For a long time, there has been nothing worth shouting about in terms of Flash’s capabilities with Sound.  Indeed, the furthest you got was some exciting pan and volume controls – admittedly functional but ultimately limited and uninspiring.  Enter Flash CS4 and Flash Player 10!

Flash CS4 brings with it an event for audio objects called SampleDataEvent (check out the Adobe Reference).  In essence, you create a sound object in Flash, like you would normally do.  But, instead of loading a MP3 file and playing it, you can add the SampleDataEvent listener and ‘feed’ the sound object with your own data, and play it!

This event goes hand in hand with the sound.extract() method.  This method will extra the raw sound data from a sound object, and feed the SampleDataEvent of another sound object.

Now, at the moment, this just sounds like the long and way to play a MP3 file, however it’s the bit in between extracting and ‘feeding’ the sound object that we’re interested in.  The raw data can be manipulated in any way you like.

The most basic thing you can do with a sound (probably) is to slow it down or speed it up.  This is done by taking the raw data and either missing out samples during playback (so that the sound is perceived as faster), or by adding more samples, by duplicating the raw data (so that the sound is perceived as slower).  At the same time, if a sound is sped up, the pitch is increased, and vice versa.  Easy eh?

I won’t go into further detail, but move to my little demo application that I’ve made.

http://glidepro.net/go-dj/

It’s a simple DJ application.  Two tracks are loaded, and played at once.  You can control the pitch of both to bring the tracks to a near-identical speed (in terms of rhythm).  There’s also a feature on the left track to pull/push it in sync with the rhythm of the right track.

Hope you had a bit of fun with this funny little app thing!

(credits go to Lee Brimelow author of The Flash Blog for his examples and Andre Michelle for his examples and his inspirational work with all things Flash and audio)

My amazing Flash icon cushion from MySuiteStuff arrived today and I must admit I’m rather chuffed hehe…  I need to find somewhere safe where it can sit proudly!

Check out their website for your favourite Adobe Creative Suite icon (perhaps not something you’re forced to think about on a daily basis, but there you go…)

(click on either picture for a bigger view, although the picture is ‘iPhone-camera-in-poor-lighting-grainy)

It’s been a while since I’ve said anything on here – been busy!! First a bit of background on SocialGO for the uninitiated…

SocialGO is a social networking platform that allows anyone to create their own social networking site. Like many social-media orientated sites (like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr etc), SocialGO has its own API that allows a site owner to access the data on their site, add functionality to it and do all kinds of fancy things (I like to keep this site jargon-free, ha )

Think about all of those applications you’ve seen on Facebook. Well, all of those are created using Facebook’s API. Without an API these applications would be completely standalone on the site without any type of integration with member profiles and the information on them – it’s exactly the same with the SocialGO API.

Getting the data from the SocialGO site database…

One of the fancy things that the SocialGO API lets you do is output a list of the various types of media available on the site. You can get the information and URLs for all of the images, videos and audio on the site.  To do this you need to have a copy of the latest SocialGO API Class, a text editor and a server run the PHP.

The following code will output a list of photos from my SocialGO site:

<?php
include 'SNM_api.php';

$api = new SNM_api();

$api->setApiServer('http://api.socialgo.com/');
$api->setNetworkKey('----');
$api->setDeveloperKey('----');

$filter = array(
 'album_id' => '7',
 );

$result = $api->getPhoto($filter);
print "<?xml version=\"1.0\"?>\n";
print "<photolist>\n";
foreach ($result->media_item as $photo)
{
 print "  <url>$photo->absolute_uri</url>\n";
}
print "</photolist>\n";
?>

This code is run on my server, so if you visit – http://glidepro.net/wii-sg-site/db-test2.php – then you will see a list of all the images on my SocialGO site (http://wiidev.info). View the source-code of this page and you will see that the output has been formatted in XML thus…

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<photolist>
  <url>http://static.socialgo.com/cache/61355/image/159.jpg</url>
  <url>http://static.socialgo.com/cache/61355/image/160.jpg</url>
  <url>http://static.socialgo.com/cache/61355/image/161.jpg</url>
  <url>http://static.socialgo.com/cache/61355/image/162.jpg</url>

…and so on!

