RobotAcid

Compression Depression

noreply@blogger.com (RobotAcid) — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 10:48:00 +0000

At work I've been coming up with a new method of managing monsters by giving them a Logo style script. It's a list of letters followed by numbers. The real tough part was nesting scripts within each other so I can have monsters spawn other monsters. This is tough because I have the new script in between brackets and regex can't do a balanced search. It's okay to spawn one monster, but what if that monster wants to spawn as well?

The solution was to match the deepest spawn that wasn't spawning itself and work back from there. I store that in an array, then replace it with a marker to that point in the array:


var path_string:String = "a bunch of commands go here"
// spawn commands look like: S(monster commands)
const SPAWN_COMMANDS:RegExp = /(?<=S \()[^\(\)]*(?=\))/;
const SPAWN_COMMANDS_REPLACE:RegExp = /S \([^\(\)]*\)/;
var subroutines:Array = new Array();

if (subroutines.length == 0){
 // extract spawn instructions and replace with an index to the subroutine list
 // matching works from the deepest nest up as the parenthesis is replaced
 do{
  var spawn:Array = path_string.match(SPAWN_COMMANDS);
  if(spawn != null) subroutines = subroutines.concat(spawn);
  path_string = path_string.replace(SPAWN_COMMANDS_REPLACE, "S "+(sub_index++));
 } while (spawn != null);
}

I then give each spawn a reference to the subroutine array, which means I only have to parse subroutines once and I save on memory. Even if the parent monster is erased, the reference by the spawn to the subroutine array saves it from being garbage collected.

The crazy thing is that the first spawn command will get replaced with "S 1". If I'm wise to this when I write a monster's script, I can type "S 1" any where in the script and it will call that subroutine. Even inside the first spawn's own script. This means my monsters can recursively generate.

All well and good. But now I have a massive XML full of instructions for every monster. Chris Burt-Brown at work had already opted for an RLE compression method that I've also adopted (multiples of the same item you replace with a quantifier and the item), but this isn't enough for complicated instruction sets. Looking around I found an LZW compression algorithm in AS2. It even produces XML safe output! Problem solved right? Wrong. My level editor uses a javascript method to save the XML that I cribbed from Galasoft. That method only saves ANSI encoded text files. The LZW algorithm produces UTF-8 encoded output. Saving those strings as ANSI destroys all the data. I was lucky enough to find out that Mozilla browsers have the ability save XML with the XMLSerializer method in UTF-8. There's a thread on the topic here. A quick mod to the Galasoft script and I was home free.

Now if I could figure out how to operate FZip, then I could take the operation further and get more assets within the game packed down to size.

Self Aware Robots (TED talk)
Simplicity Patterns (TED talk)
Big Buck Bunny (Blender made cartoon)
Curved electronic eye created
Double Taker (Golan Levin)
A robot with a biological brain

Alternativa 3D for Flash
AS3 Mouse Gesture class

Final Ninja

noreply@blogger.com (RobotAcid) — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 09:33:00 +0000

I'm quite pleased with this one and I hope people enjoy it:

Final Ninja

It started out as a sort of cross between the Dirk Valentine and Dangle engines. Then on the way to pick up my usual lunchtime Thai noodles the ninja theme suggested to me that he should be able to turn invisible as well. This is also my first project in AS3. The most tricky part of the transition is that they've completely buggered up animation control in AS3. Having complex nested animations is no longer possible due to gotoAndStop being processed at the end of a frame. I've also not noticed the fabled speed increase everyone is speaking of (and even in Processing I was a total speed whore). It is however refreshing to know when I'm being a bad programmer, and you can trick AS3 into behaving like AS2 when you need to.

Ogre

noreply@blogger.com (RobotAcid) — Sat, 31 May 2008 10:56:00 +0000

Well I finally got Ogre to compile. Bugger knows how I'm going to graft Openframeworks libraries into it. I only really need sound and the VideoGrabber, but those are still tall orders.

