As part of the Digital Shoreditch festival this year, I will be attending the Make & Do event on the 15th and 16th of May as a presenter for Away3D. The idea with Make & Do is to create something in less than two days, based on a series of challenges set by the organisers. The “thing” can be an idea, demo, interactive game, mobile application… really anything so long as it resides in the digital domain.

I’ll of course be working with the teams who want to create something using 3D, and we’ll be using Away Builder, Away3D 4.1 and Away Physics to help us on our way. You can read more about the event (and find details of how to sign up) by visiting http://digitalshoreditch.com/make-it-do-it-create-it-hack-it/

A week later, I’ll be heading up to Cambridge to present at the Cambridge Game Creators meeting. This is a regular community event that recently became an official “Adobe Community” for Cambridge and the east of England. I’ll be presenting a session titled Cross-platform Gaming with Away3D, and will have time to go through some of the aspects of Away3D’s integration with the Adobe game Framework SDK, and how we are evolving with new updates and tools in the future. More details will be available on the CGC meetup page in the next few days

Some of you may remember the bundled Away3D game that came with the first Adobe Gaming SDK download towards the end of last year. Called Invawayders (already regretting that title…), it demonstrated a simple Away3D interaction with pixelated 3D space invaders, and had compilation options for both mobile (phone/tablet) and web applications.

The game has recently had  a bit of a spring clean, and in order to give it a more permenant home, we’ve uploaded to a new source repository in github. The source is arranged in three libraries, a core lib containing all shared assets and logic, and two FB projects for mobile and web publishing respectively. Instructions for installation can be found in the README.md file.

The game itself plays very similar to the existing Invawayders demo bundled in the Gaming SDK, however this version has a couple of significant updates to it’s code architecture:

• The game loop is now managed by the Ash framework, an extremely clean and flexible entity framework for AS3
• The required Away3D version is has been updated to 4.1 Alpha, taking advantage of some of the new particle APIs

The live versions of the game have also been updated, these can be found in the following locations for each respective platform:

• Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=air.invawayders&hl=en
• Apple iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/invawayders/id566559602?mt=8
• Facebook: http://apps.facebook.com/invawayders

I am only just getting to grips with Facebook’s new App Center, so it may take a while for me to work out how to link the mobile games from the app page, but according to FB developers, the experience should be “seamless”. At least i finally worked out how to get that “play” button working again on the community page. Info about the game will appear here from now on now when there are any more updates etc, and if we’re really lucky we should be able to get the username shortcut for the page after 25 likes

Would be interested to hear what people thought of the re-architecture. I’m actually quite liking the approach that Ash places on game development, the conversion took a while to get my head around but after a bit of code wrestling, everything seemed to fall neatly into place. Hopefully I’ll be getting a chance to apply Ash to some more Gaming SDK examples in future.

Earlier this week, around the same time that Adobe was getting all amendy with their Flash whitepaper, we published our updated roadmap for Away3D & The Away Foundation. If you’ve not yet read it and are interested in what 3D shenanigans to expect from us, nows the time to have a look!

With a schedule beginning to form, my attention is drawn back to the some of the upcoming events we’ll be attending over the next few months, and in some cases, speaking. The first in line looks to be Casual Connect Europe, a games conference hosted in Hamburg from 12th-14th Feb. I’ll be presenting a short talk in the Indie track on Wednesday called Cross-platform 3D to the Max, which will look into some of the savings we can make when balancing performance and quality on the GPU – something applicable to many of today’s games published on tablets and phones.

The 2 days following Casual Connect will be spent joining in with the Adobe Game Jam group in Hamburg, where I will be teaming up with Chris Benjaminsen of PlayerIO and seeing how far we can get creating a multiplayer 3D social game. The event promises to be a lot of fun, so if you’re around in Hamburg for the 15th & 16th and are interested in joining in or just coming along to observe, sign up for free attendance here.

After the jammin’, I’ll be heading over to the FITC conference in Amsterdam, where Richard Olsson of the Away3D Core Team will present a very exciting new talk called Away3D in The Open, with WebGL and Javascript. You can kind of imagine what that is going to be about, and the implications for us at Away3D are potentially very far reaching. However I’m not wanting to steal Richard’s thunder, so for more information you’ll just have to go to the talk.

Something to look out for almost directly after FITC, and especially if your a little less mobile, is the online Stage3D conference on Feb 22nd. check the website for details as things get closer, there’s already a strong lineup covering a very wide range of libraries. I’ll be talking about the cross-platform potential of Away3D & other Away Foundation projects, and there will also be a chance for Q&A on where we see things headed in the longer term.

Jumping forward  a few weeks, I’ll be attending the Flash Gaming Summit event in San Francisco for some shiny gaming nuggets, and this will be closely followed by the obscenely gargantuan GDC conference. The latter will be an interesting opportunity to showcase some new Away3D games to a wider gaming audience at the Adobe expo booth – for those who’ve not yet seen, we are taking submissions for any Away3D game developer interested in being part of the showcase content on the Away3D user forums, so if you’ve got something great in development that will have some sort of public release (or even promo video / site launch) on or before GDC, reply to the forum thread and let us know!

