Papervision3d: VideoCube

Building on top of my previous HelloWorld example, and using my "classic" footage of the dancing Robosapien, here is a video cube.

This example uses a single video player, and reproduces the stream on each face of the cube using BitmapData.

For some reason, the video gets stuck sometimes, and is not a buffering issue, since it happens even if the FLV is completely loaded. For the time being, just refresh the page, I will update once I find out what's going on.

Update: Works fine now.

Recognizing Female Flashers

Uh oh, that didn't come out quite right, did it? Anyway, I am referring the First Flashgoddess Award, that will recognize creativity and technical skill among the female collective within the Flash community.

Even though there's quite a few girls doing great work with Flash, they are not recognized often enough. They say they the are not "show-offs" like us guys... not sure about that. Maybe most of you girls are just shy? Whatever the reason, this is your chance to put your work out there.

For more details on the contest rules and prizes, head over to Flashgoddess.

Before somebody flames me about the title of the post, let me say that Wikipedia stands by me

Via Flash Magazine

Papervision3d: Hello World 3d

Compared to all the Papervision work out there, this is really nothing, but every technology needs a "Hello World!" kind of sample, don't you think?

The purpose of this exercise is to show you how easily and quickly you can get started with Papervision3d. Between examining the sample code that comes with the package, reading a little but of the docs and modifying the sample to make what you can see above only took about 15 minutes.

New Desk Toy

To make it fun moving to the new office space, they got a bunch of different toys from Kid Robot, and everyone got one waiting on our desks when we arrived yesterday. I got this one.

I've been to Kid Robot's store in Soho many times, since I used to work just around the corner from them, on Wooster Street. I used to stop by every now and then to look at all the crazy stuff they had... I always ended up too overwhelmed to get anything though.

This one's name is "TRWG!" and is supposed to be a music junkie. Coincidence? I don't think so.

ASCIICam: Video to Text

Ever wondered how would you look in ASCII Art? no? I didn't think so... but here it is anyway: a quick video to ASCII conversion experiment I have put together, using BitmapData and a webcam as the video source. Of course it could be easily adapted to use an FLV, but I thought this way it would be more fun.

For now, you need a webcam to play with it, and I think it could be a little bit CPU intensive. On the other hand, I'm not sure if my selection of characters is the best right now: more variety of characters means a better image texture, the trick is to choose characters that will work regardless of their relative position, which is essential in manually generated ASCII Art.

Click here to check it out.

Papervision3D Will Change the Face of Flash

Even though I'm yet to put together a sample of my own, I've been following closely the developments of Papervision3d. Here you will find a selection of the work that has been done so far with Papervision3d, and expect more to come, as the people involved are very active, in one way or another.

One of the most wished-for features in Flash is support of a real 3D space, and although we might not get it any time soon, Papervision is bringing us closer. Join the list for updates and information on how to get involved.

Update: Thank you pointing out that missing word in the title. Sorry if the update causes a duplicate entry on the aggregators.

Update: This goes to tell you how easy it is to get started with Papervision: it took me under 15 minutes to look at an example, review the docs and come up with a Hello World sample.

Windows Vista is not a MacOSX rip-off!

And these video essays prove it.

Windows Vista did not steal ideas from Mac OS X!

The Real Windows Vista

This last one is very interesting (and weird) as they synchronized the video with the audio of what appears to be a legitimate Windows Vista presentation (probably THE presentation? I don't know, I haven't been following this story).

Adobe After Effects New York

There's a new Adobe User Group in town: Adobe After Effects New York, and they will ave their inaugural meeting on February 22nd. As most user groups, they plan to have regular monthly meetings (appearently the third Thursday of the month?), depending on public response.

I have added their current schedule to my Adobe User Groups Calendar. For their first meeting, the program includes the following presentations:

Maxon C4D 10 and AE Integration: Maxon will be demonstrating using Cinema 4D Release 10 along with After Effects, as well as the new C4D motion graphics module, Mograph.

Stephen Neary presents "Bigfoot's Eulogy": This short was a finalist in the 2006 Adobe Design Achievement Awards. Stephen will share his workflow for design, character animation, and 3D in After Effects.

Quick AE Tips with Aharon Rabinowitz: Aharon is the host of the Creative Cow After Effects Video Podcast and the Creative Director for Creative Cow Dynamic Media.

Plus, they will have a raffle with prizes from a bunch of sponsors, including Adobe. More information, here.

And They Said I was the Only One…

There's actually a bunch of people not liking the new icons for the Adobe products, to the point that there's a now an open contest to come up with new ideas. However boring or ugly these icons might seem to some people, the rationale behind the campaign makes total sense.

"If something is not broken, don't fix it" is what I've been hearing and repeting myself when discusing the new icons that will the products we use everyday. I don't hate them, but I don't love them. I will definitely miss the curvy "F" I have become familiar with for the past few years.

I'm sure people within Adobe had their own concerns, but they are ultimately looking at the big picture: after merger with Macromedia and the adquisition of other software companies, Adobe wants to unify their new universe of products under an homogeneous look and feel. Icons are an important part of how a software company markets their products, as they decorate interfaces, splash screens, packaging an a pletora of other adevertising materials. That's why it makes sense that, in order to present their products as an integrated group, Adobe chose to use the "periodic table" as their paradigm for this initiative.