If you want to play with Ogre on a PC you'll need the following:

Visual Studio 9. Trying to get it to work with Code Blocks is more trouble than it's worth, especially as it breaks Openframeworks when you get the bare minimum working. Plus VS9 is pretty damn good. I'm amazed that Microsoft made it.
The Ogre SDK
DirectX Runtime

Then you'll want to read the following:

Installing the Ogre SDK
Setting up an application. No the Ogre Application Wizard doesn't work on VS9. This means we have to do some twiddling with project settings to get it to work. But despite this being a pain, it teaches you how to set up projects properly and will help you in the long run.
My thread in the Ogre Forum about trying to get VC9 to compile Ogre. I didn't quite read the instructions in the previous link thoroughly, but those instructions also assumed some knowledge I didn't have. Most of the difficulty of getting Ogre to compile is down to correct project settings and correct file placement. So you have to use your initiative a little to figure it out. Now I'm at the following stage:

Ogre Tutorials

I'm going to settle in to this stuff now to put off the nightmare that combining Ogre and Openframeworks will be.

Bruce Sterling on the future of interaction design
Magic Pen
Artificial Stupidity
Fruit Mystery game
Cat with Bow Golf game
Floating Head
The Control Master (a Run Wrake film)
Metal Gear Solid 4 game play demo

C++ optimisation strategies
Processing for Javascript

As a side note I got a new phone recently. So I downloaded the latest Mobile Processing and spent one Sunday writing a new and more clever game of Snake vs the Computer for it. It uses the new A* algorithm I built and shows the Snake's thoughts about which path to take ahead of it.

Snake AI 2

Knuckleheads

noreply@blogger.com (RobotAcid) — Wed, 21 May 2008 09:09:00 +0000

Well. This is a weird one. Certainly an experimental system.

Knuckleheads

The trouble with this game is that basically moving was so difficult that it was hard to put any challenges in the game without making it bloody impossible.

Progress with C++ is slow but fruitfull. I've managed to port the basics of my Processing breakout project over and bloody hell is it fast. I'm now trying to get Ogre to work. I looked at OpenSceneGraph but the set up instructions are incomprehensible and the forum is in Chinese. Seeing as I have enough trouble getting a Hello World out of C++ with out spending a few hours picking the brains of a forum on how to do it, I doubt I'm going to get any where with that one.

Snotput

noreply@blogger.com (RobotAcid) — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 11:53:00 +0000

We've made a snot flinging game.

Snot Put

Amazing the things you can do with verlet integration and a chain of springs.

st33d++

noreply@blogger.com (RobotAcid) — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 14:17:00 +0000

Just had my first sucessful tinkering session yesterday with Openframeworks on Dev C++. I'm now going to try to get it working on Code Blocks. I'm also going to be trying to get Ogre to work as well.

It's tough work really because I need to know that I've got 3D model importing and visual analysis up and running before I press on with porting my Processing code. And none of the C++ I've learned will sink in till I'm doing that last part. It's not that I think Processing isn't up to the challenge. I did a polygon test on my laptop yesterday and the chug set in on both platforms past the 10,000 rectangle point using OpenGl. I was quite surprised that there was so little difference, but the issue isn't really drawing, it's reading 3D model files. It's just that Processing isn't set up to import models and render them efficiently. Plus I'm sure I could be doing a more detailed visual analysis in C++. We'll see. Any progress I make will be uploaded to the Experimentation section for now.

Escape Pod - sci fi pod cast
magnetic feedback joystick
snake robot
The Pearce Sisters (Bafta award winning animation)
Universal Automatism article
Robots that ellicit emotion
Burn The Rope (game)Lumines - javascript puzzle game
Sheep Films
Powder - A multi platform rogue-like (DS version too!)

box2d AS3 physics engine
wow as3 3D physics engine
MD5 hash look up (or why you should put numbers in your passwords)
How to cheat and hack flash based games
You Tube of how to hack flash games with cheat engine
Email address encryption for websites
Vector based 3D engine for AS2
Regular Expression generator
Mike Grundvig\'s blog
AS3 physics engine
Quarternions FAQ
Machine game learning

Note that though it seems paradoxical to post links on how to hack the scores on my Flash games, Cheat Engine proved useful in finding a way to make hacking very difficult. The last two games I've made feature a couple of different techniques to put people off. I know some people suggest encrypting the values, but there really is a much simpler solution, I'll leave it to the reader to figure it out for themselves.

Magneboy

noreply@blogger.com (RobotAcid) — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 14:33:00 +0000

It might not be the hardest puzzle game in the world but it certainly was enjoyable to make:

Magneboy

I've knocked up a port of the A* code I used in it into Processing here. Not that the intelligence of the monsters was appreciated or noted, but I guess that's how good design works. If it works well then you don't pick up on it.

