boostworthyisryantaylor

John posted up a video demonstrating the use of my animation system with Papervision3D in his latest demo:

Even cooler is his new set of Flash CS3 components for previewing 3D content directly in the IDE:

http://www.rockonflash.com/blog/?p=54

Great work as always!

Today was the big day! I was one of the lucky ones to get an iPhone at tonight’s 6:00pm launch. There must have been 500 people in line at the Apple store at Lenox Mall here in Atlanta. It was crazy, yet very cool at the same time. It was quite the event as you can probably imagine. People counted down to the store opening and there was tons of cheering and emotion. Here are some pictures of the packaging and what not; it was very nicely done (as is usually the case with Apple products).

I am excited to announce that I have accepted an offer to join Schematic in early July at their brand new office in Atlanta. As a member of their Multimedia Platforms Group, I will be designing and developing Flash/Flex applications side-by-side with some of the biggest names in the industry. Schematic’s client list currently includes ABC, CNN, Electronic Arts, ESPN, Fox, Intel, Microsoft, MTV, NBC, NFL, Sony, and Warner Bros.

Though there will certainly be work-related material that I cannot post on here, I will still be sharing my thoughts, art/code experiments, and open-source projects on a regular basis. As always, feel free to contact me via Gmail:

rtaylor11 [-at-] gmail.com

The title to this post could actually be something like “Seven Magical Betas” since Leopard is currently in beta as well, but I’m not going to be fortunate enough to have my hands on that one, so six betas it is.

So, where to begin…

Flash Player Update 3 Beta 1

Wow, what a super great update. Right off the bat, I noticed some excellent performance gains. These gains were noticed in an AS2 / Flash 8 app, so this stuff isn’t limited to just Flash 9 content. My project frame rate was published at 31 fps and usually sat at around 25-26 fps in Firefox. With this new update installed, I am now seeing a constant 29-31 fps; everything looks and feels noticably smoother. This is because the update now features multi-threaded support for vector rendering, bitmap filters, and video decoding, as well as many other performance tweaks.

In addition to this greatness, there is mip map support for all bitmaps for Flash 9 content. Downscaled bitmaps now look MUCH better. This is most obvious when you look at large images that have been scaled down to be used as thumbnails, and perhaps an even better example is texture mapping in Papervision3D. There are some things you need to know to get the most of mip mapping though, such as making your graphic’s (or texture’s) dimensions a power of two (256 x 256, 128 x 64, etc). I’m used to this practice since this was something I had to do for all of my assets while working at EA (obviously for the game engine), but this will be new to a lot of people, so more can be learned from this great post by Tinic Uro of Adobe.

The update also includes hardware acceleration for full-screen mode. There is a new API for this functionality, so an updated SWC along with instructions on it’s usage is necessary. All of this can be found on Adobe Labs here.

This is an amazing Flash Player update, so be sure to update right away.

AIR: Adobe Integrated Runtime (Apollo) - Public Beta

The newly released Apollo public beta now has it’s official name which is AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime). I personally think that they should have stuck with Apollo as the name, but it’s a great product, so who really cares.

PDF support is now present, which is great. Additionally, there is much improved JavaScript/HTML support which is something the alpha really lacked.

Perhaps the most significant addition is the SQLite database which is included for local testing. This addition goes hand-in-hand with Google Gears.

Download the AIR SDK here from Adobe Labs.

Flex 3 Beta (Moxie)

The Flex 3 Beta is now live and can be downloaded here on Adobe Labs. There are tons of new features in Flex 3, much more than any one post could cover, so rather than attempt that, I will forward you to some excellent articles on Ted Patrick’s blog.

Design/Developer Workflow
Code Enhancements
Components and SDK Enhancements
Dramatically Smaller Flex SWF Files
AIR Projects

That’s a lot of reading, so to save you some time, I will mention a couple things that really excite me about Flex 3.

First off is refactoring. Refactoring in Flex Builder 3 is a awesome addition, one that I certainly welcome. Being able to change a method, property, or even class name and have your entire project updated instantly is a HUGE time saver.

