MTV Idents from around the world

Ever since I first touched Cinema4D back in September, my life changed. I used to enjoy Flash development because it enabled me to do cool shit in only a few steps. However, since I first got started in Cinema4D, I lost every single bit of interest in Flash, Actionscript or code-based projects and experiments. I started watching lots and lots of videos on Vimeo and I ended up watching tons of MTV idents.

MTV?

Yes, MTV: they got so many cool idents and other clips. It’s almost unbelievable. In order to be able to keep track of which ones I liked most, I started saving a textfile on my desktop with links to all of them and as it turns out: There’s not just 4-5 of them. There’s a gazillion of them out there! I then thought: I should find the coolest of them and post them here… sooo: Here goes!

(These are not all official MTV Idents. There’s a few in between which seem to be personal projects or experiments)

Read the rest of this entry »

Domino Day

Yes, I actually went there. Too bad I’m actually having so much fun… Otherwise I might’ve spared you from this one.

Shape Shifting

A few days ago I posted a few renders of a deformed thing and I said I was rendering an animation featuring the same weird deformed thing. Yesterday that very render finished. I wasn’t really pleased with the result so I changed a few things and started to render again.

This is what came out this morning at 6:46AM

Rock that cinema

For those of you not following me on Twitter: I’ve been playing around with Cinema 4D for the past couple of days. Those who do follow me can’t have overlooked my joyful tweets about how much I adore 3D and Cinema 4D.

These are my very first (real) steps I’m taking in 3D. I’m having more fun than ever. I could tell you all about it but my guess is nobody cares, so let’s just skip that and jump right into the business: 3 little tests/experiments…

Falling balls

This was my first render of a video. I wanted to see how much was involved to actually export the video and how much could go wrong on first try. As it turns out: Easy peasy (and nothing went wrong)!

Read the rest of this entry »

Realtime painting with light

If you haven’t ever heard about ‘light painting‘ by now, you’ve probably lived on another planet (or you don’t read my blog! You bad bad boy!) or you simply haven’t come across anything that caught your eye yet…
Well wait no longer, because the following video shows you exactly what light painting is about.

I think it’s a creative idea… However their complicated way of explaining what they did kinda makes it look harder than it actually is (which is never a good thing).

Anyway: seeing the above reminded me about a little experiment I did about a year ago. I created a Flash movie that accesses the webcam and does some bitmapdata magic. The result is realtime light painting!

“What does that look like?”
See below!

“Can I try?”
Yes you can! Just make sure you’re in a dark room.

Feel free to show some of your results!

Update:

A friend of mine asked me to share the source, so here goes! [download id="10"]!
(I really should start sharing my source right away… I’m way too lazy)

"1 app, 5 screens" doesn't impress

Let me start by just saying how delighted I was when I first saw the tweets yesterday, highlighting Apple’s revised 3.3.1 statement. I’m glad they opened up the App Store to other building platforms as well. I’m sure some cool stuff will come by pretty soon.

This also means that the iPhone Packager (which comes with Flash CS5) new gets a second life and lots of Flash developers will get started (again) with iOS app dev.

However, my Twitter stream was displaying some tweets today refering to ‘1 app, 5 screens‘.
I think that experiment was a bad attempt to prove something we already knew.

Okay, I get it: You can now use the same tools as before and publish to 5 different types of devices. However, the app used in this example is of a simple kind that just doesn’t do justice to the bold statement. As I said before: You could have used a basic ‘Hello World’ example for that matter.

“1 app, 5 screens” seems to try to give the impression that you can now build once and deploy to 5 different devices, just like *snap* that. That’s just not true.
You can in fact use 1 tool and 1 skill (which you already have) to deploy to different devices/platforms. However if you’re talking about the Real Deal, you’ll still end up building different applications for different devices.

iPhone/iPod touch/Android will probably be the same for most of the matter. But tablets (iPad for now) and desktop will need a different approach. An application built to run on 480×320 just doesn’t remain the same when you just scale it to 1024×768 (Just look at most iPad/iPhone apps… 2 apps, 1 bundle). You’ll need to optimize for the different screensizes. Seen as I don’t have touch support on my desktop, I won’t need the same touch-optimized UI which is required for mobile devices. And then there’s filesystem access… As far as I’m aware, mobile apps for these devices run using some version of Adobe AIR. Browser apps for the desktop don’t.

You catch my drift.

Yes, you can now reuse a lot of code to create all of these applications, but there’s still a lot of work involved to make it happen. (I know since I ported an existing browser app to the iPad, just last week.)

Yes, you can create applications for different devices using only 1 tool/skill. But you still have to optimize for all of those screens. And don’t be mistaken: Taking full advantage of every screen requires far more work then you might want to confess.
You will end up building multiple applications.

The only thing statements like these (coming from Adobe for everybody to see) do is making ignorant people believe it doesn’t take any more time to deploy to all these devices. And I hate explaining to my clients that my job is actually not that simple…

Sky's the limit

About a week or 2 ago, I felt the sudden need to take my Fisheye lens and go out to shoot some pictures. I turned out to be very lucky with the sky and sunset as I got the most amazing images. I uploaded the best of them to my Flickr page and wanted to share them with you. Do let me know what you think of the results!

