hungry apps. Performance has improved also, and we expect framerates to increase still further as we continue to optimise the new framework. There have been some older class replacements that you need to be aware of when upgrading: both custom classes MatrixAway3D and Number3D have been replaced by the native Matrix3D and Vector3D classes respectively for added speed and stability.

The Battlecell demo is kindly hosted by Influxis and can be accessed online at http://www.influxis.com/battlecell. Type in a room name for your friends to join, and a user name so that others can identify you in-game. The game URL can easily be copy-pasted for fast access to a room, and any user leaving the game automatically frees-up their slot for a new user to join. As the APIs are still being tested, a maximum of 4 users can join a single room at once, but we hope to increase this limit in future versions of the demo.

As usual, all updates can be downloaded from the googlecode svn, or from the downloads section of away3d.com.  For those of you just interested in upgrading your FP10 library without having to worry about existing code breaking, there is a specially tagged 3.5.2 version of the code that includes all enhancements up to the point where external API adjustments are made. This version is recommended for developers in the middle of a project, who don’t want the hassle of changing their code. A full breakdown of the API changes for 3.6.0 will be posted on the Away3D mailing list in the next few days.

Away Media recently teamed up with CBBC to assist in the production of the latest web content for the children’s program Escape from Scorpion Island. The TV show focuses on two teams assigned a series of island-style challenges, and the website continues that theme with a navigable series of mini-games.

Away Media were brought in to assist with the Flash development of the web interface for series 4 of the show. This included the development of the 3D island interface, the navigation interfaces, animations for all intro screens, info panels, hi-scores and video players, and the client-server communication using the existing BBC login facility.

Visitors to the site can keep a running score of their achievements on all minigames, that are entered into a hi-score table alongside other CBBC players. The mini-games were developed independently by 4T2 and Collective, two London-based digital agencies.

I’m extremely honored to be speaking at the FITC conference in San Francisco this August, along with a bunch of big names with whom I am not worthy to share a stage… am i imagining things or has it been two years since any international Flash event in SF? What the…?!

My presentation will cover some of the latest developments in Away3D, sprinkled with some new demos from the demomeister that is Fabrice and finishing off with a glimpse of the future… or at least a potentially possible one. I’ll also be giving out a few copies of my book The Essential Guide to 3D in Flash, as long as i remember this time. Someone! Remind me!

Later in the conference, I’ll be at the Influxis Voodoo Lounge presenting a special 30 minute in depth look at some experimental 3D goodness in collaboration with those awesome dudes (i think thats how they’d put it) at Influxis, who have also been kind enough to sponsor my exceedingly long trip out. Drinks rider notwithstanding, a thousand beers to you!

As one of the first commercial projects to use Away3D Lite, Away Media teamed up with creative agency Cocomino to produce a 3D minisite in Flash for chip manufacturer Qualcomm, in order to promote their latest line of Smartbook devices.

My Dream Device is a simple online editor that allows users to view and create 3D sculptures out of the various pieces of hardware that are supported by Qualcomm technology. everything from satellite dishes to  sat navs can be used as the building blocks for creating your own ‘dream device’.

Using a simple drag and drop system combined with a movement mode selector, objects can be manipulated in 3D to position them in any arrangement. Away3D Lite was used to keep the interface responsive even after many items have been added to the stage. A simple 3D collision system was built specifically for the site to assist the positioning of objects next to each other.

Once created, a sculpture can be saved to the gallery for any other visitor to view and rate. Deeplinking allows users to link directly to their own creations from another website, and users can automatically email to a friend or post their creation on Facebook.

Away Media was responsible for all frontend and backend development, with Cocomino providing design and management expertise. The site was recently awarded an Adobe site of the day award – a great achievement for all those involved! To create your own sculpture, visit http://www.mydreamdevice.com.

After a bit of experimenting with the beta of AIR for Android, I’ve managed to successfully create a couple of demos to show off Away3D Lite running on the Android operating system, using my trusty Nexus One handset. The above video demonstrates that the Google phone is more than capable of handling the playback of Flash content, and can easily be used along with Away3D Lite to create some detailed 3D content. If you’re interested in trying AIR for Android yourself, head over to http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/air2/android/ to sign up for the beta program.