jasonbejot

Phenomblue nominated for Agency of the Year

Jason Bejot — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 17:24:18 +0000

The digital agency I work for, Phenomblue, has been nominated for Agency of the Year and Most Innovated Agency Website for the iMedia Agency Awards. This is a pretty big deal, especially since I’ve had a major role in nearly everything that’s been happening at Phenomblue. You should cast your vote, it ends November 18th. [...]

The Precocious QR Code

Jason Bejot — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 21:27:33 +0000

Seems like QR codes have been getting a really bad wrap recently. With the release of findings that only a fraction of the worldwide population even knows what a QR code is followed by the reports of “infected” codes, it may be that our favorite technological underdog has an even more uncertain future. We should [...]

I Smell Brains

Jason Bejot — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 16:09:35 +0000

I Smell Brains a fun, fast-paced, bizarrely addictive little game. It’s been getting some rave reviews and ratings, a 4.75 out of 5, not too shabby for an internal Phenomblue proof of concept. Oh, did I mention it’s free? So what does this little guy prove? The original announcement goes over it pretty well but [...]

Word Lens, Translation For Dummies

Jason Bejot — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 19:43:55 +0000

Word Lens is the best Augmented Reality and iPhone app hands down. It represents purest forms of simplicity, utility and AR. See something that you need translated? Point your iPhone at it. BOOM! Translated in real-time on your screen. Don’t believe me? Check out the video, it’s almost too good to be true. This beauty [...]

Infinity Blade!

Jason Bejot — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 17:20:00 +0000

By now it seems that posting about Infinity Blade is almost an obligation, coming so late after its meteoric rise to fame. I’ve had tons of screenshots waiting, contemptuously, to be posted but their cause was lost since this very blog had been hacked. Now that I’m back in business, brace yourself for the obligatory [...]

Instant Website Game Mechanics

Jason Bejot — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 15:33:00 +0000

What are two of the biggest markets in the digital consumer world? Porn and games. One company, BigDoor, is making it super simple for anyone to integrate the more socially acceptable of those two markets to your website. You may be asking, “Why the hell would I want to turn my website into a game?” [...]

Mobile Web Design: A Crash Course

Jason Bejot — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 20:14:29 +0000

The world of mobile devices is a torrential down-pour of changing features, costs, form-factors, popularity, software… everything. Designing websites for this constantly changing market is akin to the early 2000′s when new, feature-rich, standards-compliant web browsers were all the rage but you still had to support the older, market-hungry, feature-dumb, standards-ignorant browsers. Fortunately, todays mobile [...]

Mobile Commerce, Thanks Japan!

Jason Bejot — Thu, 06 May 2010 19:01:48 +0000

What is the future of mobile? Where is mobile going? What are it’s fledgling markets? This article, Teens and Their Mobile Phones, had these questions rampaging through my skull. Those are some pretty heavy questions expected of a simple infographic. I wouldn’t be taking such an interest in it if I didn’t believe that todays [...]

Party in Augmented Reality

Jason Bejot — Wed, 05 May 2010 18:18:41 +0000

I stumbled upon this interesting little video today: So, it’s kind of a boring video. Just a bunch of Brazilian party-goers oggling a giant screen and waving their arms in the air. Turns out this is a great use of Augmented Reality: it’s on a large scale, it’s interactive, it’s multi-user and apparently very engaging. [...]

Esquire’s AR Attempt Falls Short

Jason Bejot — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 16:14:49 +0000

Augmented reality (AR) has finally been brought to mainstream, albeit dated, print media. Esquire showcased AR in the December 2009 issue of their high-profile magazine — but that’s really all that happened. Anyone with the issue of the magazine and a webcam can experience Esquire’s AR goodness. They’ve littered the issue with AR markers, so [...]

Free your Unity 3D

Jason Bejot — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 21:35:10 +0000

Why is a free version of Unity 3D such a big deal? First off, Unity 3D kicks ass. Secondly, the ability to build and deploy high-quality 3D applications is available to everyone for the low, low price of $0. Thirdly, the SDK is already mature and full of great features. The 3rd party, open source [...]

Color Programming in Flash

Jason Bejot — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 16:21:15 +0000

When I first thought about trying to wrap code around color values in Actionscript, years ago, I was super intimidated. I conjured up ideas that it was a world full of complex algorithms and crack-brained theories. That’s really about half true. If your goal is some crazy results then you’re probably going to be dealing [...]

