Archive for Tutorials
August 21, 2008 at 6:39 am· Filed under Play, Tutorials, Recommended, Flex
About a year ago, a friend of mine foretold that, in his opinion, Flex would be dead in about 5 years! (No, I haven’t forgotten!!!). So, it is with a barely concealed rippling undercurrent of ulterior motives that I’m making sure you all know about The Adobe Developer Connection’s “Flex in a Week” site.
I admit, I haven’t really bothered with Flex yet. The crazy thing is that I’m really interested and keep wanting to dive in - I guess I just needed a hand… and an excuse. If you end up having a go, let me know and we’ll keep the world updated with your progress and comments.
They’ve only got 3 days worth of videos to wade through (so far), but these are punctuated by exercises to help cement your knowledge.
I sincerely think…. nay, predict…. that Flex, along with Flash and AIR will take over the world. Not exactly a bold prediction, I know. Help me to help you… to help me…. get started now: the first video is embedded after the jump - “Comparing Flash, Flex, Flash Player and AIR”.
Newbies, start your engines.
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June 21, 2007 at 1:41 pm· Filed under Play, Tutorials, Flex
This week I’m spending a little time looking into Flex and revising the AS3 lessons of a few months ago.
Whilst actually figuring out where to start wasn’t so easy, the actual learning process and overall Flex structure was surprisingly straight forward. Whilst I’ve only really travelled .001% of the way towards being a Flex master, I’m happy to say that my first impressions were positive. They just might make an RIA developer out of me yet!
I decided that the easiest place to start was probably an RSS reader… so that’s what we’ve got here. I’ve also posted the code so that you guys can tell me if I’ve gone wrong (or could’ve done something more efficiently) and perhaps it will be of service to the next AS2 jockey that wants to look into the world of Flex.
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May 7, 2007 at 10:15 am· Filed under Play, Tutorials
OK - I’ll admit, I don’t know enough about JavaScript. I’m totally aware of its similarities to ActionScript but I just don’t often find myself wanting to work on jobs that would require it.
Lately I’ve been keen to explore a few more languages. On my PC, I’ve got PHP, Python and Perl installed and ready to go. I’ve dabbled in them enough to get a feel for what they’re about, but I haven’t really done anything significant in them… except in PHP where I often use it to get my Flash talking to online databases (still, not all that impressive).
So as I skulk through my local Borders (mega bookstore) trying to extract as much free knowledge as possible - yes, this is fun for me - I often struggle to choose a programming career path. Dont’ get me wrong, I’m ActionScript all the way and with AS3/Flex/Apollo the future is bright for me/us… but lately, I’m feeling a little incomplete.
The conclusion is that I’m going to brush up on JavaScript first - which may sound like an odd decision. I figure the learning curve should be quite easy and manageable and it will be a required step towards AJAX and things like creating Firefox extensions (something that I’m keen to look into).
For the ActionScript rookies that are reading this - make sure you check out the following videos as you’ll no doubt pick up a trick or two that will help you along the way. There are 10 quality videos in total - check them out…
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August 20, 2006 at 6:54 am· Filed under Flash, Play, Portfolio, Tutorials
If you’re anything like me, the idea of adding some simple physics to your next game is freaking exciting… though a little intimidating. Unfortunately I lost my Math mojo around year 10 when girls and football stole the spotlight.
I recently purchased “Physics for Game Programmers” looking for some easy answers. It’s a great book (highly worth buying) but a little heavy on theory and light on code examples. I was specifically after information on ball-ball reactions and angular momentum though it left me feeling like I should’ve paid a little more attention in class. Admittedly, I haven’t gone through the book chapter by chapter (this probably would solve my problem) but who has time for that?!
In a bid to start giving back to the Flash community, here’s a headstart down the track to create realistic looking Billiard/Pool Ball physics in Actionscript.
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