Go check out the other shots on my Flickr page! And let me know if you like them!

Spread the word, an iPad app built in Flash!

Near the end of June, I started a little experiment, just for fun, which would just immitate fridge magnets. I wanted to make it a multi-user experience. So everybody hitting the page would see the changes that are being made realtime. I built the first version and was quite happy.

But a few days ago, it struck me: I can just use the code I used for that experiment and port it to the iPad using the iPhone Packager (which comes with Flash CS5). So I did!

Although I had to change some of the code (loading settings files, etc), I was actually able to build this application rather quickly. I also added a multi-room feature, so everybody can have their own fridge with magnets
So you can now actually leave your boy/girlfriend a message on a virtual fridge (with no food in it) and then mail him/her the link! He/She can then rearrange the letters and leave you a message in return; Fridge-magnet style! That’s geeky, right!?

About the application

‘Spread the word’ is both an iPad and a browser application.
The clients are built using Flash Builder (for the browser app) and Flash CS5 (iPad app). The multi-user support is a Red5 application.

‘Spread the word’ online

You can view the application in the browser by hitting the following URL:

http://spreadtheword.nocreativity.com

If you want to have your own fridge, just add ‘?myOwnFridge’ (replace ‘myOwnFridge‘ with a name of your choice). For example

• http://spreadtheword.nocreativity.com?test
• http://spreadtheword.nocreativity.com?mySecretRoom
• http://spreadtheword.nocreativity.com?imOnAHorse

‘Spread the word’ for iPad

Currently the iPad application is only available though my Cydia repo. I will however be trying to get it into the Apple App Store (I know about 3.3.1, I’m still giving it a shot ). The app also supports rooms, so feel free to go crazy (but be nice, there’s kids on the internet ) Read the rest of this entry »

Frash, Flash on the iPhone

Well, this time it’s for real. It isn’t powered by Adobe or supported by Apple but the fact is: Flash is now running on the iPhone. I said ‘is running on’; I did not say ‘is running perfectly smooth’.
There’s still a lot of work but this first step is a very good one, and everybody should be excited about this!

I took the time to test a few of the experiments I made over the past years on my iPad. I am pretty surprised about how well everything is going. In the following video I’ll show some of the tests I did.

About the ‘Red5-Letter-demo’: For some reason I wasn’t able to drag and drop during the demo. However it does work from time to time (still buggy as explained in the video though).

After seeing this video, you’ll probably wonder why I didn’t just give ‘real Flash sites’ a run for their money. Well, I already did. I tried DerBauer.de and 2Advanced.com. I saw intro screens but that’s it (site died after I tried clicking stuff). For the sake of making this thing look good, I prefer not to show how bad it performs on ‘high-end production‘ sites I mean, it’s still an alpha version. Give him/them a chance of getting there before saying it’s performing poorly

How to install Flash on your iDevice?

1. Make sure your iDevice is jailbroken. If it’s not you won’t be able to install Frash on your device. If you want to jailbreak, the simplest way I know at this point is by visiting jailbreakme.com using your iDevice. (Works for most iOS’s and devices). Other ways of jailbreaking can be found on the internet. (I will not assist anybody, just saying…)
2. Open Cydia on your device, go to sources and add ‘http://repo.benm.at‘.
3. When Cydia’s done adding the new repo to its database, go to the ‘Search‘ tab and look for ‘Frash‘.
4. Install it!
5. Go to Safari and visit a site using Flash. You should see a ‘Click to Flash’-like space where the Flash object should be. (If you don’t, you might want to try rebooting your device. It worked for me straight away) Click it and enjoy!

Breadcrumbs back to creativity

Over the past couple of weeks I came to realize I almost lost something very important in my life. I only realized it in the very end – probably too late. The will to be creative; the will to create stuff just for the heck of it. Only after days weeks of trying to get myself back together, I came to realize that I hadn’t lost the will to create at all. In fact I never wanted it more… However I let go a few of ‘my tools‘ that gave me the ideas and motivation to create stuff.

What follows is a (bit like a) ‘note to self‘ of what I should never ever forget again.

Let your inner child be your guide

If you have kids you’ll most definitely already know this: Kids are insanely mindblowing when they try to explain something they saw. They have the craziest visions of the world. Not because they are smarter than we are but because we are smarter than them. While they are talking about a huge television in a room, we talk about a cinema.

You know what they’re trying to say but they just see the whole world differently. That is a great thing to do/have. Make sure you keep this alive in yourself. Let yourself be amazed by flying birds and soap bubbles. It’s okay to be blown away by cool and simple stuff. It’s okay to actually enjoy life at its fullest.

Make sure you bring back that inner child in yourself. It’s fun! (and cute! Girls love it, believe you me!) It’ll make you think up the craziest stuff in the world. No reason. Just fun. And who doesn’t like fun?
Your inner child knows what you want. You don’t. The only thing you know is you want to pay your bills before it’s too late. The inner child in you wants chocolate. I suggest you give it to him. Read the rest of this entry »