Create an Over-The-Shoulder Camera in Away3D

Jason Bejot — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 20:45:21 +0000

The Backstory This tutorial is an accident. No really, a total accident. I was putting together a totally different tutorial when I thought it would be cool to throw Boba Fett in it and explore stuff. So, that unfinished tutorial gave rise to this tutorial. The Description I’m not actually sure if it’s called an [...]

Load and Animate an MD2 Model in Away3D

Jason Bejot — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 16:10:20 +0000

The Backstory Nearly every 3D Flash project I’ve recently developed has needed at least one 3D model for something. So my next logical Away3D adventure was exploring model loading. The Description Just looking over the list of loaders in the away3d.loaders package is impressive. Seeing all those supported types right out of the box just [...]

Create Terrain in Away3D

Jason Bejot — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 14:35:28 +0000

The Backstory After nerding out over skyboxes and continuing my exploration of Away3D I stumbled upon the Elevation class. After a little research I learned that it’s a super fast and easy way for making terrains! More nerding out and reminiscing over the old counterstrike days followed. The Description Terrain is just that, terrain. It’s [...]

Create a Skybox in Away3D

Jason Bejot — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 20:28:41 +0000

The Backstory I’ve recently been looking into alternatives to Papervision3D so I decided to see what all the Away3D hooplah was about. Turns out that it’s pretty freakin sweet and as I was pouring over the API docs I came across a pair of classes called Skybox and Skybox6. Since I was huge into CounterStrike [...]

AR music video starring Boba Fett

Jason Bejot — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 16:30:57 +0000

What would happen if Boba Fett starred in an AR app? A badass music video! Actually, I slapped Boba Fett into this simple AR app as part of a presentation I did recently over FLARToolkit. Turns out it was a hit, big enough to warrant it’s own music video. You can read a summary of [...]

Business Cards: Augmented Reality Style

Jason Bejot — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 16:48:40 +0000

Another article sent to me from @k_to_the_t is about a sweet idea, putting AR markers on business cards. This should give the dusty-old business card market a technological kick in the pants. I wanna give this dude a high-five. AR Business Card from James Alliban on Vimeo.

The future-past techno of Minority Report

Jason Bejot — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 16:27:05 +0000

I was introduced to another thought provoking article by way of @k_to_the_t, but this time it’s about hardware (as opposed to my usual M.O. of software). Go ahead and check em out: Nokia interface patent fits like an AR-enhancing glove Remote input sleeve from Nokia Basically, Nokia filed a patent for a glove that detects [...]

The New Frontier of Augmented Reality

Jason Bejot — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 15:34:27 +0000

Augmented Reality concepts are starting to get really cool. @k_to_the_t pointed out this article about about a concept called Augmented ID from The Astonishing Tribe. It’s so cool I’m not even going to try to explain anything about it, just watch the demo: With Augmented ID and TwitARound, it looks like things are moving towards [...]

What’s that? AR without markers?

Jason Bejot — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 21:47:39 +0000

There’s some libraries out there getting some attention that don’t require you to print-out a marker to experience augmented reality. Here’s a video of me on phenomblue.tv giving a quick demo of one of these sweet, sweet libraries: AR Without Markers from Phenomblue on Vimeo.

Augmented Reality… The Musical

Jason Bejot — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 16:04:40 +0000

Just ran across this cool little piece of software. It’s called d-touch and it’s a semi-augmented reality audio sequencer. Really the only part of it being AR is it’s marker/glyph reading ability, there’s no video aspect to it. If you’ve ever used an audio sequencer then you know how much of a pain in the [...]

More in Augmented Reality

Jason Bejot — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 15:04:24 +0000

Judging by two articles that came about from creativity yesterday about AR, what it is, and what you can do to survive the flood of AR campaigns that are probably in the works. Need to Know: Augmented Reality Augmented Reality in Mobile and Gaming Seems like the writers of these articles, as well as those [...]

Augmented Reality

Jason Bejot — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 16:03:33 +0000

Augmented Reality (AR) is a huge right now even though the technology isn’t quite there to make it mainstream. Sure you can do some lightweight AR in Flash with the FLARToolkit, and I say lightweight because of the restrictive processing power of the Flash Player. There are some AR specific software and browser plug-ins like [...]

