Recently I had been doing a little more work in Away3D and I needed to use an object that was more complex than a preset primitive. After looking through some of the Away3D examples I tried bringing in my own model from Cinema4D. I quickly found that setting up and exporting your file correctly is half the battle. In this tutorial I’ll explain how to create a primitive in cinema4D export it correctly for Away3D inside flash. Source code is available at the bottom. Use the right/left arrows to switch models and the up/down to change the texture. Below is the final product:
I was reading Lee Brimelow’s Blog ( http://gotoandlearn.com/play?id=63 ) and was having some fun playing with effects. While I was trying out a few different solutions to see what the effect would be. The problem was having to continuously recompile my flash movie to see the changed effect. A few numeric steppers later I was able to make a this little applications that spits out the colorMatrix Filter code.
Infinite Puddle:
While waiting to make a formal update to Hydropic’s website and blog I thought I could just post some of the work I did on sound for my Team installation project that was on display at Imagine RIT
While our time alocated for sound was very slim I was able to get some great sounds together for a background track and some key sound effects for our piece. For all the sound I used Audacity with GarageBand, mostly because it’s what I am most familiar with and I knew that I would have to use some MIDI instrument tracks. Audacity was used to reverse certain loops and then to re import those back into Garageband. The cool thing about XNA + Sound is that I was able to throw in the angle of where the sound was originated in-game to give is a more immersive and realistic feel.
The background track was the most crucial. One: how do I create something that wouldn’t drive us or our users insane? Two: how did we want to convey our game? All of our reference had been on RTS pc games which used a very industrial sound to convey urgency and science fiction. Our game was more light-hearted and would be displayed to all age groups. For inspiration I mainly pulled from Command + Conquer II sound track and Katamari Damacy. The happiness of Katamari proved a good counterpoint to the harshness or Command + Conquer II. I also listened to some of the DJ’s I admire for their music tracks mainly: Deadmau5.
Have a listen: Background Music Track
For sound effects these were slightly more fun having only a few seconds to play with to really convey something that didn’t sound like a garageband preset.
The user’s character had an electrical attack that was triggered in game, I wanted to include a surging, the aftershock, and also the cry of the enemy in relation to the shock.
Have a listen: Avatar Attack
Avatar Die
When the user’s character dies it does this sort of unravel and then explosion of parts. I tried to combine as many bone-breaks, body hits, and other shatters I could along the build up before it resolves with a nice low concussion blow.
Have a listen: Avatar Die
Shield Powerup!
The user’s avatar was able to temporarily gain special power in-game. In addition to changing the avatars physical appearence sound was of great help. In this sound I wanted a build-up that was somewhat dissonant with a sharp resolution and echo to follow.
Have a listen: Shield Powerup
Speed Boost!
The user’s avatar could also gain a short temporary speed boost. I wanted something similar to the Doppler effect when a car drives by: quick abrupt build and a sudden resolution accompanied with an echo.
Have a listen: Speed Powerup
I am by no means an expert, but I did have some fun making these together for our installation and the feedback was good from both other presenters and the team as a whole.
source code is available HERE
Recently I decided to tackle a challenge posed by Firstborn in New York on behalf of the Society of Digital Agencies to students at RIT . The challenge: was to animate type completely with Actionscript 3.0. This text had to be loaded and configured using XML, and XML only. Having previously done a text explosion effect in papervision3D I knew that I wanted to do something a little different. I finally decided on everyone’s favorite thing about New Zealand- no not Lord of the Rings. Flight of the Conchords! Being the tech geek that I am their song “Robots” seemed perfect for this assignment, plus it was only two minutes long.
Source Code is available here
Recently I had been wanting to do some more interactive 3D type of projects. I wanted to create something beyond just a pre-rendered sequence that simulated camera movement. I have previously been using papervision3D but wanted to expand my knowledge and check out the competition. Papervision X has been long expected but with Ralph Hauwert Unit Zero One leaving the team I thought it was time to move on. Away3D was very highly recommended by my colleague Kyle Beikirch for it’s more frequent updates to SVN and ease of interactivity. Since I was exactly sure what would be interactive when I started: I gave it a shot.
I was in the lab yesterday and saw my friend animating text and 3D and it did not seem very appetizing. I really regret having to do tedious time-consuming things by hand. If there is ever a procedural way to generate or simulate something I’m willing to try. So I put together this little example.
*UPDATE*
I was able to get the zDepth working by applying simple blur filters to the bitmaps of the BitmapMaterials inside papervision3D. I also added in an input text field so that users could change the text without having to recompile. I have some bigger ideas for this down the road, like sequencing camera tweens between each letter. And exploding a whole paragraph word for word. I had some trouble with making the letter interactive, but it’s always been a bit of a pain to get events working with papervision3D. But for now: I’m happy where it is. The code is extremely well documented and if you have any questions just shoot me a line at : ben.mcchesney@gmail.com
The update source code is located here
Outdoor Panoramic scene where the user collects samples
Over the last 5 weeks I had the wonderful opportunity to work with a Designer I have also had tremendous respect for : Kevin Whitefield ( site is located at : virtualmatter.org ) . Our goal was to create an online experience that that was truly immersive. We used flash technology and create several scenes the user could navigate and interact with very similar to Quicktime’s QTVR technology.
At first we toyed with the idea of using papervision3D but realized that it was not as feasible as we first thought, even though projected environments on spheres did correct a lot of the distortion problems caused by large panoramic images.
This project was also a great opportunity to create complex soundscapes which I had a blast creating, and was thankful I allocated enough time to do it well.
I had been meaning to upload some of my experiments in photography I’ve just been a little tied up learning XNA and HLSL shader languages. But no more excuses!
Visualizing Ideas
Photo Montage
For this picture I combined cubism with photography. I extruded the cubes of each of their portraits based on their relative distance to the camera: accentuating the z-depth. The subjects of this photo were my two band mates Roger Lane and Seppi and we had a blast shooting all sorts of ridiculous poses before coming up with some usable shots.
Panoramas
Every Year New Media Club has an annual apple picking event at a local apple orchard. The owner let me come onto the grounds before opening so I could get some nice unobstructed shots. Shooting at around 5:30AM also gave some great effects with light rays breaking on branches and the dew-drops still on the leaves.
This road panorama was also taken at the orchard. In retrospect the scene was in the shade and a bit darker than I would have wanted. Taking the panorama in the sun and positioning myself so that they entire road across the image would have made this more successful.
I am by no means a photographer, but after playing with it a little more I think I’ll invest in a camera in the near future hopefully something that records HD video too.
So there’s this thing on the internet right? And it’s called Gaia Framework, and it’s awesome.
I could always develop individual swfs, and do little test experiments but when it came to making entire sites, I always seemed to fall short with navigation, garbage collection, and good coding practices just to get it to work. But using Gaia, I am able to correct all these problems, and build full websites *easily*. I noticed that a lot of other students also struggled with the development of entire site, and thought I could help by offering up what I learned, and the site that I created.
Well the summer is over now, and I had a truly exceptional experience at Fantasy Interactive – New York. I learned so much from the developers and designers around me, and will continue to instill FI quality in all my future work.
Check out the full article of me on FI’s Blog at:
http://www.kontain.com/fi/entries/41358/summer-lovin-comes-to-an-end/