NxtGen Media - The Freeman View

Merry Christmas

Taking this time to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. Been busy as all get out this holiday, between “end of year work” and “holiday home work” as I am sure all of you can relate. Hopefully all of you get exactly what you wanted this year. Personally, I’m at the point where I am just happy to be in good health, and to be surrounded by good friends and family. Of course a good videogame is nice too I’m trusting that everyone remembers what this season is all about and the potential for a brighter future that is represented in the joy and good will that is exhibited during this time. Merry Christmas to all, and may this joy and hope extend well into the new year. Blessings to all.

-DCF

GUI Building with AsWing

So far, I enjoy using Flex. I get the whole visual WYSIWYG deal and for the most part understand when to use it and when it’s better to work in Flash.  That being said, sometimes old habits are hard to break. I’ve been working in AS3 and FlashDevelop for well over a year and a half now, and I really like the work flow that I’ve become accustomed to. I have not yet tried directly using the Flex components in Flash, but I have tried using an alternative way to create a Flash based GUI, and while not Flex by any stretch, this alternative does offer another option for components to create your Rich Internet Application.

AsWing is an Open Source Flash ActionScript GUI framework and library that allows programmers to make Flash applications (or RIA) user interfaces in ActionScript. It may remind one Java Swing in terms of functionality and usage. I like it because it allows me to develop the way I’m used to developing. Based on the info from the site, under the features section:

When is AsWing a better suit for you?
•  You are developing a game UI (meaning  you want to manage assets super easily/freely with components, like adding an asset like JButton, or add a JList to your IDE created panel.
•  Your application will only be compiled with Flash CS3/4 (AsWing A3 can be compiled by both Flash and Flex compiler).
•  You don’t want to code in MXML.
•  You are familiar with java Swing (you’ll be able to use AsWing easily with a short learning curve).
•  You are developing an application in which the UI’s are very dynamic; created at runtime; will be added and removed from the display list; require realtime skin changes, and realtime layout of components.
•  You need a stable framework and feedback/bugfix from the authors should be quickly in hours.
•  You don’t like flex UI framework, but you do need a powerful UI framework

So far, it has done everything I have needed, and works really well. I’ll use Flex when I have a biz app to develop, but when I am working “Flash-centric” I have to say AsWing is a nice alternative to the standard UI components in Flash. It was recently upgraded to version 1.5. If you have to build a user interface in Flash, this is certainly a great way to do it.

-DCF

Are We There Yet?

I remember when Scott Bilas of Oberon Media, Inc. wrote an excellent article a few years back called, “What About Flash? Can We Really Make Games With It?” Written around 2005 when the Flash Player was in version 7, and ActionScript 2.0 and FlashMX were the development environment. The gist of the article:

“…We’ve heard this story before: big-game developer gets tired of big-game team size, pressure, and politics, and switches to making small games. New companies filled with people escaping the retail AAA industry, developing these “casual” games, are popping up all the time. These aren’t the silly little things that get forwarded to us in email and hold our attention for 30 seconds. These are games that make money, and hearken back to the days of yore when a couple geeks in a garage could put together a hot shareware title in a few months and get rich quick. The big difference today is in the tools. We can build bigger, better, prettier, more advanced games with fewer people in less time and for less money than ever before!”

The paper went on to tell us what we should and should not do with Flash. At the time, that translated into fairly simple games, but nothing really serious due to the inefficiencies in rendering and timing. Now we have Flash 10, ActionScript 3.0, and Flex. What I am wondering is, with all the new features, are we at the point where Flash could be considered a serious game development platform?

IMHO if Flash is not there yet, then we have to be pretty close, and if not this version then maybe the next or the one after. At some point, it just stands to reason that Flash will eventually be a major contender in the online game development platform arena. Critical mass has got to be hit somewhere along the way as we go up in Flash versions. If not Flash, then I sure would like to know what that platform will be, because it is greatly needed. Such a platform has the potential to revitalize game development.

-DCF

Media Servers

I have been working with the Flash Media Server lately, or to put it more succinctly, I have been accessing video files via the media server. There is a big difference between progressive download and streaming in terms of how you access files with the NetStream class. One of the requirements for the code that I am writing is that it be able to do both media server access, and progressive download, depending on if the software is running online or from CD. Not a big deal, but most apps are doing one or the other and not both. I ended up using the local shared object (LSO) to implement this so that I could choose between the two options:

videoConnection = new NetConnection();

if (projectName.data.mediaServer == true)
{
trace(”media server code”);
videoConnection.objectEncoding = flash.net.ObjectEncoding.AMF0;
videoConnection.addEventListener(NetStatusEvent.NET_STATUS, netStatusHandler); videoConnection.connect(projectName.data.mediaServerURL);

}
else
{
// no media server
videoConnection.connect(null);
flvContainer = new NetStream(videoConnection);
}

Using this technique, I was able to reference the LSO variable and have distinguishing blocks of code for the media server and non-media server sections. Works pretty well, and I only have to update one file when converting the code from CD to online.