Finally, at the beginning of May, I’ll be returning to the West coast along with Richard to attend the “better late than never” revamped Adobe Max conference in LA. We will be presenting a new session titled Cross platform gaming with Away3D, and will be taking a look at some of the recent developments in 3D-land as well as some practical examples of Away3D workflows and optimisations. We will also be attending an Actionscript Gaming Frameworks panel along with other members of the SDK development teams for Starling and Feathers. Should be an interesting discussion about the current gaming landscape and where the various SDK libraries are headed.

I’m always open to meeting up with local Away3D groups or companies/developers using our libraries, so if you happen to be in the area at any of the events above and are keen for a chat, please let me know!

As one of the cornerstone concerns of the recent 4.1 Alpha release of Away3D, GPU optimisation is something we will all have to start paying more attention to in future. The discipline used to be reserved for the hardcore console elite, but these days the application of GPU technology is literally everywhere, and the consumer has wised-up to the importance of smoothly performing and battery-efficient software.

As a reaction to this, I have been busy preparing a new presentation that takes a look at what GPU optimisation means for the web & mobile industry in general, as well as in the specific case of Flash based products. The talk is called A Million Little Triangles, and I’ll be giving a preview of the session at the newly reformed LFPUG this Thusday, as well as the upcoming FlashGamm conference in Kiev, Ukraine in a couple of weeks time. We will take a look at some of the history of accelerated graphics, and some of the general principals that today’s hardware adhere to – principals that make steering round the pitfalls all the easier. Hope you can make it to either one!

***Update****

Sadly, there had been a change of plan on the LFPUG front, now looks like this will be delayed until January.

The animation system in Away3D has had a fair amount of refactoring in recent times, and as yet, less examples actually demonstrating performance and features. The demo above is intended as a first step to rectify this, in this case for the vertex animation system.

Animation data in this demo is imported via the MD2 format using one of the more well known examples from Quake days, the Perelith Knight. One of the great things about MD2 is its small size – the entire swf comes in at a smidge over 700k – an impressive feat considering the variety of animation and textures included.

Another advantage of vertex animation over other forms such as bones is its playback efficiency. Here we have 400 independently animating avatars with normal maps, specular maps and dynamic shadows, all running at a smooth 30fps on an average machine.

Full source is available for the demo – just select “View Source” from the right-click menu or use the direct link here to view and download. The demo uses the bleeding-edge build in the dev branch of Away3D’s github, so be sure you have updated your source if you are interested in compiling the code.

Only a month left until the new format for the creativathon that was Flash on the Beach, now Reasons to be Creative, kicks off in Brighton.

Being the uneducated heathen that I am, I’ll freely admit to being unfamiliar with the work of at least half the billing this year. But judging by past choices, I don’t doubt it will contain plenty of inspiring and interesting nuggets, the paydirt of any creative conference and the thinking behind why you must absolutely, definitely, without question or worry for your liver, be in attendance.

With the recent upheavals in Away-land, I’m pleased to say there will be plenty of Away3D team members and supporters at the conference, bringing together the very latest on library development and the work of  The Away Foundation, something that I will be speaking about in my session Forward the Foundation on Monday.

Another of our team David Lenaerts will also be presenting on some of the magic he conjures up with the work for dynamic lighting in Away3D, as well as more general principals used in computer graphics in his session A Trick of Light on Wednesday.

Tickets are still up for grabs, with reduced pricing available for another 3 days until August 10th, after which the full ticket price is required.

A new training course has been announced for all London-based Away3D’ers! Hosted by the LFPUG, Stepping into the 3rd Dimension is a two day workshop which will focus on Away3D 4.0 features and should be suitable for anyone looking to dive into the world of Stage3D-accelerated Flash content. I’ll be taking on my usual role of tutor, with Tink providing backup in the form of lunch arrangements and good vibes

The course is due to be held on the 23rd & 24th of August, priced at a very reasonable £230 + VAT (£276). A full description of topics can be found on the lfpug training page, highlights include:

• Library and examples step-by-step setup
• Animation systems walkthrough
• Prefab3D installation and use
• Publishing on mobile devices

With a maximum class size of 14, seating is limited so be sure to register on the LFPUG page above asap to guarantee yourself a place, or send a mail direct to the organisers at training AT lfpug.com.

Hope to see you there!

Another Away3D update has arrived! The Away3D Team released their latest version of Away3D a few days ago – dubbed “4.0 gold” due to the fact that is it the first production-ready version of the Away3D 4.0 engine.

Full details of the release can be seen in the announcement on away3d.com. A large part of the work for the update has been around documentation and bug fixing, but there are some notable feature updates to the code for this release including:

• Starling Integration APIs – new demo of functionality can be seen in away3d.com/tutorials

• Mouse Interaction and picking APIs – offering a variety of picking approaches for optimising performance

• Frame-based animation APIs – including unified skeleton & vertex animation apis, and flexible state management.