…of course, you don’t have to output to XML, but I wanted to use this data with Flash/Actionscript3 – which has a comprehensive set of classes for loading and manipulating XML data.

Using the data…

OK, now I have my data all nicely formatted in XML, I can call this PHP file directly from Flash thus:

var xmlLoader:URLLoader = new URLLoader();
var xmlData:XML = new XML();
xmlLoader.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, LoadXML);
xmlLoader.load(new URLRequest("getphotos.php"));

function LoadXML(e:Event):void {
	xmlData=new XML(e.target.data);
}

Ta-da! That was nice and simple, so step by step:

1. Define the variable to load the XML file and the XML object that will hold the XML data once it has been loaded

2. Load the PHP file.

3. Once the PHP has loaded, an event listener will fire and the XML data will be place in the XML object variable

4. Now it’s possible to get to any of the XML data by simply referring to the nodes. Take the XML I pasted above. Suppose I wanted to get the URL of the first photo, I’d output it like this:

trace (xmlData.url[0]);

Easy! Thanks to the wonders of AS3, you can use the actual XML node names. Back in the murky days of AS2 you would have needed to use something like this…

trace (xmlData.childNode[0]);

…which is completely meaningless to be perfectly honest! Logical, yet meaningless…

The Final Result!

OK, well I’ve skipped the step of writing the Actionscript, however

The example I created was a 3D spinning cube that displays 6 random photos from the SocialGO site.  Simply put, the application finds out how many photo URLs are listed in the XML object and selects 6 random photos to put on each side of the cube.

Hit F5 to refresh and see different photos!

Check out http://glidepro.net/wii-sg-site/cube_finished.swf to see the SWF in a new window – might be easier when refreshing…

Well, that’s all for the time being, but there’s loads more to come!

Over n out…

A quick post on the fiddly little things I’ve been working on!

I’ve recently been mucking around with various Actionscript libraries and have created several little programs just to see what’s possible.  These programs are SO minimal that it will probably seem pointless me even showing them(!)

Augmented reality fiddle (print the marker from here) – you will need a webcam for this one…  Go to the page and hold up the marker.  If everything is running correctly, you will see a picture of Mel Gibson and Danny Glover as their characters in Lethal Weapon (what can I say, I’m a huge fan).  A music track also plays.  You should notice that moving the marker around will cause the music to pan around too…  This was made using the FLARToolkit which everyone seems to be jumping on at the moment.

Popforge audio filter fiddle – you’ll need to wait a while for the audio to load and there is a slight chance that this will break…!  However if you get it working, you should be able to move the sliders around to control the cutoff values of several filters.  The offline demo of this can also be controlled by waving a Wii Remote around which is incredibly fun and something that I don’t believe has been done on the Wii console itself, though god knows why.  The demo uses the Popforge library which is the understated GODSEND for anyone wanting to manipulate audio ‘properly’ with Actionscript, compared to the frankly poor methods that Adobe have provided up til now.  The library also enables waveforms to be generated so you can make your own synth if you wish (see my Porfolio in a post! article).

Physics engine fiddle - this is kinda cool but boring after a short time haha… This demostrates the use of a physics engine with Papervision.  There are quite a few physics engines available for Actionscript, all providing slightly different capabilities, however this is the WOW-Engine.  Just hover on the small box to see it jump around!

Essentially, I’m more interested in what’s possible at the moment and thinking way less about practical ways to use all these abilities – all about the (lofi) tech demos!

This is me folks!

Michael Aldridge BSc(Hons)

UPDATE - pushing this post back to the top to add that I have since graduated with a First Class Honours in Digital Media Development.  So I’m now Michael Aldridge BSc(Hons)… and about time too!

Well, work has begun, if only in a small way, to my portfolio site.  At some point very soon, www.glidepro.net will actually have something on it rather than simply directing you here to my blog!

Before giving you a nice list of links to my work I guess I could list the applications that I have experience of (some more than others!)

