Ryan Tan

Recovering lost animation on referenced characterSets in Maya 2011

A friend recently lost all of his animation on a referenced character rig. The file still opens without Maya complaining, but the keys just went missing. A quick check of the .ma in a text editor confirmed that the animCurve nodes were still present. Feeling adventurous, I fired up notepad++ and did a text comparison [...]

Free Transform Manager As3 v1.3

This is an update to my earlier post announcing the launch of FTM. Source provided after the jump. Download: Source only | Source + Examples This update consolidates some of the changes people have requested and some refactoring. Usage: // Only need one instance per project var fts:FreeTransformManager = new [...]

Drupal 7 – Handling file uploads

When trying to deal with custom forms with file upload fields, you may sometimes get a error regarding extensions: The specified file “your file name here” could not be uploaded. Only files with the following extensions are allowed: “jpg jpeg gif png txt doc xls pdf ppt pps odt ods odp” To allow all extensions, [...]

Raise the Red Lantern

Inspired by some minimalist posters, I attempted to create one for one of my favorite movies: Unfortunately, its not as minimal as I would like it to be. I got distracted and started watching “To Live”, another masterpiece from the same director, Zhang Yimou.

Free Photo Stitching Software from Microsoft?

It surprises me to find out that Microsoft has been offering a free photo stitching utility for quite some time. And though its quality cannot be matched by photoshop or auto stitch, it is free, and surprisingly fast. While it takes up to 30mins to merge 8 hi res photos from my 550D (5184×3456) in [...]

Checking PHP syntax

A quick way to check a .php file for syntax errors is to use the -l option of php.exe. php -l /path/to/php/file.php

Creating nodes programmatically in Drupal (including cck and location fields)

Creating a new node in drupal is trivial, but when the node includes custom cck fields, then a few things can trip you up. To save time and energy, here’s a quick guide and some tips to make your drupal life easier. Creating a basic node: global $user; //get current logged in user $new_node = [...]

Size mismatch when getting BitmapData from Camera

Recently while trying to capture a frame from my webcam in Adobe Air, I realize the captured image is always smaller than the height or videoHeight from the Video object. The BitmapData documentation revealed that the BitmapData.draw() operation does not respect any matrix transformation applied on the Camera or Video object, so we need to [...]

Wireframing Kits

Just like you shouldn’t start building a project from scratch, you shouldn’t start crafting a wireframe out of a blank canvas as well. The place where you should start is here: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/02/05/50-free-ui-and-web-design-wireframing-kits-resources-and-source-files/ Great looking stencil kits for building everything from iPhone, browser, facebook, MacOS apps – even Blackberry. Preview the iPhone kit below

The Current State of Web Design – 2010

A fantastic snapshot of the current web design trends by Smashing Magazine: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/05/04/web-design-trends-2010/