I'll be putting up the links I've harvested later - I've got quite a few useful ones regarding programming.

Dirk Valentine

noreply@blogger.com (RobotAcid) — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 17:34:00 +0000

Well it's been a while coming but it's finally here.

Dirk Valentine and the Fortress of Steam

I'm chuffed with this one to say the least (despite how it turned me into more of an evil miserable sod in the process). I've even got some A.I. in the characters but you hardly get the chance to see it what with shooting everyone on sight. Try to spot where I nicked ideas from Portal (companion cube and portals / teleporters).

What I Do

noreply@blogger.com (RobotAcid) — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 21:35:00 +0000

I've made a page cataloguing and describing my work for Nitrome.

I am currently trying to figure out how to get back into printmaking and reading C++ tutorials.

At work we're moving into AS3. Yes it's not as straightforward as the AS3 fanboys would have you believe. It's almost like porting a Flash project to Java. Components are the worst culprits, being obscure and not well explained at all. When it comes to AS3, internet becomes your best friend. It is however a better world that seems to make a lot more sense this time round.

Here's the old link list:

CL4 Network
David Byrne\'s Survival Strategies for Emerging Artists — and Megastars
fractal
C++ graphics tutorials
NeHe OpenGL tutorials and good stuff
Zero Punctuation - very funny game reviews
White Dwarf - avoidance game
The Last Question (short story by Isaac Asimov)
Ted, schizophrenic verbal diahorea incarnate
Half-Life: Full Consequences (hilarious machinama of a 6yr old\'s fan story)
Breakout mods
Level Head - A game using a cube with fiducial markers
Guitar Zeros (a Pure Data patch to turn Guitar Hero controllers in music tools)
Code Hunters (Anime short)
lego car machine
Mind Hacks
George Lucas in Love
The Technium (blog)
Some Grey Bloke (animated youtube pisstake)
Rejected - Don Hertzfeld
xkcd

Customising the List component in Flash MX
Dev C++ primer
Laser Graffiti How to
Using a Wiimote to create a cheap multi-touch whiteboard
bezier line collision
2d ball collision physics
Flash Develop (open source IDE for Flash AS2 and AS3)
C++ pointers tutorial
Homebrew DS links to get one started
Regex Coach

Glug Glug

noreply@blogger.com (RobotAcid) — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 12:01:00 +0000

Huzzah! A game I made last year has been released.

Aquanaut

The technology in this I was kinda proud of. The sub is actually a pentagon mesh of springs that bounce off of pixels using the Bresenham algorithm to correct to the surface of the pixels and calculate the bounce vector. One particle on it's own bounces weirdly (back along the angle of penetration). But tie several together with springs and somehow it rolls realistically, off of pixels!

The water transition is a displacement map trick like this one. Simon (the project's artist) made me a black and white long image to slide through the map. A decent map, makes for a decent effect.

Nice to be Liked

noreply@blogger.com (RobotAcid) — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 13:05:00 +0000

Somehow the folks at Edge magazine have named Headcase Internet Game of the Month.

That's nice eh?

Observe the page breaking large image of the article:

Hello Thar

noreply@blogger.com (RobotAcid) — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 18:48:00 +0000

Well. Haven't been doing much except working. Camera-tracking-breakout has kind of evolved into a lateral blob-detection lark so I can have multiple bats on screen.

But I'm leaving that to one side at the moment as I start tinkering with C++. First I've got to figure out Visual Studio and then I'm gonna have a crack at Openframeworks.

Here's a feck-load of links I've been harvesting:

Mario level that plays itself
Duracell plays Space Harrier
Tesla Down Under - high voltage shenannigans
Phillip K. Dick related Blog
Mini robot dog
Jumbotron Nintendo DS
self assembling chair
dalek cufflinks
Wired Science website
A not B error
Robot brains make the same mistakes as humans - Advert covered article instead of New Scientist pay per view one
50 really good indie games
AD&D Offline goes online
a history of british manga
Kevin Mack - Digital art and Film work
errr
missile game
Moebius Transformations
Archive of ZX Spectrum games and stuff with emulators, etc.
World's Smallest Site
Typing skill game
Crap Spectrum Games Competition 2004<
Fighting Robots

jedit - text editor for programmers
projector calculator
polygon collision
voronoi region collisions for the game "n"
boundary tracing algorithm
Genetic Algorithm stuff
Speedy line intersection code
Shiffman Most Pixels Ever Tutorial - Also an Eclipse starter I know it says it isn't but for Eclipse dummies like I it is a good read.
Royalty free sound resource - Sound Snap
Vector Magic - online vectorising of bitmaps