Flashbelt Unprofessionalism

Jason Bejot — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 14:17:40 +0000

I was just sent this article from k_to_the_t about the Flashbelt conference in Minneapolis. If you don’t know what happened then read about it on Geek Girls Guide. The entire situation is ultra effed up and Hoss Gifford, whoever he is, should probably be stricken from doing any presentations ever let alone giving a keynote. [...]

Most Creative Website Ever

Jason Bejot — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 15:15:33 +0000

Well, I don’t know about that, but damn is it brilliant. Just saw this on digitalbuzz about BooneOakley‘s website. It’s such a sweet idea that I couldn’t resist telling everyone about it. Seriously, a seemlessly interactive video website that’s fun, engaging and truely interesting… what more can you ask for? I want to see more [...]

Flash Builder 4 Features == Bonertastic

Jason Bejot — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 13:52:41 +0000

Flash Builder 4 is gonna be amazing. If you haven’t heard of some of the features they’re adding to it then you need to check out this video from Adobe Labs. Code generation, integrated ASDocs and intense package exploring is gonna rock my world. Seems like Flash Builder (I love the new name, btw) is [...]

Sync Google and Outlook calendars

Jason Bejot — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 14:49:54 +0000

I just stumbled upon this nifty little program that will do 2-way syncronization of your Outlook and Google calendars. I had been looking for something like this for a long-ass time and was even considering installing Thunderbird and trying the Exchange workaround. The best part is it’s provided by Google, so you know it’s gonna [...]

Fix your broken Flex debugger

Jason Bejot — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 21:32:40 +0000

Has your Flex debugger recently gone MIA? Well, mine did and so did Ryan Phelan’s (who provided this solution). Apparently it’s some funky thing with IPv6, not sure on the specifics but if you follow these steps you can get your debugger back in working order. Step One You have to edit your hosts file, [...]

A better Math.Sin()

Jason Bejot — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 15:49:56 +0000

Sine waves are great and all, but for us non-mathematicians they are difficult to visualize and tweak. So, lets dissect and analyze this ultra-common trig function. Scalpel, please A sine wave calculation has one core parameter, an angle. In AS3 this angle needs to be in radians. But we can expand this into five parameters [...]

Transitioning to WPF, part 9

Jason Bejot — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 22:12:57 +0000

Let’s talk about organization. First off, if you just cowboy-code and don’t give two shits about organization then you better start doing it. Here’s some reasons why: Thoughtful code organization is a tell-tale sign of a good developer Others can more easily read and understand your code Reacclimating yourself to your own code becomes easier [...]

So, you want to win PhizzPop Miami 2009?

Jason Bejot — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 16:12:01 +0000

Phenomblue won Microsoft’s PhizzPop Design Challenge in Miami and received the Peoples Choice Award. I’m on the three man team and was also the one to present. This was my first ever tech presentation and it was held in the gigantic Adrienne Arsht Performing Arts Center in front of hundreds of FOWA convention-goers. It doesn’t [...]

Transitioning to WPF, part 8

Jason Bejot — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 15:47:42 +0000

Going into this post I know I’m probably going to catch some flak. But, I feel that being a beginner at WPF and seasoned at display programming gives me a position to complain. Settin’ up the scenario First off, I’m learning the code side of WPF, not XAML. Mainly because I’ve decided doing the majority [...]

Transitioning to WPF, part 7

Jason Bejot — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 15:46:55 +0000

After a week of appetizers and side dishes, it’s time for the main course… WPF. A week-long elope with C# has given me a strong grasp of the language, albiet not the mastery I have with AS3 but that comes with experience. This is going to be the first day of real WPF learning for [...]

Transitioning to WPF, part 6

Jason Bejot — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 15:31:26 +0000

With any language that deals with complex types, I always raise the question of “How do pointers work?” A lot Actionscript developers out there will wonder what the hell a pointer is. The short answer: They make or break a programmer in college. Yikes, sounds nasty I’m not going to go into it because this [...]

Transitioning to WPF, part 5

Jason Bejot — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 16:21:19 +0000

Whenever I jump into a new language there are two basic questions I ask: How do I define a variable? How do I output stuff? In that order, actually, which almost seems backwards when I look at it. For now I’m only going to go over the first question because the second question is still [...]

Transitioning to WPF, part 4

Jason Bejot — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 16:06:27 +0000

Now, I realize that C# is a strictly typed language and AS3 not so much (but more so than it’s ancestors). But I’ll be damned if I can’t use interfaces the way I can in AS3. The great thing about AS3 interfaces is you can treat them as a type. For instance, the return type [...]

