Michael Battle - Work & Play

Graph Paper for Web Designers

Michael — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 11:49:58 +0000

The idea is so simple, so handy, that you’ll wonder why _you_ didn’t think of it! Follow the link below to a page replete with downloadable graph paper in a variety of interactive-ready flavours. Don’t do your next wireframe without it.

Link: Graph Paper

And whilst you’re in the mood, why not check out the scribblings of some of our interactive pioneers? Ever wonder what Twitter looked like in pen and ink? Check this out:

Link: The Paper Version of the Web

TED via Videosphere

Michael — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 07:55:35 +0000

Not the best video interface on the planet but a good excuse to watch some mind-feeding TED talks. I would like the sphere to auto-rotate when the mouse approaches the edge of the screen.

Link: Videosphere

Interesting Twitter Visualisation

Michael — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 07:31:56 +0000

For the fellow Twitterholics out there, here’s a quick look at a visualisation concept that does justice to each and every one of your 140 characters.

Titled, “Twitter Conversations Map”, Walter Rafelsberger’s attempt at making your chit-chat pretty is commendable indeed. In his words:

“A visualization showing conversations of about 1500 users from microblogging service Twitter. The arcs link the locations of users who talk to each other.”

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Justin Everett-Church : FP10 FAQ

Michael — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 00:25:44 +0000

Lee Brimelow does a great job interviewing the Senior Product Manager for the Flash Player. Stop work now and watch this - it will make you smarter.

Link: LB asks J E-C some FAQ’s on FP10

Radiohead - House of Cards

Michael — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 00:09:05 +0000

Yeah, this is very cool. It’s difficult to describe why I like this so much. No doubt it has a lot to do with the use of particle effects throughout!

Radiohead’s new music video takes geometric forms and describes them with animated particles which results in a 3D sculpture/silhouette effect. I’m sure you’ll agree that watching their interpretation of real-world data is quite seductive and satisfying.

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Mechanical Pong

Michael — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 01:35:13 +0000

File this under “Cool but Definitely Overkill” - Niklas Roy’s pursuit of a purely mechanical and entirely faithful reproduction of Pong is documented here… but make sure you check out the video:

Link: Mechanical Pong Video

Source Code Licenses

Michael — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 02:36:24 +0000

Don’t know your GPL’s from your MIT’s?? Here’s a timely and informative post from your friend and mine, Grant Skinner, discussing the ins-and-outs of code licensing.

Link: Source Code Licenses and Flash/Flex

PV3D is a freaking drag

Michael — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 12:01:35 +0000

Such a blatantly provocative title can only be justified by a damn cool demo. Lucky I’ve got one for you!

Andy Zupko shows us that clicking in a 3D space is now easily achieved in Papervision3D and convinces us by endowing your mouse with godlike powers. Go roll some Earth.

Link: Dragging in 3D - the right way
Link: Dragging in 3D - demo

Experiment: Impressionist Image Renderer (again)

Michael — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 11:50:33 +0000

Yeah, I know this is a repeat… but hey, when your hosting company deletes your last three posts, what’s a man to do?

Sit back and bask in the glory of an experiment that takes an image, applies an algorithm and ends up with something Van Gogh would give his left ear for. Print me out an A1 of this baby, bring me an Asahi and some wasabi peas and join me in the gallery of pseudo impressionism.

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FIVe3D and PV3D goes bendy

Michael — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 22:04:22 +0000

Just catching up on a few things that have happened during the last month or two. Mathieu Badimon (you may have seen his lab) has kicked off an open source interactive 3D library that we should all keep an eye on.

Link: FIVe3D

Meanwhile, back on the PV3D ranch, a new modifier branch has started with this blog post and pretty cool demo - kudos to Bartek Drozdz.

TweenMax

Michael — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 20:39:25 +0000

Something that may be worth a bookmark is the TweenMax tween library that is built upon TweenLite and TweenFilterLite. Compiling down to a humble 8K in your project, its perks include bezier tweening, orient to curve, pause/resume and easier tween sequencing. This may be enough to steal some Tweener thunder?

Link: TweenMax

Digital climbing the ad food chain

Michael — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 11:45:06 +0000

For those in advertising circles… here’s an article that may be of interest. It documents Australia’s poor performance at the recent Cannes Ad Festival. I particularly liked the following…

… but a single silver Lion in Cyber was disappointing, and a worrying sign, particularly when almost every speaker at Cannes banged on about the importance of incorporating digital thinking into advertisers’ communications strategies from the get-go.

… which is fantastic as it’s exactly what I’ve been saying for at least the last 12 months. Perhaps I should be speaking at Cannes?!?! They also blame our poor internet infrastructure… check it out.

Link: Close but no cigar… we need to lift our ad game

Testing one… two… is this thing on?

Michael — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 11:19:59 +0000

Well… things are finally starting to look like they used to! For those that have noticed a few bumps over the last three or so weeks, I hope you’re as happy as I am that the blog is finally back in business.

My web host, MD Webhosting (stay far, far away), apparently has their data centre in the U.S of A and approximately three weeks ago there was a massive explosion that took out ~3000 servers. They took a few days to actually get the site back online and then took a few weeks to restore my site database from a backup. In the end I’ve only lost a half dozen or so posts so I guess it’s not as disastrous as it could have been. It’s true that you get what you pay for and hosting is no different.

So - it’s good to see you again and I’m glad that you guys are still listening in for new updates. I’m planning on relaunching the blog in a few weeks time with a visual update and have a number of experiments in the wings that I’m looking forward to showing you. I have to repost an experiment or two over the next few days so I apologise if you experience a little déjà vu.

Now I’ve just got to get the background Firefox 3 compatible!

Experiment: Progressive Dissolve Image Filter

Michael — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 12:21:06 +0000

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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Nanotechnology: Nokia Morph

Michael — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 06:58:50 +0000

I wonder when nanotechnology will become mainstream? Devices like the one seen in the following video must be the next big thing - when technology becomes transparent and truly personal. Probably will happen the day after I buy an iPhone.

Experiment: Mandelbrot Fractal

Michael — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 01:29:19 +0000

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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Jobs on footloosemoose

Michael — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 13:03:06 +0000

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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75+ Programming Tutorials

Michael — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 03:00:14 +0000

So you know a little ActionScript, but otherwise you’re kinda limited. Knowledge is your number one professional asset - so isn’t it about time you increased your worth?

Link: 75 Programming Resources

Viral: DoTheTest

Michael — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 11:53:26 +0000

I want all locals to shut the hell up and do something like this - something that is has great production values, is provocative and very, very clever. It didn’t cost billions to create - simply because the idea was good enough.

Link: DoTheTest.co.uk

[thanks Rob]

Site: NewAccord.com.au

Michael — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 20:47:35 +0000

Let me take a moment of your time and tell you about the site we recently developed for the new Honda Accord.

What started as a prototype that saw 3D dots swarm from location to location, has evolved into an interesting microsite that shows off the Accord’s most revolutionary features.

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Ad: Carton Draught “Sky Troop”

Michael — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 03:01:13 +0000

Fosters certainly know how to put on a good show - check out their new ad for the local brew:

Link: Sky Troop