http://code.google.com/appengine/docs/python/config/cron.html

http://www.idsoftware.com/

You can buy the game on the app store for 5 bucks, or if you can comment out two lines of code and press the compile button, then you can have it on your phone for free (its opensource). Here is the link to the opensource download:

ftp://www.idsoftware.com/idstuff/wolf3d/wolf3d_iphone_v1.0_src.zip

I got link errors in two places, to fix it just comment out lines 366 and 405 in opengl_main.c.

So we have a function given to us in the API to generate a class from a mesh object, the generateClass() method. It creates a string which represents the entire class written out. But for models with multiple meshes contained in a hierarchy, it would be nice to have something create these classes automatically. So, I created an AIR app that does just that. Given a directory and a 3DS model, it will take the 3DS model, parse all of the meshes, and allow you to edit mesh names. Once you are ready, it writes the files out to the directory you choose. It will (hopefully) ignore all non-mesh objects, and will even create directories for multiple meshes contained within a parent mesh. Its a free app, do what you want with it. Just remember that you use it at your own risk, there is no warranty and though I will do what I can to help those with problems I may not have the time to fix every issue.

Now then, with that out of the way… To use it, simply install the AIR app (download the AIR or zip file here). Once you’ve installed and opened it, click the choose directory button:

After you’ve chosen the directory, click the Choose 3DS File button:

Once you’ve chosen both, you can edit mesh names and then export your files by clicking the Create Classes! button. Here is a short video showing how it works:

Example of Alternativa Class Generator

There is no need to put into words how confusing this 300 million dollar campaign is, especially when others have done such a good job. To me this is almost as embarrassing as the old Microsoft Hotmail debacle where they had to run the Hotmail servers on Unix for a time, because windows NT couldn’t scale to enough servers.

Now on to the good stuff, read about how Microsoft got exposed via Flickr.

All you need to do is create a new Flex project, and change a file extension right before finishing set up. Once you name the project, click next. After you select the output directory, click next again and in the source path screen change the extension on the main application file from mxml to as.

After the project is created, you need to add code to have the project do anything (even create a window). Since its not done by default, here is some code to create a simple window:

Thats it, thanks to Laurenţiu Lozan for the solution!

[SWF]http://www.chrisrebstock.com/stuff/flintexample/FlintExample.swf, 400, 400[/SWF]

If you can’t see the swf above, click here.

The code is really straightforward too. Here is the code for the missile trail particle emitter:

It basically boils down to a few simple steps:
- create an emitter
- create a counter for your emitter to determine how many particles are released per second
- create a velocity for particles released, which entails determining a zone for how they are released (check the zones package in the Flint source to see all different types of shapes for how you emit your particles)
- create an image for your individual particles
- add actions to your emitter, which is how you customize the movement, color, style and other aspects of the particles
- create a renderer sprite to hold the particles emitted, which you usually want to be a separate and stationary sprite
- call the start() method on the emitter and animate the emitter if you need to move it

The source code also mentions some key optimizations I plan to take advantage of once I get the time. One important one is limiting the size of your renderer Sprite. You can see in my code I made it the entire size of the screen, its better to only make it the size that you’ll need to show all the particles being emitted.

Here is the full source file.

Yup… If you are currently on frame 20 of a movieclip and you fire this tween code, you will tween backwards to frame 1. Easing is even supported, very nice.

That media platform is pretty bad ass by the way. Its all too common for agencies to try to productize their services business. Its also all too common for them to underestimate the difficulty, time and resources required to do so. Which makes the accomplishment all that much more impressive. In the FWA Theater implementation FiV looks pretty clean and works really well. It would be cool if the individual categories had their own RSS feeds though. You can tell that there is a significant amount of time, resources and effort that have been spent in creating FiV. Creative agencies live and die by deals and current work, so spending the time to create a legit platform is a much bigger undertaking than it sounds.

A friend of mine and I were joking one day that the least accessible interface around would require you to solve a Rubik’s cube before you could click a button or interact with it. Later that day I read an article on Papervision3D and the idea came to me to create a Rubik’s cube in Papervision3D. I thought it would be a great way to learn more about Papervision3D and something fun to work on. I had arrows for the top and bottom face of the cube, but it was just too much on the screen and was difficult to see much in the 3/4 overhead view with those arrows in too.

I ended up learning more about coordinate systems and arrays than I did about Papervision, but it was still a blast. At any rate, I plan to keep adding to it over time. I’d like to have the initial configuration load from XML and I also plan on writing a class to check to see if the cube has been solved after each move. All of that will have to wait though, since I just got my invite into Google’s Appengine and I’m really psyched to learn some more about it!