Moar

noreply@blogger.com (RobotAcid) — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 12:00:00 +0000

Okay, seeing as P5 Blogs filters my professional work out I'll keep the links and P5 stuff separate from my game making work. I've been working on a camera tracking breakout engine with AI blocks I'd like to share, I'll post that and the link harvest later.

Just this week we've launched Nanobots (a weapon switching shoot-em up inspired by Ikaruga and R-Type) and Off the Rails (a track-and-field controlled railcart powered by mexican cactuses).

Both have been a lot of fun to work on (although Nanobots was a tough gig to get done on time what with not being able to copy / paste a lot of platform game code into it).

Also, someone has made a port of Magic Touch for the Nintendo DS! He's taken liberties with the game design but seeing as most of us have a DS and a homebrew card here at the office it was very flattering all the same. He's used a different method for the recognition obviously, because it's less forgiving at times. But I'm still impressed given that I've yet to knock up any homebrew for the DS myself.

Magic Touch

noreply@blogger.com (RobotAcid) — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 09:23:00 +0000

We've released a new minigame here at Nitrome.

Magic Touch

This uses the gesture recognition neural net setup I blogged before. It also uses some line-intersection math and some general common sense to figure out what shapes you're drawing. We have a distribution version of it if anyone else wants to host it as well (as it's a minigame it's a no-licence game) - contact nitrome.com for that, or if you want to know how the shape recognition works you can contact me.

Evolutionary Algorithms (genetic algorithms methinks)
Milk Scanner
Little Big Planet
Everyday Shooter - guitar riffs instead of explosions
Can You See Me Now
And Yet It Moves - a spin the world around the player game
pee controlled video game
Savage : RTS and FPS and free
Raymond - short funny film on curing a man of laziness
Om nom nom nom

Greasemonkey
Funk samples

Processing Stuff

noreply@blogger.com (RobotAcid) — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 16:45:00 +0000

I've just been porting my Flash physics work into Processing. A demo with big chunks of source here.

Friends of Ed were nice enough to send me a copy of Ira's book to review. It's taken me some time to think of stuff to say because I'm busy working in Flash these days so it's hard to find some Processing time. To be fair - I've looked through it, but I haven't used it. I want to sit down and read the collision section of course because of the physics stuff I'm doing but I also have a day job, and I've just managed to hack around irregular surface collisions with a rather crazy implementation of the bresenham algorithm (yup - bounce it off a surface by detecting the level of penetration into a pixel map - with one particle it's unrealistic - with a spring box it's like the real deal).

The book is aimed fairly well at where I was when I started using Processing a few years ago. I had no idea how to program, some pretty concrete illusions about how everything was done and no knowledge of math. If I could have sent Ira's book down a wormhole back to me when I started to pick up this Processing lark I'd have had a much easier time of it (although the differences between Processing 68 and 120+ would have been a pain).

The book pretty much covers the basics of everything. Which is a very Processing way of going about stuff. You don't get into the complications of heavy Java which most advanced users get into. On the whole I find I pretty much understand everything explained to me in the book - which is a miracle for a book on programming. A lot of the examples look quite pretty and inviting and I can see myself thumbing through it if I hit a creative block.

If I had a criticism of it it would be the shotgun approach to learning that goes on in it. It's a great book for getting someone into Processing and I would recommend it to a student but I tried using it for reference purposes a few times and it cut me off before I could find the specialist information I needed. So either I'm a little above the target audience's level or I'm just too picky about what I want to find out. There's points where I'm looking through it thinking, "ayuh, there's a faster way of doing that," but you can't really confuse beginners with the speed stuff straight away I guess. Basically, it's a teaching book, not a reference manual - it won't revolutionise the way you code, just expand your horizons.