• Flash, which includes both AS2 and AS3.  Furthermore to this I can implement Papervision3D (to allow real-time 3D rendering in Flash), WiiFlashServer (to allow Flash applications to accept input from a Nintendo Wii Remote) and Popforge (a real-time audio engine allowing sound to be generated from scratch and/or process sound files etc).  I am also learning the ins and outs of the FLARtoolkit, that allows ‘augmented reality’ applications to be developed within Flash.
• Flex, programming in AS3.  I am currently learning how this environment works, but it’s quite easy to get to grips with!  Within the Flex environment it’s possible to implement all the classes mentioned above (Papervision3D, WiiFlashServer and Popforge).  In the case of Papervision3D, there are some features that would otherwise be very long-winded to program in Flash that are very easy to accomplish in Flex.  Plus it means it’s possible to run the code from the library’s creators, such as the rather clever Seb Lee-Delisle.
• Dreamweaver, using HTML/CSS to create pretty websites.  I use the 960.gs grid-system to lay out my latest sites as it lets you produce browser compliant site with tidy layouts.  Pretty much speaks for itself really.  Dreamweaver is my last stop between my graphical/Flash content and my FTP application.
• Photoshop.  Again, enough said!  Pretty much every time I use this application, I’m doing something different and learning something new.  In theory I can only get better…
• Premiere, capturing video via iLink/IEEE1394, editing, exporting and authoring DVD content using the bundled Encore.
• After Effects, editing content, key-framing effects and exporting for DVD or web distribution.  As with Photoshop, my experience and knowledge of this application grows everytime I open it.
• Adobe Media Encoder, encoding video for Flash applications.  OK, this may not strictly count as a fully fledged application, however this has recently been my most-used tool!  I have gained a knowledge of converting video, selecting suitable bitrates dependent on the content etc.
• Autodesk 3dsMax 2009, I don’t think the versions differ too much except that each version’s files are annoyingly NOT backward compatible! I can model fairly complex meshes, however my forte with this application lies in picking materials and editing said materials within Photoshop.  As with Director MX mentioned below, it’s possible to place objects in 3dsMax under the control of the Reactor/Havok physics engine, to compliment the standard key-framing approach.
• Macromedia Director MX.  Not the most obvious application to admit having skills in you may say.  Well, I’ve used this application to make a fully interactive 3D application that implements the highly popular Havok physics engine to make objects move in a believable manner.  I have learnt a lot about the programming language Lingo.  Most importantly, I have gained an appreciation of how to code objects in a 3D space.  In a similar manner to Flash, I have also implemented the ability to allow control from a Wii Remote.
• PHP/MySQL, listed last as it WILL be on my skill list by the end of the summer, so this is here to remind me…!
• Other – software or standards.  SVN, FTP, (some!) SSH.
• Sound/MIDI  sequencing/editing software.  I have a BTEC diploma in Music Technology and have been using computers to produce music for upwards of 10 years all the back to Windows 3.1!  I have played the piano on and off for the last 18 years, and have gained Grade 6.  I can also roughly(!) play the saxophone.

I don’t think there’s anything I’ve missed.  If anyone out there knows me better than I do then give me a nudge!

Right, onto the examples.  They aren’t in any particular order at the moment, and their descriptions are a bit ropey, but you’ll get the idea until I update them…
Wii Remote controlled Drum Machine (created in Flash using AS3) –
http://glidepro.net/blog/2009/04/swiing-playtime/
The application is called ‘Swiing’ (same name as my blog) and was programmed as a competition entry to ‘Codeo’, a programming competition for university students run by Cogapp in Brighton.  The application won the prize for that particular month’s competition.  The video shows the employees of Cogapp having a play with it.  I promise that it’s possible to get proper drum rhythms out of it with a bit of practice!
To see the application in action visit: http://glidepro.net/blog/2009/03/swiing-wins-cogapps-coding-competition/ although you will need a Wii Remote connected to your computers over Bluetooth to see anything work.

Flash game
http://glidepro.net/flash_coursework1.swf
Use the arrow keys to move around and CTRL to ‘attack’.  The final version of the game is currently being graded, so a previous version is shown here to demonstrate the maths behind ‘walking into the line of sight’ of your enemies etc.

Surfer Bunny (3D world created in Macromedia Director implementing the Havok physics engine), 29MB to download
http://glidepro.net/surfer_bunny.exe
The original idea was just to simulate physics in a 3D world but I took it a step further and made a mini-game out of it.  The more rings you collect, the higher you can jump therefore being able to reach different places.  This work was graded at 80%.

