Disqus - Friends of KenCFTeam

Re: Unity 3D Indie Is Now Free

Joshua Granick — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:44:38 -0000

Do you mind if I ask a question?

I'm a Flash developer and I want a serious 3D modeling program. Which should I choose?

Yes, I know that Blender and Google SketchUp are both free, but I don't just want something that "works" ... I want a great solution. You can buy a bike at Wal-Mart that "works", but it just doesn't hold a candle to a bike from a bike shop. Is Blender really a great solution, or should I look into 3D Studio Max, or Maya, or ... ?

As far as Actionscript goes, moving to FlashDevelop changed my whole life ... it is worlds ahead of the Flash IDE, and still much better than FlexBuilder in my opinion. I'm looking to try and figure out the same type of solution for 3D modeling, because its currently a huge pain or near impossible for me right now.

Lastly (as a bonus question), would anyone have experience with what type of model format translates well to Flash (Away3D)?

I'm interested in Unity 3D but I know I need to get this modeling question out of the way before I do.

Thanks!

Re: Unity 3D Indie Is Now Free

Joshua Granick — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:16:29 -0000

Awesome! Thank you so much for your response. I've been frustrated with Blender, although it definitely got better after I understood a couple of its core ideas. I had never heard of MilkShape, but so far it promises to be really easy to use. I am converting furniture pieces into 3D for a Flash project, so setting the background image, adding vertices then faces, then being able to use the texture coordinate editor all seems like a nice solution to a get a precise model that looks the way it should.

I'm sure these features are in Blender somewhere? SketchUp is easy to use, but I found the texturing awful to use. I think you just saved the day for my current project and I. Thank you!

Once I'm more versed in MilkShape, Cinema4D or Blender I guess it might make sense to spend $3500 on an AutoDesk project, but I'm guessing that would make the biggest difference if I was doing film? I would imagine that the quality, filters and effects for 3DS Max or Maya might be more complete than Blender, since movies like Dreamworks are produced using the software.

Along those lines, do you know if RenderMan is it's own software, or does it augment some of these other packages?

Re: Unity 3D Indie Is Now Free

Joshua Granick — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:04:40 -0000

Can I ask you another question?

How do I get a model into Flash (I'm using Away3D) with its textures? After gaining a lot of ground using MilkShape 3D, I ended up switching to Misfit Model 3D, which was a lot easier for me to figure out this time around.

I have my first model ready to go. It has a low amount of triangles and it uses two PNG graphics for the texture. However, I can't get the texture to show in Flash. I can export as an .obj file and see no texture, and I can't export as an .md2 file because it says my model is not compatible. I can try and import my model into another program (like Blender) to get it into a better format, but which format works best? I really need to keep the textures.

Thank you again! It's starting to become really fun to work with ... I just need to figure out this last step to my workflow.

I got really far today using MilkShape 3D. I ran up against a few features I couldn't use because I hadn't purchased the software, and somehow I ended up trying Misfit Model 3D again. After finding some of the same features I had enjoyed in MilkShape,

Re: Opera 10.5 Pre-Alpha Adds Speed and CSS3 Support

Joshua Granick — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 04:00:02 -0000

Opera continues to impress me. I'm using Opera 10.5 now and it's working great! I love it!

Re: Gordon: An open source Flash™ runtime written in pure JavaScript

Joshua Granick — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 04:11:44 -0000

When Adobe is releasing Flash Player 10.1 support for Blackberry, Palm, Android, Motorolla and Windows Mobile, it's hard to feel that a Javascript runtime is anything more than a band-aid for Apple's elitism. I know that Apple has had the corner on cool, at least as far as marketing goes, for some time, but I must wonder how long it will last before people realize that it really is marketing.

I don't mean to say that it's wrong for anyone to prefer Apple, but I wonder if people will start to realize that there are alternatives. Nonetheless, this is a cool feat.

