Archive for Play
April 28, 2008 at 11:52 pm· Filed under Play, Personal
Just a quick post to say that we’ve made it to South Africa and back and I’ve successfully found a wife.
Everything was perfect. The church service, the reception (the speeches were great), the trip to game park with the family and then the honeymoon at Victoria Falls.
We’re now busy packing up our things and will move up to Brisbane next week. The plan is to take a month or so and find a good home… and ease into the second chapter of our lives.
Click through for a few photos:
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March 31, 2008 at 9:08 pm· Filed under Play, Personal
Well, it was about 13.5 months ago that Samantha said ‘Yes’, which means that the nuptials are well and truly upon us.
In about 8 hours we’ll be leaving for South Africa in plenty of time to prepare for our wedding on April 12th. I really can’t wait! First off, leading up to the wedding, we have planned a week of touristy things to enjoy with my family. Thereafter, both immediate families are spending a few nights at a fancy game park. Finally, and of greatest importance, we venture off to the almighty honeymoon at Victoria Falls.
So - I’ll be back at the end of April and I’d really appreciate it if you guys helped out and wrote a few blog posts. If you’ve got a blog already, it may be a good way of getting a little extra attention. If you don’t have a blog and just have a cool experiment that you want to show off, here’s your chance.
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March 30, 2008 at 12:18 am· Filed under Flash, Play, Portfolio, Novel Ideas
Well, it’s not quite Monet or Renoir, but I bet van Gogh would’ve given his left ear for a piece of this action…
Ok, so maybe I’m being a little flexible with the ‘Impressionist’ title but I think what we’ve got here is a valid way of artistically presenting images in Flash. Warm up the Louvre… I need somewhere to hang this stuff!
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March 24, 2008 at 10:21 pm· Filed under Flash, Play, Portfolio, Novel Ideas
Here’s a quick demo of an image filter that I thought up during one of my last projects though it never managed to find itself in the launch.
Click through to see it in action.
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March 22, 2008 at 11:29 am· Filed under Flash, Play, Portfolio
There comes a time in every programmer’s career when they are drawn to the Mandelbrot flame. Like the rest of us, I’ve known about it since I was a kid, but never have I really worried about checking it out. I guess I felt that the concept was familiar enough already - what could I gain from touching the code?
It’s hard to explain just how awestruck I am at how wonderful and beautiful the pattern is. In many of my experiments I’m trying to formulate complex patterns from simple rulesets, in hope of tripping over that line where the emergent behavior becomes art. Having played with the code a little, I’ve now realised that the Mandelbrot set is my Mona Lisa.
Check it out for yourself.
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March 19, 2008 at 11:03 pm· Filed under Misc, Play
Look out Seek… move over Monster… footloosemoose jobs is mowing your lawn. You may just find your next employment adventure right here.
Every week I get sent a few emails asking me if I’m available for freelance work and if not, if I know of anyone who may be. So I’ve decided to dedicate one page on this site to perhaps help you to make cash from Flash.
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March 11, 2008 at 1:23 pm· Filed under Play, Novel Ideas, code stimulus
Proving that his finger is well and truly on the pulse, Michael Rees (my supervisor from my beloved university days) has found a interactive gem (I endorse everything of his except the title on the linked blog post!).
Lucid Touch, the brainchild of Patrick Baudisch (Microsoft Research), seeks to solve the occlusive problem found in multi-touch interfaces… that being your fingers getting in the way of the content. Using a concept he calls ‘psuedo-transparency’, the user navigates the interface my touching the back of a mobile device - something that looks quite intuitive and, for some reason, it strikes me as a more personal experience than the common alternative.
Check out the following video for something new.
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February 27, 2008 at 10:52 pm· Filed under Flash, Play, Portfolio, Novel Ideas
Here’s a quick proof-of-concept for an idea I had this afternoon.
As you’ll see, the concept has a few flaws and limitations - and to be honest, I’d be surprised if it hadn’t been done somewhere before - but hopefully it will be new to you and perhaps, just perhaps, you’ll think of some way to make it better.
