Over Here

Mediaframe Launched

2007-03-14T15:23:00.000Z

We have soft launched our brand storage/sharing system, mediaframe.net

It is built on Coldfusion and has some large elements of the UI built in Flash.

Mediaframe allows you to get access to brand-logos, fonts, colour schemes, images and brand guidelines. Brand assets can be downloaded in any size, resolution and file format.

The basic account is free for businesses so give it a try. Sign-up here.
There is also a demo account so you can preview the service.

Flex OSX Style Transition?

2007-01-11T10:08:00.000Z

Hi:

Im on the hunt for something I saw on the Macromedia XML News Aggregator a while ago. Somebody created a page transition in FLEX that looks similar to the Fast User Switching in OSX. It looks like there are different interfaces on the surface of a cube... you can navigate to other interfaces and the cube spins 90 degrees to show the other interface.

Does anybody know where I can find this?

Lux 3D Engine - Going Open Source

2006-11-30T17:53:00.000Z

My apologies for not being as active as I wanted to be on this project. I have been busy with other projects the last couple of months. I just wanted to give you a heads up, I will be releasing Lux under a Open Source license very soon so you people can start using/extending Lux.

I will be releasing it on ukmn.com first so if you want to know as soon as it released, I suggest keeping an eye on our RSS feed.

A quick recap on Lux
The main aim of this engine is for it to be usable in a sense of performance and have a simple API to integrate cleanly into other AS3 projects. I have seen many ActionScript 3D engines done in flash but many are over complicated, try to do too much and can be slow for simple tasks. I do not plan to add features like texture mapping, model loaders and animation as I want this to remain extremely lightweight and most importantly fast!

Base Features include:

LuxView: The main engine that contain, lights, objects and a camera.
LuxObject: An object that contains Points, Lines, Curves, Faces etc.
LuxStyle: Allows you to change the appearance of objects.

Other classes include Matrix, Vector, LuxAnchor, LuxPoint, LuxMultiPoint, LuxLine, LuxFace, LuxColour, LuxCamera, LuxLight.

I have also included a few primitive objects that will allow you to learn how to construct your own objects.

A simple test scene: Lux Test

Lux 3D with multiple Light Sources

2006-08-30T01:11:00.000+01:00

I have just added lighting to Lux... allowing you to add as many light sources as you like. If you have a moment, would you mind testing the performance? If you press and hold on the flash it turns depth of field on... can you comment on your os/browser/cpu and the two speeds(with/without dof)?

Lighting Test

3D Depth Sorting Issues

2006-08-25T15:04:00.000+01:00

I am having a problem with depth sorting in a 3D environment... I have tried numerous approaches but come across problems with certain situations.

My current method involves finding the z value of an objects point furthest from the camera and sorting objects by that depth.

Consider this 3d scene:

From a side view with camera shown:

You can see that the grid is further away than the cube, the depth sorting seems to be working fine. But say if I move the camera to be below the grid problems start to occur:

The depth sorting routine still thinks the grid is further away and draws the cube on top of the grid! Has anybody got any experience with this? Can anybody give me some tips?

Lux Performance Test

2006-08-23T14:13:00.000+01:00

If you have a moment to spare, would you mind trying this performance test? If you press and hold on the flash it turns depth of field on... can you comment on your os/browser/cpu and the two speeds(with/without dof)?

Thanks!

Lux Performance Test

Introducing Lux

2006-08-22T01:58:00.000+01:00

Along side isometric games I have been working on a 3D framework named 'Lux' in AS3, originally started as a AS2 project a while ago. The main aim of this engine is for it to be usable in a sense of performance and have a simple API to integrate cleanly into projects. I have seen many 3D engines done in flash but they are over complicated, try to do too much and as a result run slow. Here is an early demo of Lux...

Lux Test

gotoAndStop Crash Update

2006-08-16T17:06:00.000+01:00

Looks like Adobe are one it... I had an email from one of the Flash Player QA guys asking for sample project that replicates the the crash. Hopefully I get an answer soon.

gotoAndStop crash Example

2006-08-06T16:38:00.000+01:00

Here is an example of that gotoAndStop crash. Visit the following url move the character about randomly.

Warning: This will make your browser crash.

gotoAndStop Crash Example

Actionscript 3 Performance

2006-08-06T16:33:00.000+01:00

I am currently porting an Actionscript 2 game to Actionscript 3. The game has an isometric view and has collision detection, physics etc...

In the AS2 version if there were more than 6 blocks the game started to chug... as you can see from this demo I can place over 100 blocks on screen at once, all moving, with no slow down!

AS3 Performance Test

gotoAndStop causing browser to crash

2006-08-05T17:02:00.000+01:00

This bug is driving me up the wall. I am embedding a movieclip into one of my classes using this method:

[Embed(source='/sprites.swf', symbol='PlayerSprite')]
private var PlayerSprite:Class;

I need to use gotoAndStop to reflect a state change... e.g.:

if(_isMoving){
mc.gotoAndStop("walk_"+angle);
}else{
mc.gotoAndStop("idle_"+angle);
}

The script works but it causes both IE and FireFox to crash completly at random times when gotoAndStop is executed.

Has anybody else experienced this?