Transitioning to WPF, part 3

Jason Bejot — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 15:46:47 +0000

First off, I want to clear up any confusion that may be lingering. The thoughts and opinions expressed on this blog are my own and not those of my employer or anyone else. Lets get to it When it comes to UX programming I always try to seperate data and display. Nearly every tutorial out [...]

Transitioning to WPF, part 2

Jason Bejot — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 16:04:07 +0000

I had an epiphany yesterday while tirelessly searching for WPF tutorials of all things. I realized that .NET developers publish tutorials in only two ways: 1) Cryptic Code Snippets These are unbelievably long tutorials with huge, unbroken paragraphs explaining far more than what’s necessary. If you’re writing a tutorial or how-to, people want you to [...]

Transitioning to WPF, part 1

Jason Bejot — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 16:15:55 +0000

So, I’ve been asked to make the leap from Actionscript to C# and WPF. I’ve done some pretty intense C# in the past, but that was years ago. I’m not concerned at all with developing in a real language again, after all I was on the deans list during my junior and senior years of [...]

Resizing BitmapData without scaling

Jason Bejot — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 21:29:31 +0000

Have you ever wanted to resize a BitmapData object without scaling it? Normally you would perform a matrix transformation on it by calling the draw() method, but that also scales it. So how do you acheive non-scaling resize? Hopefully this can help explain it: // create something that has BitmapData for me to resize this.bmp [...]

ND3D – A shout-out

Jason Bejot — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 13:40:14 +0000

I published a quick post on the Phenomblue blog yesterday about ND3D, the stripped down AS3 3D engine. Go check it out!

PV3DDebug now with Google Code action!

Jason Bejot — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 15:02:46 +0000

With the great reviews from [draw.logic], the dudes at the Papervison3D dev blog and just the response from the community I figured it was time to set this thing in stone, metaphorically speaking. I went ahead and revised it (adding a camera is a little different now), included all the libraries (SWCs) you need and [...]

Arrays vs. Dictionaries

Jason Bejot — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 21:42:56 +0000

WARNING! This post is totally nerdcore. If you have a heart condition, increased risk of an anurism or have difficulties counting your fingers then this is not for you! Overview I’ve been scouring the Papervison 2 code over the past couple days and I noticed that they use a lot of Dictionaries in the very [...]

Papervision3D + Google SketchUp

Jason Bejot — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 18:58:53 +0000

One of the more recent updates to Papervision3D 2 was the introduction of Google SketchUp support. So, I decided to prod this new functionality with a stick. Turns out it still has some growing to do. Never the less the basic functionality is there and waiting for a sprinkling of Miracle Grow. Modeling School First [...]

Easier Dev with PV3DDebug

Jason Bejot — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 16:16:29 +0000

PV3DDebug is great because now you can view critical stuff without having trace a ton of stuff out and constantly recompile to get stuff to look correct. The main thing is the camera control, since setting up cameras tends to be a huge time-sink. Go snag the source! Here’s an example of PV3DDebug in action: [...]

AdvancedView: Making PaperVision Easier To Use

Jason Bejot — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 15:30:56 +0000

When starting a PaperVision project I always used to use the PaperBase class from papervision2.com. But as I got a few projects in, and a few months went by, I felt like I was constantly micromanaging. Then, thanks to Andy Zupko, I discovered the built-in BasicView class. Great! Now my code flooks cleaner and I [...]

Normalizing Angles

Jason Bejot — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 15:06:29 +0000

What’s a normalized angle? Well, I’m really not sure if it’s actually called normalization but it’s when you have an angle that is less than 0 or greater than 2 PI (360 degrees). Basically, an angle that doesn’t fall within a single rotation around the unit circle. For example: 0 == 0 2 PI == [...]

Generate a Random Number within a Range

Jason Bejot — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 20:08:27 +0000

This is a really basic need and I find myself using it in about 90% of the flash/flex stuff I build. Generating a random number within a range is ridiculously easy and can be implemented as a one line static function: public static function randomRange(low:Number, high:Number):int { return Math.floor(Math.random() * (high - low)) + low; [...]

Embedding Fonts in Flex

Jason Bejot — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 18:59:39 +0000

If you’re like me and most of your Flex projects are ActionScript projects, then you might have noticed that your SWF’s get really bloated when you embed fonts. Where is all this extra stuff coming from? Well, one big thing is that when you embed fonts in an ActionScript Project (i.e. via the Embed metadata [...]