Not everyone can afford the Flash Media Server. Thanks to open source there are some free options. The one I am most acquainted with is Red5. It is a Java based Flash server that supports streaming Audio/Video (FLV/MP3), Stream Recording (FLV), Shared Objects, Live Streaming Publishing, and Flash Remoting (AMF). Very capable server that yields an inexpensive way to stream content. Check out some of the applications that are using it at: Open Source Flash: Red5 Showcase.

-DCF

Google’s Native Client

“Native Client is an open-source research technology for running x86 native code in web applications, with the goal of maintaining the browser neutrality, OS portability, and safety that people expect from web apps. We’ve released this project at an early, research stage to get feedback from the security and broader open-source communities. We believe that Native Client technology will someday help web developers to create richer and more dynamic browser-based applications.” - Google Code Blog

In other words, Rich Internet Applications.

This appears to be Google’s first attempt at creating a competing technology in answer to Flash and SilverLight. I was first informed of it by Hal, who saw it on Slashdot. I can’t say that I’m surprised. First Google Chrome, now their own native client. The freaking thing runs Quake as well! Don’t know how far it will go, but it is interesting, and may very well cause the other player makers to up the ante.

It does not take a rocket scientist to see where this could all possibly go. I have been working with Flash for years, and its latest incarnation, Flash 10 is great, but is it enough? For the short term, it will appease the content hungry masses for at least a couple of years but we probably should not get comfortable with it. Let’s face it, new releases are coming out faster and faster. Flash 9 was out a year ago. Now we have Flash 10. How soon should we expect the Flash 11 player and CS5? Based on the way things are going, at least a new player within a year. Not that this is a bad thing. Just means that Kurzweil’s Law of Accelerating Returns is coming to pass right before our eyes.

This whole plug-in tech is starting to look like it’s going to be the next television/radio/game console/phone interface in terms of its usage. Essentially, it might be the tech that makes good on the prediction of the convergence of all of our players and receivers.   “Write once, run anywhere”, sound familiar?

-DCF

Heaven or Hell, It’s Your Choice

Now before you get the idea that this is a religious piece, and I’m trying to sell you on something that you really don’t think you need, this is actually an article on an e-book I ran across on the Internet last night with the same title. Basically it is a treatise on the state of all things and the future of technology.

Written by an un-employed (at the time) techie and reformed hacker around 2005, the author gives his views and perspective on what he believes is really going on in the world, and how technology is going to change things in a really big way for the good, or for the bad based on the choices we make, hence the title.

The book is not exactly a book, as it is more of a mixture of Flash, html pages, and about 1000 hyperlinks to anything you don’t understand. Must have taken him at least a year to compile and wire the whole thing up (note: the author says 6 years). What I found really interesting was the authors view of the future of television, the Internet, and multimedia in general. The general premise is that we are ultimately going to realtime 3D on the web, and television as we know it will be diminished in popularity much like what it did to radio. There is a whole lot of stuff politically that he goes into in terms of society and how it all works now, and will eventually work from a technical perspective that can pretty much be described as hellish at best. Of course, as the author points out, it does not have to be that way.

The book serves as a wake up call to those that are either not technically informed and don’t have the ability to perceive what’s going on, or those that are technically competent, but are asleep at the wheel. He covers AI, nanotechnology, and the future of the Internet among other things. Either way, if you can get used to the presentation style, its an interesting read.

-DCF

Flex Developer’s Toolbox

I work with this great designer who can do some pretty sweet things with Flash. He knows enough about programming to get simple things done, but not enough to be called a programmer.  As I said in previous post, we have been looking into Flex in our spare time, and have been contemplating how to apply it to what we do. James, sent me this link to a Flex Developer’s Toolbox that has tutorials, themes, and components. Some really good stuff on this site. Over this month, as we slow down, I will get to do some more experimenting. Between playing with the new CS4, and Flex Builder 3, I kind of feel like I got my Christmas presents already.

From the site:

One important goal of flex components, is to help the community see how you can merge the best of what flex gives you (productivity, development process, consistent component model) with the best of what people have been doing in flash for years (rich, highly interactive, fluid, etc).

Now that is what I’m talking about!

DCF