Re: andrewembler.com :: Dear Apple: It's Time to Listen to the Canary in the Coal Mine

Joshua Granick — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 21:27:39 -0000

I just came back from Palm's Developer Day in Sunnyvale. It's been very interesting working with Palm, because in so many ways it seems so similar to Apple's vision and positive qualities, and yet in so many other ways open and oriented for the web.

Most of the people who work at the company use Macs, and many of them used to work for Apple. They've obviously taken time with their operating system to focus on shine, polish and the feel of the platform, but when it comes to being open and supporting developers, it's interesting to me to see their approach.

First off, the phones are Linux devices. To unlock the phone, type the Konami code or "webos20090606" into universal search and it will display the toggle for developer mode. This is documented on their developer site. Once you do that you can access the phone using a command line work with its internals. You can imagine how much power that gives you as a low-level developer. People turn their phone into a web server, FTP server, router, or even install apps like Quake or Open Office. Even without enabling developer mode, you can plug the phone into your computer and it will act like a USB hard drive, letting you pull off or put on wallpapers, ringtones, photos, music, video and documents without effort. This is very different than Apple's eco-system -- no "jailbreak" is required, however so much of the framework of the phone is still a private API. It's a little like Concrete -- you can mess with your install about as much as you care to, but that doesn't make the platform less secure to remote attacks. I currently have a couple patches installed to enable Facebook Chat and overclock the processor by 60%.

The development environment is also something I find interesting. The apps are made in Javascript, with HTML and CSS. In fact, they are replacing the Java services in the phone with Javascript-based replacements, so writing apps and services will both be done using Javascript. Flash is ready for the phone, but Adobe hasn't chosen to release it for public distribution yet. You can drop Flash content in right away, making it easy to create games and interactive applications. However, the focus is surely on the standard SDK, which leverages webkit and leans heavily on CSS3/HTML5 features for borders, shadows, audio and video. For those who need closer access to the hardware, they also provide a plugin developer kit, which lets you turn C code into web plugins, letting you port iPhone apps and other C-based code quite quickly, but still letting you mix it with JS/HTML/CSS elements if you prefer.

I just came back from their conference, so of course I'm talking about it a lot, but it's interesting to see how the two companies approach the openness of their platforms. Funny enough, all the standard applications which come on the phone, like the dialer, music player, calendar and email client, have all their source code open sourced, so you can open up the code and recompile it yourself if you want. That all reminds me of why I like Concrete. I don't expect everything about Concrete to be free -- I think its great that the Marketplace and hosting are profitable, but we all benefit by the platform being open, because we can innovate and make it better. It's one of the reasons why I think Concrete is such a good balance between closed source and open source -- it's open, ready for innovation, and flexible to use, but it still has goals, hasn't been fragmented and is profitable. I'm excited about all the possibilities that are available when the software on my phone is written in Javascript ... it's like writing blocks (in the Concrete5 fashion), with the web as my CMS.

Re: andrewembler.com ::

Joshua Granick — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 21:35:04 -0000

I think this is a very valid point, assuming that private APIs do evolve to become public. I don't mean to say that it's wrong or evil for private APIs to exist, but I do think that having public APIs lends strength to the platform. For example, when you added the ability to configure your own "Edit" and "View" dialogs for items in the file manager, it was a huge benefit for my add-ons. Right away I implemented this for XML editing as well as for configuring video thumbnails. I don't mind at all that you had your own system worked out initially -- Picnik integration is a neat feature -- but opening that door of functionality lent itself to providing a lot more possibilities for how that feature could be used.

Re: andrewembler.com :: Review: Das Keyboard Professional

Joshua Granick — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 01:24:41 -0000

I just bought a new keyboard today. So far I've been very happy with it! I should give that Facebook game a shot :)

http://www.logitech.com/en-...

Re: Photos from Glenn’s awesome new stick diet!

Joshua Granick — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 23:58:04 -0000

Green drinks are the bomb.

Re: Photos from Glenn’s awesome new stick diet!

Joshua Granick — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 23:58:15 -0000

Green drinks are the bomb!