The other new feature I’m really excited about is the smaller SWF file size feature. How is this being accomplished you ask? Well, Flash Player is actually going to cache the Flex Framework. That means that your SWF files only need to contain application specific code and the preloader which contains caching and loading logic. File sizes will be 200-500kb smaller on average as a result of the caching. All of this is optional however, so you can still choose to deploy without depending on the cached framework.

FlashDevelop 3 Beta 2

FlashDevelop is a great tool for developing Flash applications. Version 3.0 brings a lot of cool new features to the table. Some of the key features include:

-AS2, AS3, and HaXe project support.
-New completion engine.
-Ant support (not as good as FDT still, but it’s a step in the right direction).
-Much improved find and replace tools.

The biggest thing that FlashDevelop has going for it over FDT is it’s project templates. If you haven’t tried FlashDevelop before, I highly suggest you do. It is a free tool, however if you enjoy it, a donation to the project is very helpful.

FDT 3 Beta

The FDT plugin for Eclipse is highly regarded as the best development tool for ActionScript. The current release of the tool only supports AS2, so version 3.0 (which will feature AS3 support) is highly anticipated by many. I don’t have much to say about the version 3.0 beta because I won’t have it until later on this week or possibly sometime next week. I will certainly post more about it once I get my hands on it.

In the meantime, I will tell you that I enjoy FDT because of the Ant tasking, real-time error checking, and of course the many useful hotkeys. Unlike FlashDevelop, it will cost you. The current release will run you 199 euros, which is around $290 USD right now I believe. Version 3.0 will cost 299 euros or 99 euros to upgrade. I recommend it though if you have the money to spare.

Safari 3 Beta (OS X Tiger, Windows XP, and Windows Vista)

I honestly didn’t see this one coming. When Steve Jobs said his infamous “one more thing…” line during his keynote today, I was anxious to hear what that special something was. Safari on Windows? Huh…

The performance is definitely better than IE and Firefox as they claim, however this alone will not be enough to pull most users away from Firefox. The one nice thing about this though is that developers intereseted in developing for the iPhone can build and test their applications from Windows, not just OS X. This is due to the fact that the Safari engine is the platform in which developers will be using for their iPhone applications.

The beta can be downloaded now from the Apple site here.

Leopard Preview @ WWDC 07

I must admit that when I was reading the live text updates on Mac Rumors Live today, I was expecting some amazing stuff and ended up being rather disappointed. Apple didn’t announce some crazy multi-touch devices to compliment the iPhone, in fact, they didn’t announce any hardware updates at all today. The keynote was all about Leopard and a little bit about the iPhone.

Then Apple posted today’s keynote video on their site as usual and I watched it. I must say that I was really blown away by some of the new Leopard features that weren’t previously announced.

My favorite is Quick Look. It’s seamless and amazing. It will be a huge time saver for sure to be able to instantly view files without having to open separate applications to have a look at them. I am curious though if support will be present for file types such as PSD, SWF, and FLV. They mainly only mention common types like PDF and MOV, however they did demonstrate some excel spreadsheets, so there is hope I suppose.

The new “stacks” feature of the dock is pretty nice as well. The addition of “cover flow” to the re-designed Finder was a nice touch too. Overall, I’m really excited about Leopard…I just really wish I didn’t have to wait until October to have it.

A final note from WWDC today - Apple has officially stated that the iPhone will NOT support Flash Player in Safari. I’m obviously rather disappointed, but I’m sure that will change in the future.

So…what about sleep?

I dunno what to tell you. With all this new stuff coming out, personal projects, contract work, etc.; who has time to sleep? Seriously? We’re all screwed for now.

If you haven’t already heard, Apple has brought their Safari 3.0 browser to the Windows platform. Though the browser is currently a public beta release, they have claimed large performance increases over IE and Firefox. I downloaded and installed it here on my work machine which runs Windows XP and tested it with my current project (a heavy AS2 app) and the framerate is the best I have seen in a browser. The SWF file was published at 31 fps and in IE and Firefox, I typically get around 25-26 fps. In Safari 3, it has been staying around 29-30 fps and everything definitely feels smoother.