Webcam motion detect example (created in Flash) –
http://glidepro.net/motiondiff_3.swf
Waving your hand over the glowing dots on your picture will trigger a musical note.  It’s possible to play some rudimentary tunes.

Synthesizer/sequencer made using Andre Michelle’s Popforge library with a shameless inclusion of  a Papervision3D visualisation-
http://www.glidepro.net/synth5
(Warning: perhaps turn down your speakers before clicking the link)

That’s it!  I’ll be back with more (and better described) examples soon…

Michael

I’ve left uni but still keen to continue working on something(!)

So I’m extending my degree’s project and about to author a paper – or at least try to.

To increase the confusion that little bit further, here’s the provisional title:

Identifying a remote input sensor that best yields a ‘more’ natural/intuitive syntax or symbology while optimising character recognition

Damn that needs to be shortened and/or made more concise or something…

My university project involved examining the input sensors on the Nintendo Wii Remote, the infra-red sensor and the accelerometer.

So, the gist of the paper is essentially to carry on this comparison, to find a possible link between the co-ordinate data from the infra-red sensor and the acceleration data from the accelerometer.  Of course, I may not be able to draw a comparison so I may leave this idea to persue another avenue of exploration…

Step one is to make an application that will simultaneously record both accelerometer and infra-red data from the Wii Remote then I can start capturing (meaningful) data…

Wish me luck!

As of now you can view this blog on an iPhone and it’ll appear nicely formatted!Thanks to the marvels of Twitter I found out about WPtouch, a Wordpress plugin/theme that’ll re-format the blog when viewed on an iPhone.

Here’s what you should see when you view http://www.glidepro.net/ on your beloved iPhone…

(screenshot courtesy of Chloe Fan)

Over the last 3 weeks-ish I’ve started to learn the mystical wonders of Papervision 3D.

For the uninitiated, Papervision 3D is the creation of  Carlos Ulloa, Andy Zupko, Seb Lee-Delisle, and many more people that I’ve just to find out about!  It is described as an open source realtime 3D engine for Flash.  A quick Google around the web for examples and the like will turn up some rather nice examples of what the engine is capable of.

Here are a couple of notable examples:

In an ABSOLUT WORLD – a really nice example from Carlos Ulloa created for Absolut Vodka.  It’s a relatively simple set of models, but it’s done SO well.  A 2D physics engine has also been implemented, and it’s possible to rearranged the interface and have lots of fun before even looking at the content!

PARK.seasons – I was shown this example only last week by a friend and created by Den Ivanov.  This is a prime example of the marvels you can achieve with Papervision.  It’s quite difficult to explain actually, so have a look!  At first you will probably think “wow, that’s simple”, but look again and you’ll realise that the concept is rather complex.

Technical demos and examples – by Andy Zupko.  Andy’s extensions to the Papervision engine are literally amazing, when you think that this is all be achieved with the Flash Player.

Big and Small – is the product of Plug-In Media, of which Seb Lee-Delisle is Technical Director.  It’s an impressive endeavour to create a complete interactive world that’s fun for children.  It’s based on the children’s TV series of the same name, and is produced by the BBC and Kindle.  Check out some of the screenshots and videos in Seb’s blogpost and you will see the effort, love and dedication that’s gone into creating an immersive world.  You can also see that this example shows that it’s possible to create clutered, colourful and cosey 3D scenes, aswell as the clean lines and reflections of the Absolut World example…

…in a word Papervision is one diverse beasty!

Soooo, onto my creations so far, none of which are as accomplished as the examples above.  I originally started playing around with the engine in Flash, but I quickly realised that there were some things that weren’t possible unless I used pure Actionscript with Flex.  Having said that, it probably ‘is’ possible to do many of these things in Flash, but I just don’t know how.  I can’t admit to being an amazing AS3 coder – yet…