Re: Great Expectations

Joshua Granick — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 02:00:49 -0000

In the times when I'm really quiet, with no entertainment, no devices, not even books or other things to distract me, I sometimes find a feeling of anxiety that bothers me. There are so many things which can benefit our lives, and yet (somehow) begin to take hold of perhaps too much of our attention. We say that we need to spend time with things like our phones or computers, and in many ways we do for work or keeping on track, yet sometimes it is too difficult to set them down when their utility has already been applied.

Eight years ago I had a silent fasting retreat. It was really, really great. At first, you would sometimes wonder if much would come of being silent, but you would discover that God is there in the silence, and has more for us than we've usually sat still and listened enough to recognize. Now that I have three kids it isn't practical to have silence for three days, but I still need to remember that it is healthy to have times of quiet, even if they are rare. To keep the music off, maybe step outside, breathe and be still.

I have piles of things that need to be done, too. It sometimes feels that whenever I lean into one area, the next one (or the many others) start bursting into flames. I think there's a balance in relaxing, focusing on one thing, putting our heads down and making consistent progress (no matter how small it may be ... we can only do what we can do), and then pulling our heads back up long enough to make sure we aren't wasting all our time on the lowest priorities. Too much time focused on the small, and we may risk overemphasizing low priorities, but spend too much time focused on the big and we might never make good progress, or we might just get stressed out ;)

Re: First Glimpses of fcanvas Running three.js

Joshua Granick — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 23:53:18 -0000

I should have said Chromium instead of Chome. It probably has something to do with Chromium's performance on Linux, or maybe the Linux version of Flash Player in general.

Re: First Glimpses of fcanvas Running three.js

Joshua Granick — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 19:06:10 -0000

The CanvasRenderer for three.js employs three canvas objects, one for the display, and one for a pixel map and one for gradients. In order to use this with FlashCanvas, it would be necessary to embed three Flash objects on the page, and to find a way to hide two so that they do not conflict with your design. It also causes some silent errors when attempting to access certain functions, based on what works with FlashCanvas' JS caching, and what does not.

For example, three.js draws on the gradient map then attempts to load the image data. Although FlashCanvas utilizes a JS layer that helps queue commands even before the Flash object has been initialized, it cannot return image data both by design of the non-"Pro" version and because the renderer is not available. It also causes some silent errors, which are both a pain to discover, and not necessarily fixable, based on the design of FlashCanvas.

I would be interested to hear what kind of performance other people have experienced using FlashCanvas, particularly with applications which clear the canvas each frame, like three.js, rather than selectively clearing sections or drawing on top of the existing canvas, like the FlashCanvas demos appear to do.

Re: Introducing fcanvas, a Flash Renderer for three.js

Joshua Granick — Fri, 06 May 2011 05:17:51 -0000

@twitter-21355325 I considered writing a custom renderer for three.js. I suppose there are advantages and disadvantages to either approach. My largest concern was compatibility with the engine as it continues to grow and move forward. If Flash was a separate renderer, it would need to be maintained alongside the Canvas and WebGL targets in order to remain mature. There would still be an issue in transferring memory from Javascript to Flash, though with clever caching that could be reduced.

In the end, I thought that a Canvas replacement could be more versatile for other projects, and would always remain compatible with the library. It is a bit of work, though, so it is difficult to invest time into bringing it from concept and proof of concept to a bug-free solution. It's been exciting to see three.js content running and functioning properly, but still have silent errors to uncover before my project would be able to use it fully.

Then again, if three.js were written in haXe, I suppose this all would be taken care of ... ;)

Re: Arthur Tells WOR “So Long and Thanks for all the Fish!”

Joshua Granick — Tue, 10 May 2011 00:41:26 -0000

So as an intern for community management, will that be assisting in the developer.palm.com forums, or will you be communicating with the webOS community "at large" like webOSRoundup or PreCentral?

Either way, it is exciting as passionate people continue to join the team. I really enjoy being a part of the Developer Relations team.

Re: Arthur Tells WOR “So Long and Thanks for all the Fish!”

Joshua Granick — Tue, 10 May 2011 03:28:39 -0000

I have been with Developer Relations for a couple weeks. I know that every job has its ups and downs, but I have had a great time meeting the talented people that make webOS happen, and love being able to spend time communicating with other developers.