So if you've got an artist friend who wants to get into using Processing, I would recommend this book to them, it should help a lot. More advanced users might find it a strange book in terms of use for programming. I'm used to "get to the point" manuals, harrassing people on the web (sorry forum) and online tutorials. As programming books go, it is incredibly wordy, but artists (and I am the exception to the rule) are also wordy creatures, so this may go down well with the new breed of art-geek that has hit the world this century. In summary - if I was teaching Processing I would find this useful for shoving under my students noses, and I think they would find it useful too.

Colour of Munny exhibit
CAPTCHA being defeated by image analysis - PWNtcha
Dollar origami
Echodrome trailer - optical illusion game for PS3

InkScape: Open source vector graphics tool

Dangle

noreply@blogger.com (RobotAcid) — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 16:02:00 +0000

We've released a new game at Nitrome for MTV that I've developed the game engine and levels for.

Dangle

Go play it. Now. Go play it now. Now, now, now, now, now.

A few posts down on my blog you can see the intersection code I was working on to get the spider to snap to platforms. This combined with chaining springs together evolved into the final game. The control system without a doubt was the hardest part - there are dozens of little meters and switches behind the scenes trying to gauge mouse movement.

The next game is shaping up quite well. I'm taking all this physics engine and long scrolling level stuff to new heights. It should be a good little number.

Bloxorz - very well made block puzzle game
Astronomy wallpapers
Flash 8 3D racing game
Bat for Lashes - What's a Girl to Do - Promo
spike jonze - invisible skate boards
Dark Entries - Bauhaus - Live
Cube - open source Sauerbraten game
Diesels's Holograms on the catwalk
A I site
Falcon's Eye - Net Hack with graphics
Rat brained robot
Networked projectors
Al-Jazari - father of robotics
Sentient World, US Department of Defense World simulator

Laser tag how-to and source code

Gesture Shmesture

noreply@blogger.com (RobotAcid) — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 19:37:00 +0000

The boss has been letting me work on gesture recognition at work. I added to the self simplifying line so it accounts for when the user changes their drawing speed (just interpolate on the big gaps). This confuses the neural net less. But because my boss was greedy for more shapes I found other ways to recognise shapes heuristically.

Does the line cross over itself once? You've drawn a loop.
Does the line cross over itself twice? You've drawn a figure eight.
Is there low variance between angles along the line? You've drawn a straight line.
Is the starting point a short distance from the end point? You've drawn a circle (note that you have to force it to fail when someone draws a shape too small - otherwise just clicking the mouse is always a circle).
None of the above? Let's hand it over to the neural net and see if we've got some other shape here.

So okay - you can get away with some really poor drawing, but what's great about this is that you can get away with some really poor drawing! A game needs the feel that you lost because you're bad at the game, not because the programmer didn't make the effort to make gameplay comfortable. I'll link to this game if and when it comes out.

Yoga postures with how-to animations
ASCII game
Darth Vader helmet art
OLED flexible transparent display
Game and Watch remakes
LOL Code
Scrambler Drawing Machine
Old Soviet arcade games
Midfield General feat. Noel Fielding - Midfielding video
Photosynth - image clever technology
IKEA ice cube straws trick
Wooden robot toys
3D printer site
Great Firewall of China - test the availability of your site in China
Falling Sand Java
Brain and Behaviour
Hello World on wheat field

OCR with perceptrons in Java
SWX data transter method for Flash
Flash file uploader
Saving jpg or png with Flash 8 revisited
Fast random lists of number for Flash
ITP Sensor workshop reports

Hey Blprnt!

noreply@blogger.com (RobotAcid) — Mon, 28 May 2007 10:20:00 +0000

Well after a Sunday of tinkering I got a reasonable demo of a Back-Propagation Neural Net in Flash working. It's quite like my Processing version but with the added advantage that you can see the error of the network as a graph and get the training just right by stopping it whenever you like. Also, I've added the ability to save and load XML states of the net - very useful after you've had a good training session. Full source code is of course linked on the page.

I'm also working on a collaboration - but as we're rusty it's going to be simple, can't do rocket science in my spare time. We're thinking a camera-tracking Breakout game.

Dabu

noreply@blogger.com (RobotAcid) — Sat, 26 May 2007 12:36:00 +0000

It'll be sometime yet before one of the games I've been working on goes up apparently. The client generally takes their time over releasing games, usually so they can come up with some way to ruin the game before release.

Just links in this post, I haven't any new experiments just yet - and I'm trying to push for a blog over at Nitrome, it's just whether we get the time, these current games I've been developing are really tough work.

