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 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 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 February 29th, 2008
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!
Posted by rob on February 29th, 2008
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
Posted by rob on February 29th, 2008
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!
Posted by rob on February 29th, 2008
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
Posted by rob on February 29th, 2008
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
Posted by rob on February 29th, 2008
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