This is great news, however I don’t think it is enough to pull me away from Firefox. I am very excited about the performance of the browser though, so maybe if extensions begin getting offered for Safari like they are for Firefox, I will have enough reasons to make a switch.

Update!

That performance gain I spoke of was the Flash Player Update 3 Beta 1 (build 9.0.60.120). Amazing update. You can read more about it here.

Photosynth has been old news for some time now, however check out this video demonstration of Seadragon. Very impressive stuff.

For quite some time now, I have been using the naming conventions that we made while I was working at EA. Since we carried some of the C++ standards over, method names and getter/setters began with uppercase letters. I was also naming interfaces with ‘_I’ on the end instead of starting with an ‘I’ because it kept them in alphabetical order.

Well tonight, I decided it was time to refactor my entire AS3 library to adhere to the normal AS standards. Method names and getter/setters now begin with lowercase letters and interface names begin with an ‘I’. Four hours and two monster energy drinks later, version 2.1 is ready to go. I also fixed a minor bug and made a few other small changes while I was at it. It’s all detailed in the change log, so make sure and have a quick look at that before creating some baller animations.

I apologize to everyone who just downloaded version 2.0 and started integrating it into projects. It shouldn’t take long at all to migrate over to this latest version. It is definitely worth it in the long run.

Download ‘boostworthy_animation_v2_1.zip’

The original post has been updated as well. Since this was quite a massive update, if you come across any bugs or mistakes in the documentation, please let me know.

Thanks and enjoy!

v2: Because you deserve better.

You are a developer. As a developer, you need a powerful animation tool that can provide you with both simplicity and complexity at the same time. You need a clearly defined API for auto-completion; one that is nicely documented to make your life easier. That is what the version 2.0 release is all about.

Feature packed.

Here are some details regarding the system and it's features.

- Specify the use of 'enter frame' or 'timer' as your render method on a per-animation basis.
- Easily complete many common animations using the animation manager with one line of code.
- Create complex sequences of tweens and actions using the virtual timeline.
- Easily animate any property of any filter.
- Advanced color support that includes brightness, contrast, hue, and saturation.
- Common interface used for garbage collecting throughout the entire package.
- Create motion paths for display objects with the option to auto-orient to path.
- Advanced animation support using paths as value maps.
- Extremely extensible architecture.
- Clearly defined API.
- Full-blown documentation using ASDoc (same as Adobe livedocs).
- Eleven example files ranging from basic to advanced usage and theory.

Between the large collection of example files and the thorough documentation, you will be up and running in no time.

Syntax examples...

Here are some very simple examples of what the syntax for creating animations looks like.

Animation Manager:

Virtual Timeline:

Compatibility

The system was developed using FlashDevelop, however everything has been tested in the Flash IDE as well. The bottom line is, whether you are developing from the Flash IDE or another tool that compiles using mxmlc, you will be error free.

Licensed to tween.

The system is licensed under the MIT license. That means that you are free to use it and modify it for both personal and commercial projects. I don't want your money.

Still not convinced?

Additional information about the system, what it offers, and the theories behind it's approaches can be found in the PDF document below.

View the 'introduction.pdf' file.

Get the goods.

Below is a zip file that contains the source, example files, documentation, license, and introduction. In the near future, I plan on offering the system on Google Code (or an alternative SVN solution) as well.

Download 'boostworthy_animation_v2_1.zip'

The future.

There are many other systems out there that will benefit from the use of the Boostworthy AS3 Animation System, such as the Papervision3D project. Since not everyone has these separate systems, additional support for such packages will be offered as 'plugins'. Right out of the box, you can animate anything, however 'plugins' will offer additional features and animation types that are optimized for the specific package they are geared towards.

If you create any plugins of your own and would like to share them with the world, feel free to send me an email using the address listed below.

Final word.

Many hours of thought and love went into the creation of this system. I hope you will find it as useful as I have when adding that special level of polish to your projects that make them stand out from the crowd. If you have any suggestions, feedback, or just want to talk AS3, send me an email at:

rtaylor11 [-at-] gmail.com

Thank you and enjoy.