Colleagues of mine who are suggesting links to me can help me blog them by submitting them to my Link Monkey. It's a PHP script that I'm using to bookmark links now and it formats the links so I can paste them into my blog easily.

Cool stop frame animation
Gallery on Brick Lane wanting artists to apply
Ebonics translator
Wikipedia's list of the graphic novels for NBC's Heroes
Video for OK by Shitdisco
Neko - Clever shockwave games
Cool vector art
Muon - Chris O Shea Sound reactive Processing spring thing, pretty.
Open Arena - Open Source Quake 3
Sci-Fi short about a video store in another dimension
Onslaught - tower defense game
Interesting, simple, circle collision game
Ball chucking game
Animated Live Journal gifs NSFW.

Create a game like Line Rider in Flash
Video conversion methods
Perlin Noise fire in Flash
Quaternions tutorial (in C++ though)
Shape based collision detection in Flash

1UP

noreply@blogger.com (RobotAcid) — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 10:58:00 +0000

I'm now embracing routine.

I'm working on code for a Flash game for Nitrome and enjoying the familiar sights and sounds of London (as well as the nostril full of soot I get on a daily basis). I shall link to the project when it is finished.

I've knocked up a quick line intersection demo. Work on Rogue is postponed for a while but I'm still pretty keen to turn it into a proper game.

Animated gifs of wrestling moves
Adaptive Robot
Innovative website
A typography to vector project Which looks rather like my vectoriser
Online Street Fighter
A rather cool lol-cat
Beyond the Red Line Game based on the new Battlestar Galactica
CG Robot Film Huge robots in world war 2 - epic!
A harware genetic algorithm

Flash Vector tutorial deals with collision, intersection, surfaces - with source code too.
Get different urls for the same flash movie with swfaddress
Game Vindicator method for removing hacking in online multi-player games

"I put on my robe and wizard hat"

noreply@blogger.com (RobotAcid) — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 21:40:00 +0000

I've been working on developing a Rogue clone in Flash. My chief motivation for this is the total lack of any attempt at a Diablo clone or a Rogue / Hack clone in Flash.

I'll admit it's not easy.

And for the NIN fans out there, you can hear the new stuff on the site for the Year Zero album (bit better than the last one at least). And there's a site cataloguing the strange advertising campaign that preceeded the album.

Ferrofluid movie - magnetic goo
Robot fleas
Computing image forgeries
Virtual ant farm in Second Life
Ruben's tube movie - like an FFT but with fire and science
Neural net level imaging of a mouse brain
High power green pen lasers can cut through plastic ^o^
Mega-Robot returns
Spiderman 2 in Lego
Advertising for typography employees in wingdings
Plasma Pong

Firefox cache sanity - how to change your cache directory in Firefox
Secrets of Firefox - what typing "about:config" does in Firefox's address bar
Ajax tool tip
Fluid dynamics with vector fields
The Java ripple effect in Processing code

Meh

noreply@blogger.com (RobotAcid) — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 15:08:00 +0000

As well as tidying us the CSS I've added a bit of DHTML to the site so I can open myself to the use of Javascript libraries. They're tough to get into but Scriptaculous is a good one for absolute beginners and Mootools and JQuery seem the route for the more hardcore shennanigans. Links to these under Applications on the nav column <--

GotoAndPlay.it have been kind enough to publish a copy of
Super Special Lightning Man and give it a warm initial review, which is pretty cool considering there's room to develop Lightning Man Gold Edition (single player, more power-ups, the ability to pause the game, etc.).

Rick Dangerous
Beat Bots
Marek Michalowski - Beat Bots project guy
FM3 Buddha Machine
Kid Koala video
Microsoft's speech recognition demo
248 dimensional structure mapped
Grant Freckelton - Visual Effects Director for the film 300
A Nice Cup of Tea and a Sit Down

Flash Lite resources
Advanced Character Physics paper
Grid Maker plugin for Photoshop
Spyder - MySpace spamming tool
Webcam motion detection in Flash
Tiled bitmap backgrounds in Flash
Flash bitmap transform matrix
Advanced Character Physics tutorial for Flash
Drag and drop gravity in Flash
Pure Dyne - Linux OS for artists
Kaourantin - Adobe developer's blog
Using Local Connection in Flash to communicate between two Flash objects on the same html
Flosc tutorial (OSC in Flash)
Scott Schiller - Javascript clever - And he's made DHTML Arkanoid, genius!
Standard sizes Print tools as in envelope size, window envelope, CD labels, etc.
DOS games utilities