The following are links to all the little programs I’ve made.  They are all centralised around a single theme (which is my way of saying they’re all pretty similar and boring!).  Through all these examples, I have learnt many things about setting up materials, positioning 3D lights and manipulating the camera.  In particular, there are pretty much an infinite number of ways to set up materials, so it has been quite fun to explore…

http://glidepro.net/3d1

http://glidepro.net/3d2

http://glidepro.net/3d3

http://glidepro.net/3d4

http://glidepro.net/3d5

http://glidepro.net/3d6

http://glidepro.net/3d7

Fire up your speakers aswell because in many of these examples there is 3D sound placement!  When I knew little about the capabilites of the Papervision engine I didn’t know that it featured its own 3D sound methods, so several of the early examples feature my own 3D sound efforts!  I used simple phythagorus to find out the distance between the camera coordinates and a set point in 3D space (rather 2D space, ignoring the y-axis, which is the up and down component).  If the camera was within a set radius, a sound object was faded in.  I’m sure with more time (and ignorance of the Papervision methods!) I would have perfected my 3D sound method, but I think the Papervision way of doing things is much slicker

The final example, 3d7, is my first attempt at mucking around with applying Flash filters to 3D models.  However, from a personal point of view, I think you should be able to apply the filters to materials, rather than the models.  This is pure ignorance of the hierarchy of the engine’s structure, just in case anyone goes “hmph, ignorant little nit”…

Anyway, that’ll do for now i think… more later!

Finally, the new Mel Harris Productions site has gone live!

Mel and his crew specialise in features, music videos, web content and promotional films.

The site took around 4 solid (-ish!) weeks to concept, build and deliver.

One of the key points in the brief was to allow easy updates to be made to the site.  It’s not practical to have to edit the actual Flash file and ‘hard-code’ the text.  Therefore, every textual, picture and video element is pulled from an XML file, which can be edited in anything as simple as Notepad.

Hope you enjoy the site and it’s content…

http://www.melharrisproductions.com

I’ve moved to Windows 7, I’ll update this post as I get to grips with things!Yesterday I successfully installed a clean copy of Microsoft Windows 7 RC.  Once I’d realised that everything was running on my secondary monitor and not my main monitor (spent a silly time clicking at a blank screen ) everything was alright!  Foolish me…

Here’s a list of pros and cons that I’ve found so far…

Pros

• Looks better than Vista
• Works faster than Vista
• Better use of space on the taskbar
• You can hide all of the taskbar tray icons (by the clock) so it looks less cluttered.  You can choose icons you’d like to have constant access to though
• Funky window scaling, you just drag a window to the edge of the screen to maximize it

Cons

• The new Windows Media Player 12 isn’t recognised by 4OD (I know this isn’t a Windows fault but it’s annoying lol).  Incidentally, when choosing a version of WMP to download on the Microsoft site, it thinks that Windows NT is installed and recommends WMP 6.4 – OLD!
• Occasionally annoying when you’re browsing the applications open on the taskbar.  Hovering on an app makes all the visible windows go transparent which is pain when viewing video full-screen
• M-Audio Delta series sound card drivers (and I suspect most of the M-Audio range) aren’t compatible.  Thankfully the on-board soundcard seems to be performing fine so far!
• Here’s a pretty major one – NO support for Blu-ray/HDDVD (well, not so much the HDDVD as it’s a technically dead format).  Microsoft say that it will apparently cost an extra $30 per copy for consumers to implement.  That would be OK apart from the next point…
• …which is that none of the 3rd party software for playing HD stuff seems to install!  So that’s Cyberlink PowerDVD, Corel WinDVD and Nero Showtime – useless!!  Admitedly I still want the ability to play my collection of HDDVDs so I had to use the older version of PowerDVD.  The install of PowerDVD is completely fine, but it requires a patch from Cyberlink to play the HD discs.  Unfortunately, you get an error message halfway through the install and then PowerDVD is removed from your computer.

Also found that my synthesiser programs and other programs made using Popforge seem to run without any audio glitches.  This is either down to Windows 7 generally being more efficient or that the sound drivers are better supported.  Either way, I’m a happy chappy – those glitches are ANNOYING as anyone who’s had shoddy audio drivers will know…

UPDATE - needed a compromise for the non-existant HD support in Windows 7 so I’ve made a partition for Windows Vista and I’m using that just for the HD discs… Seems a bit too much effort to play the HD stuff, and I could’ve just reverted back to using Vista completely, but as I said in the previous paragraph, some of my programs just seem to run much better in Windows 7!