• Established content workflows for designers – new demo of functionality can be see at away3d.com/tutorials

• Bugfixes, examples and documentation – updated docs can be seen online at away3d.com/livedocs/away3d/4.0/

As usual, download zips for source, examples and documentation can be found at away3d.com/download, and further updates are expected in the coming weeks, along with more tutorials and support material.

Not sure what happened to any form of restraint – this month sees me with no less than 4 conference appearances which has got to be some kind of record. For me. I know some of you are workaholics, but sadly I only ever seem to collect addictions that are bad for me.

However, as I try not to look those deadlines too squarely in the face, I can be somewhat comforted by the fact that there is currently quite a lot worth talking about. Firstly there is the ever approaching Away3D 4.0 gold release which we are hoping to occur some time towards the end of the month, as well as new development on Away Physics and analysis on how the Adobe premium license (or “speed tax” as it is more affectionately known) will affect us here. Then there is Prefab 2.0 which is getting closer to a release as well although Fabrice won’t give too much away on an exact date as yet – expect more information soon enough.

First event on May 17th will be the exotic looking FlashGamm! conference in Moscow – a day long game developers festival based around Flash, social and mobile (like it says above. What do you mean you can’t read?). Having met a few Russian devs at previous conferences around the world I’m fairly confident their a friendly, outgoing bunch but the country itself is something I’ve not experienced before. For some reason, all that comes to mind when thinking of Moscow is Tetris and James Bond. Which doesn’t sound right at all.

I’ll be presenting a new talk titled Away3D for the accelerated age – you can probably guess what that will be about. The Alternativa guys are a FlashGamm! sponsor this year, and I’m really looking forward to hearing more about what they’ve been up to after the recent open-sourcing of their engine. At least now I can’t feel bad about me invading their turf.

Straight after FlashGamm!, I’ll be presenting at the larger KRI conference – another Russian game developers event (bearing some similarity to the GDC in San Francisco) that takes place over 3 days from May 18th – 20th. I’m a little confused so far on the name, as all the signs clearly call it “KPN”, but in certain text its KRI and some even have it as RGDC… whatever its called, I will be presenting Dissecting the Gloop – a breakdown of a recent mobile project collaboration called Gloop-a-hoop. The game is being released later this month and was an interesting experience on using Away3D and Stage3D with the latest FP11.2 and AIR3.2 APIs that I hope others will find useful.

After I make it home from Moscow (always assuming that happens), I’ll be attending and presenting at the Digital Shoreditch festival in London. This is a two-week long collection of various events with a creative and/or technical theme, and I’ll be part of the lineup at the Next Tech event curated by The Hoxton Mix. This presentation will be a more involved exploration of the Gloop-a-hoop game and will hopefully give attendees the information they need to start creating and publishing 3D content on mobile devices, with a bit of help from the various free tools and libraries used here.

Finally, on May 31st I’ll be presenting Away3D for the accelerated age at a slightly more usual stomping ground – the monthly LFPUG event in London. I’m pleased to say that the accompanying speaking here will be none other that the daddy of Flash 3D, Carlos Ulloa himself. And that doesn’t worry me at all. Nope, not in the slightest.

One of the cool new features introduced in the recent Flash Player 11.2 release is the ability to lock the mouse when in fullscreen mode. What this allows is a sort of ‘infinite scroll’ effect where the mouse movement directly controls the application, rather than having to rely on the mouse cursor position.

To demonstrate this I’ve added a mouselock feature to a new Away3D demo that allows you to fly around a 3D globe using the traditional click n’ drag approach. If you enter fullscreen by hitting the spacebar, you switch into being able to control the rotation of the camera simply by moving the mouse, which I’m sure you’ll agree is a much more enjoyable experience and frees up mouse clicks for whatever else your application might require.

Of course, the construction of this demo has been about more than just mouselock. I wanted to create a convincing globe simulation using real data and so searched through as many online resources as I could find. The best resource that eventually turned up was from a fantastic NASA archive called Visible Earth. The Blue Marble category is where most of the earth textures come from, although some tweaking was necessary in Photoshop to achieve a slightly more realistic end result.

When creating an earth simulation, a lot of enjoyment seems to come from rendering the perfect sunset from space. This has many nuances such as Fresnel refraction from the water surface, a band of light forming along the horizon due to atmospheric aberration, visible relief of mountain ranges, artificial lighting from towns and cities on the ground… the list goes on and on. In achieving some of these effects I’ve actually added a few new features to the Away3D material classes, which will soon be available for use on our dev branch – check them out if you’re interested.

Because of the wide range of rendering approaches that have ended up being covered by this little experiment, I’ve decided to include a step-by-step walkthrough of the construction process – a little look behind the tricks techniques used here, as part of my upcoming Away3D training session at BTPlay. The conference is now only a couple of weeks away and something I’m really looking forward to as it will be my first Away3D training session for over a year. So much has happened since then, its sometimes hard to remember what life was like before Stage3D…

If you’re interested in finding out more on mouselock, you can learn how to implement this and other new 11.2 features over at Tom Krcha’s blog in the following article: http://www.flashrealtime.com/mouselock-right-click-middle-click-in-flash-player-11-2/