Moving Swiftly On...

noreply@blogger.com (RobotAcid) — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 19:52:00 +0000

Super Special Lightning Man is here and is for 2 to 4 players. So without further ado, I'm going to work on something else. I'm thinking beat-detection. I'd like to do another project that has a nice even split between coding and drawing but is a bit more accessible (I could plow more time into the game, or I could finally make a VJ toy - not really a tough choice). I've started a thread for Beat Detection resources. If you have anything to add, please do. It will help the young-uns in years to come.

The astute will notice I've added a search bar to my Blog. I basically copied the GET request from Blogger's tool bar and built up the hidden input tags. It should be easier to find stuff in my mountain of links now.

This month's links include some old favourites I found lying around in IE6's favourites folder.

Michel Gondry Rubiks Cube 2
The Chumby
Bias test
Teaspoon slide guitar
Japan's top 30 emoticons
Save the internet
The Chimpanzee An online graphic novel
I Feel Great! old ad, still funny.
Zen Koans
iRogue for Palm OS old favourite of mine
Pin-hole camera a bit obsolete in the age of phone cameras - but interesting reading
Chomsky bot fun bit of AI research
Star Ship dimensions Who is bigger? Unicron or the Death Star?
Cool Robot of the Week
Brains 4 Zombies
Neave's Strobe drug-free halucinations!
Mix a beat-box recipe
Gummi Bear chandelier
Self modelling robots
Abandonware list

Flash Embed article
AS2.0 compiler (MTASC)
Flash Slideshow
Flash slideshow
Joystick to keyboard input for Flash
AS2.0 to AS3.0 cheatsheet
Animation kit for Flash
Auto-tracing bitmaps into vectors A nice big list.
JavaScript Smooth Gallery
Revolver - fast JavaScript image rotation
Fwiidom Combining Flash and Wii
Super Simple Blog script (PHP)
$10 Macro photo studio
Preloading sound in Flash
URL encoder / decoder

Zap!

noreply@blogger.com (RobotAcid) — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 21:59:00 +0000

Apart from twiddling my thumbs and catching up with Heroes (bloody good show it is too), I've returned to an old project. I was going to contribute a game to the Telic exhibit for their 5 joystick show but lost interest when I started building my Flash interface and when I found out there would be no fire buttons. More confident with Flash now though I've brought the idea into Flash and the engine seems solid enough for me to finish it off. Test the demo engine here.

For those of you who haven't checked out flight404's music responsive doodad yet go check it out. It's a very attractive piece and there's a lot we can learn from it.

What does Marsellus Wallace look like?
Hiding messages in plain sight
Graffitti lab are at it again
The story of the Amen Break(beat)
Mario World game (in JavaScript!?!?)
A projector for $500 and replacement bulbs for $30
Best fight scene ever (first to touch the floor loses)
Strange Maps Blog
Kazemoto Game looks like it's been all drawn in biro
Left hand only piece by Chopin
Thursday Assface!!
Monty Python .wavs and .mp3s

Font support survey
True Flash fullscreen hack
Playing Flash below DHTML
Add music to your iPod from any computer hack
Flash keyboard focus on launch in browser
Guide to .htaccess
Emily Chang's eHub (a resource portal)
Shared Objects (Flash MX cookies)
3D with Javascript
Screenweaver (for building applications with a Flash interface)
Daniel Shiffman's OOP primer (a favourite page to refer n00bs to)

Cache

noreply@blogger.com (RobotAcid) — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 21:11:00 +0000

Just dropping off some links. You know what I'm like with research. No news as yet.

Cut out / transformable Optimus Prime
Monty Python sounds
Salvador Dali documentary
Outer space in a pyrex dish (SFX for film the Fountain)
Face transformer
Tony vs Paul (stop frame cool)
Smoke (or, why did I bother learning Processing when I could have just bought fags and a camera)

Lightbox 2.0 - snazzy js image loader
Flash Screensaver thread
40 different layouts for one html
A Bot for a boss (NS article)
100 Ajax resources
Better Google rank tips
JavaScript reflections