SWCs and FlashDevelop, Part 2

Quite a while back, I wrote about the method I was using for developing using SWCs and FlashDevelop. At that time, I was discussing using inheritance (an "is a" relationship) and the issue of which direction the inheritance went: write in FlashDevelop and have the Flash MovieClip extend from it, or create the MovieClip and have the code in FlashDevelop extend from that. I found my preferred approach is: neither.

I have migrated to a style I used when I was developing in Director and Lingo. In Director, I'd have my Parent Script's using artwork. In other words, a "has a" relationship (also known as "aggregation"). So now I'll create a class in FlashDevelop, have it extend Sprite (or MovieClip), and then that class will create and use an instance of a MovieClip from the SWC as a child.

I've used all of the above approaches over the years, and I'm sure I'll still find times I'm choosing one of the "is a" methods. But for the moment, "has a" is working best.

3D Artist Magazine

My Blender Basics tutorial from CartoonSmart.com made it onto the 3D Artist magazine disk for issues 16 and 18! (Thanks Will!)

It's been a while since I've posted an update (or a Bit). So an update is overdue! I'm still here and using Blender. I've been using Blender 2.49b on a long contract job. I've been sticking with 2.49b because the scripting APIs are stable. Now that 2.5 has gone into beta, I'll look into migrating the project to 2.5 if the APIs (which have changed significantly for scripting) are more stable. I've held off on Blender lessons in 2.5 until the beta to avoid frustrating new users, so now I'm plotting my first full-length 2.5 Blender course.

In the meantime, I'm developing my first ActionScript 3 course for CartoonSmart.com. It is on creating a strategy game. It's not just a cookbook lesson, I am teaching concepts that can be carried forward to other languages/frameworks. I've been using AS3 since it was released with Flash CS3 in Spring 2007. I've used its predecessors AS2 and AS1 as well. AS3 is more similar to Java and C# than AS2/AS1 ( both of which I've also used professionally). I've been wanting to teach a class on it for sometime, so I'm looking forward to this course's release!

Next CBUG: July 25th

Our third Colorado Blender User Group (CBUG) meeting is scheduled!

When:

Sunday July 25th

3:15-4:30pm

What:

3:15-3:45 Open discussion, socializing

3:45-4:10 Overview of using Python and Blender.

4:10-4:30 Show and tell (bring your work)

Where:

Parker Library

10851 South Crossroads Drive

Parker, CO 80134

Who:

John R. Nyquist

blender@nyquist.net

It will be in the Parker Conference Room just inside the entrance.

Come on over and say "hello" and share your Blender experiences and questions.

FlashBelt Conference, June 13-16

The FlashBelt conference is coming up fast. It is June 13-16 in Minneapolis, MN. It looks like they've a great set of workshops and sessions! Let me know if you're going and we can meet up.

Blender and SecondLife

This lesson is for Blender users and SecondLife users! Whether you use Blender, SecondLife, or both, you'll get something out of this course.

Lesson 1 - Just the Basics
This section is for the Second Life user who has never used Blender. It will teach you enough of the basics to get started.

Lesson 2 - Adding Clothes
In this part, you will learn to bring in one of the standard meshes and import in your images. After viewing in Blender, the image is brought into SecondLife and you are shown how to use it to create clothes in-world.

Lesson 3 - Skirt
This section deals with the skirt's mesh.

Lesson 4 - Projection Painting
Even experienced Blender users will appreciate this section. Use images to paint on your clothes with Blender's powerful projection painting features. You'll start from scratch (a blank image), and use four different photographs as your source images to create a UV texture. You'll also learn the tools, as well as the workflow, for using multiple source images. This technique is useful well-beyond SecondLife clothes. You can use it to create texture maps for illustration, animation, games, etc.

Lesson 5 - Beyond the Basics
Go further and learn the different OBJ import options and strategies to combine, group, and separate meshes. Then view the UV textures in the game engine and when they are rendered.

Lesson 6 - Super Quick Start
You've done the tutorial, now watch a quick refresher on how to bring in the model and images to view the clothes in-world.

What Another Pro Says About This Course...
"Concise, clear, patient delivery style, etc. But what really has that "BoB" golden touch is the 'Projection Painting' movie. OMG! Seriously!! Dude, I could've used that a few months ago when we were working on a 'Star Wars' game where we were asked to animate some idling Jawas (and their cloth robes*). Absolutely brilliant, Man!!"
-Tim Sisco
3d Artist at International Game Technology (IGT)

17 Blenderheads Meet!

This month's CBUG meeting had 17 members show up by the end of the evening! We'll need a bigger room if this keeps up. Richard created the example as I talked through the fundamentals of Blender's Logic Bricks.

Next month I'll do some basics of going from Logic Bricks to Python. It will be a shorter presentation, we'll still have time to socialize, but we'll also have a slot to have other Colorado Blenderheads show there recent work.

Camtasia 7 Bug

Camtasia Studio 7 has a serious bug if you export to H.264 using the QuickTime option. You'll get nasty screen artifacts that do not occur in Camtasia 6 (or 5 for that matter).

I reported it to Techsmith last month and I worked with a Techsmith engineer to demonstrate how to re-create it. They are going to do a fix with the yet-to-be-scheduled 7.0.1 release.

In the meantime we found a work-around. Camtasia 7 has two different ways to create H.264 (from two different codebases). The buggy one is when you export using QuickTime. If you use the mp4 option for Flash, that one is not buggy.