g.wygonik's flash experiments

Ok - so - I've spent the past several nights playing with some of the new features in the Flash 10 public pre-release ("Astro"). The most exciting for me is the 3D transformations, as they create a whole bunch of fun new UI options (or, rather, new ways to implement fun UI options).

I was very happy to see that you can use all the standard display object hierarchies to build single Sprites filled with child objects in 3D space, then perform transformations on the parent Sprite. However, one thing that the player doesn't seem to do is perform any sort of z-depth management - you still need to track layers and depth as you normally do. (Truthfully I would have been surprised if it did, as I didn't think this was a replacement for a full 3D package like PaperVision).

A question this brings up in my mind is if there are/will be methods for determining a clip's position in 3D space per the display area. Something akin to localToGlobal/globalToLocal but using 3D points. Basically, if I add a Sprite to a parent object and rotate the parent, the child object stays in the same position inside the parent, but it does change in 3D space per the display. So - any way to figure out the 3D depth of a clip? It's totally possible I'm missing something, or that there will be info when final release comes out, but I'm impatient and want to go as far as I can now.

I'm going to start playing with the new sound manipulation features later this week -- I'm looking forward to trying to build some ambient algorithmically-generated music.

Good, good stuff.

So, after the most unfortunate and untimely closing of my previous employer about a month ago, I've been spending a lot of time fretting about work. Not so much that I wouldn't be able to find something, but finding a job that had the same interest level, would push me out of my comfort zone (in good ways), and, hopefully, last for a long, long time.

Fortunately, before things officially shut down, my boss introduced me to one Mr. Jared Ficklin (here demonstrating a nice fire-based audio visualization) which led to me securing a position as a Senior Technologist at frog design — a job that will definitely keep my interest and push the boundaries of my wee brain. This is my first week, and so far I can say that I wish I didn't have to come home and sleep at night.

The environment and company culture is quite refreshing, and every day I learn something about the frog mindset that makes me smile. It doesn't hurt that all the folks I've met all have the same love of technology and making cool things that I do! No more lone coder.

The best part — in my mind at least — is that all the things that I would do after work hours I get to do for my day job; learning new technologies, experimenting with UI/UX methodologies, fiddling around in Flash . This will definitely free up some cycles.

As for my last post, well, my ear did eventually clear up. It's a very scary thing to think "OMG, I'm a musician who just went deaf in one ear and everything is out of tune". Freaked me out a bit. All's fine now.

Happy day.

...but my wife was.

We recently finished up a project for AARP The Magazine -- a look back at 1968 via a timeline with images, audio clips, video clips, best-of lists, and a pop quiz.

The project is way deeper than it appears on the outside; there were amazing audio interviews with some of the influential people that made 1968 so special. From Bootsy Collins talking about James Brown to John Kay (of Steppenwolf) to Tommie Smith (the Olympic gold medalist who came up with the idea to do the Black Power "salute" during the medal ceremonies) -- it was awesome to get to edit the audio interviews and hear just how deeply the year affected them. It also struck me just how apathetic today's youth are. When you hear about these kids that took a stand against the war and social injustice and really DID something, and you look at the news today you can't help but see that most people talk the talk (mostly online) but certainly don't walk the walk. I got into doing music because I had something to say and wanted to try to change things around me -- and music was a great way to get into people's heads. But it seems that most people are happy to just post something online in a public forum (Digg people, I'm looking at you) and think it's doing something. I don't know... I'm old and jaded now.

In other news, I've been dealing with an ear infection for a week now -- which has kept my left ear clogged. So much for working on music! Most annoying. Hopefully it clears up soon, as my antibiotics are running out.

I've been working on developing some apps for the iPhone/iPod Touch. While I've been doing mostly web-app development, I'm getting ready to transition to full-on SDK Objective-C work. I've been putting it off as I'll need to upgrade my Mac Mini to Leopard. I think I should have the means to do that soon. There are some great possibilities with the technology, so I hope I can make it shine (like it does in my head).

Finally, we're starting up VeggieAustin -- the Austin version of the vegan/vegetarian dining guide we did in New Orleans. While there are several pre-existing sites here that cover some of the places to eat, none of them seem to venture out beyond their favorite spots or get updated more than once every 8 months. We're not necessarily trying to "compete", but we see a need for something just to help ourselves out, so we're doing it "our way".

Beyond that - things are ok. Hope everyone is well.

g.

I'm happy to announce that a project I've been working on for many months finally went live this past Friday -- National Geographic's Genographic Project Atlas of Human History (whew!).

The company I work for has been doing the site for the Genographic project since inception (2005), and this app is part of the year three updates. The globe is AS3-based and uses PaperVision3D v1.5 along with a bunch of custom UI stuff and SWFAddress for deep-linking/browser-button integration.

Read more!

After much contemplation I have decided that I can no longer keep blazePDF going. I have had zero time in the last two years to work on the AS3 version, and it doesn't seem that any extra time will be forth-coming. I've been so out of touch with the project that I hadn't noticed that the forums on the site were/are down -- and I have no idea how long they've been out of action...

blazePDF v2.1 is still available for the time being, as it is still a working solution for AS2 projects, but there will be no new updates, and no real support (not that I've been able to provide support recently anyway ).

I thank everyone who has supported the project over the years, and I'm happy to have seen all the really cool projects that people have used it in.

I would suggest that people interested in an AS3/Flex PDF creation system look at the open-source project AlivePDF; it seems to have some momentum behind it.

Cheers
g.