The new version of easySwap (beta 2.0) is out! The NTU Student Union has volunteered to host it on their server (and provide the manpower to maintain it, so I had to change the name to uSwap as well, to be in line with their branding.
Unfortunately, I still did not have time to implement the other features that I had wanted to, especially the email notifications. High priority in my list is also to implement caching of the results so that it wouldn’t be so taxing on the server when the “refresh rate” is high.
Part of me also wanted to port the project over to plain html/php so that its supported on the iPhone/iPad (probably with jQTouch), but… that’s for next time.
Put together a simple transform manager for a friend’s project. Supports dragging and single click scaling and rotating. Source provided after the jump.
After suffering a laggy Flash CS4 for nearly 6 months, I finally decided maybe it was an issue with the software and not my file. I feel stupid for not considering this possibility - an update which fixes the problem have been existing for over a year now.
The graphics don’t look like much, but its a cool flash rendition of the classic Powers of Ten – except that now you control the accelerator and brakes. The scale is pretty impressive too, from quantum foam up to the whole universe, check it out at New Grounds.
Online 3d has always been mired by long loading times or unresponsive interface. The thing that caught me was how the author of this site, Masayuki Kido, has taken that apparent limitation and used it to his advantage by combining low poly models with a beautiful cut out style. The illustrations, character designs and witty dialog are are wonderful too, leaving me wanting for more after exploring all the sections. Of course, expect nothing less from the winner of the FWA Site of the year 2008.
The site is in japanese but that shouldn’t harm your experience a bit. Click through the 10 questions and have your robot generated, then watch it move around and fight with other robots. The algorithm that moves them and animate the legs is intriguing, and the interface looks clean and polished, typical japanese design.
Well, at least when you’re using flash + amf. Last week I was getting the dreaded NetConnection.Call.BadVersion error every other day. Debugging blindly, I had no way of knowing whether I was moving towards or away from the solution. On the verge of giving up until I gave Service Capture a try. The handy tool sets up itself as the proxy to your browser and monitors all kinds of traffic, SOAP, XML, Text, JSON, Flash Traces, you name it. For my case, I used it primarily to decode the AMF responses from my zend_Amf gateway. It decodes the binary responses and place it along the request and response headers in a familiar object tree view, making inspection a breeze.
And I also realized what was causing the errors: the flash player was trying to decode a redirection to facebook’s login page as Amf. Doh.
Came across this 2 sites by Carlos Ulloa showcasing real time 3D in flash:
http://www.helloenjoy.com/ greets the viewer with an interesting transition from plain 2D words into a few 3D reflective text blocks floating in a white environment. After panning around them for awhile, the viewer soon notices that the cursor changes when hovering on each letter, and discovers in delight that those are not just floating 3D objects looking pretty, they actually demonstrate an interactive physics engine. Try them out yourself.
http://www.carlosulloa.com/ looks normal, until you decide to give the controls a try. Go ahead and be surprised.
Ryan Tan Zhong Hong is pur su ing his Bach e lor of Fine Arts in Dig i tal Ani ma tion while free lanc ing as a devel oper and web designer for a living.