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February 6, 2008 at 11:06 am· Filed under Flash, Design Stimulus, Play, Recommended, code stimulus
Here’s a site that’s worth a look for all those who appreciate interesting navigation, innovative use of both 2D and 3D… and connoisseurs of anything cool.
Ryan and Jason (brothers/buddies??) proclaim their solemn oath “to inject pure premium-ness into everything we touch”. Who can argue with that strategy? Bravo.
Their site oozes slick ribbons of style… I feel cooler for just looking at it…. get your dose:
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January 25, 2008 at 10:13 am· Filed under Play, Novel Ideas, code stimulus
OK, I know over 2,500,000 of you have already seen this… but it seems that I missed the boat so I’m assuming that there are still at least a few who will dribble at the sight of this. I was totally inspired and impressed by what you’re about to see.
Johnny Lee, who evidently loves a challenge, has a number of demonstrations that feature motion detection in one form or another. His latest uses a Nintendo Wiimote and some sexy hot-wired goggles to give the wearer a truly enveloping 3D experience.
You’d better loosen your shoes, because this is about to knock your socks off!
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January 11, 2008 at 9:27 am· Filed under Play, Novel Ideas, Tech News
Over the last year or two we’ve seen a number of advances that make the jump from two to three dimensions seemingly quite trivial.
For example, there have been algorithms that extrapolate depth and perspective from photographs to form 3D environments (see fotowoosh) and professional services that create 3D models from a series of photographs (goo3d).
Whilst these ideas and implementations have all been interesting and food for thought, none have rocked my casbah as much as this. Wow!
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January 1, 2008 at 7:52 am· Filed under Misc, Play, Personal
Hey everyone - hope your Christmas and New Year celebrations made you forget all about your computer for a few minutes! My folks and brother visited us for the Christmas week so that was great.
I’m heading back to work tomorrow so I thought now was a good time to get my head straight and tell you about the things that I AM GOING TO DO this year! On this new day of this new year, I’ve made up my mind - certain things are going to happen. By writing them here, I’m going to play them like a contract/promise between me and you… not that you’ll really care, just that at least it’s a matter of my word with a pinch of pride thrown in.
Here’s what I am going to do doing - starting now:
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December 6, 2007 at 10:13 am· Filed under Design Stimulus, Play, Novel Ideas
OK - this one’s not Flash, but it is 3D and it does demonstrate a novel use of an interactive interface. Maybe you’ll get some ideas for your next game or application?
In the following video, Tuki Mori from the University of Tokyo tries very hard to tell us about her new application that enables a user to interactively design and sew a plush toy. The program automatically provides the sewing pattern which can also be manipulated and visualised in real-time.
It sounds a little left-field… but take a minute and give it a look - I’m sure you’ll find the interface interesting.
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December 5, 2007 at 9:38 am· Filed under Flash, Design Stimulus, Play
Here’s a quick link for those who are interested in AS3 and the 3D sexiness that comes with it.
I’m not sure how new it is - or even if it’s using Papervision3D or Sandy or an equivalent - I do know that it looks damn cool and on my machine its blazing fast, even with over 1000 sprites.
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November 19, 2007 at 11:17 am· Filed under Play, Novel Ideas, Game
On 1st June 2007, Kloonigames (which is powered by Petri Purho) released a game called Crayon Physics. If you enjoy novel ideas and interesting interfaces in your games, you’ll love this.
Flicking through my RSS this morning, I found Petri’s teaser for Crayon Physics Deluxe - a refined addition to his original (which at this point was still new to me). So I watched the YouTube demo and was blown away. I then checked out his blog article and downloaded the original and it I was blown away a second time - it was getting incredibly windy!
Something about the simplicity of this concept totally appeals to my inner-child… perhaps it’s the crayons… perhaps it’s the soundtrack?! I’m still trying to figure it out.
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