I have been focused on the PDK, and would love to find ways to make it more accessible and easier for new developers to understand. Even I was a bit scared by C++, but it really does not have to be as complicated as it sometimes is made out to be.

There is definitely a gap in perception between the webOS platform and much of the general public, but I hope that the TouchPad will be a catalyst for generating interest in webOS. It is a maturing platform, which as you already know, has significant cornerstones that make it compelling. We are still going to hear nay-saying as long as Sprint does not announce any new webOS devices, but I recently changed to a Pre 2 and look forward to trying a Veer. I really believe that things are looking up, but it may take time.

It is great that you will be helping with the community, and it would be fun to meet you sometime after you settle in over here. I am not in Sunnyvale all the time (since my wife, kids and I live near Sacramento) but I try to come in enough to say "hi" to everyone.

Welcome, and I'm sure we'll see more of you soon!

Re: Installing haXe (Flash/Canvas/PHP/C++)

Joshua Granick — Tue, 10 May 2011 03:46:08 -0000

Hey, thanks for the link! I haven't installed packages from the Debian repositories before, but I certainly can't think of any good reason why I shouldn't have by now. Thanks to your help, I just added the updated (and certainly more straightforward) script for installing an amd64 build of haXe 2.07 for Debian Linux.

I saw some of your samples when Tarwin presented at FlashONGames a week or two ago. It looked very cool. Do you do your development on Linux? What can you do with the openFrameworks library you ported?

Re: Getting Started with haXe for Flash, webOS, and Windows/Mac/Linux

Joshua Granick — Thu, 12 May 2011 02:20:31 -0000

D'oh! You're right! Thanks for pointing it out -- the archive should work fine now

Re: So? Who Got the HP Veer 4G and What Do You Think?

Joshua Granick — Wed, 18 May 2011 16:20:50 -0000

I had a similar experience at my local AT&T store. They had the Veer, but it wasn't plugged in, so it took a while to charge and get going. I'm glad I was able to help out.

The more I used it, the more it grew on me. I am planning to get a Veer as my primary device when I can.

Re: Playing with haXe JS

Joshua Granick — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 15:09:25 -0000

Ah, good to know!

I had seen some examples of haXe for Javascript that did not include the type, but I had forgotten that haXe would still give you completion for these values. In Actionscript, even if you could define values without specifying the type, you won't get code completion, so it is a habit to define everything.

Very cool. Another advantage of compiler-based completion :)

Re: Using haXe JS with three.js

Joshua Granick — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 17:23:56 -0000

Yeah, the downside to using typedefs is that you need to leave the constructor untyped. I just whipped this up using extern classes instead -- pretty nice. Its similar to what FlashDevelop uses for completion against the Flash API, correct?

Re: Feedback from the “Muther” of all Hackathons

Joshua Granick — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 12:54:02 -0000

I agree, if someone came with an application already prepared, it was difficult to discriminate between what was already present, and how it improved. I hope you had fun with the TouchPad! You were on the team that placed third in the HP competition? Have you had the chance to use the Veer or the headphones?

Re: WordPress for Concrete5 (1.3.0)

Joshua Granick — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 17:38:28 -0000

Hi Todd,

I apologize for the delay. Check your email -- I have an updated project link with all the items on our to-do list finished. Send me an email back after you get a chance to check it out.

Re: Getting Set with haXe, NME and webOS — Even Easier

Joshua Granick — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 14:56:26 -0000

Testing a change in how I am implementing Disqus...

Re: Android, iOS, webOS (and More!) — Cross-Platform Made Easy

Joshua Granick — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 02:53:10 -0000

Hey, nice to meet you.

Here is one of the benchmarks I saw recently:

http://blog.krozalski.com/?p=1

Personally, I used haXe to write a large isometric game engine. I relied heavily on spritesheets and used Box2D to create collisions for unusual shapes. In the end, it played it a little bit like the original Diablo. Isometric, but not boxy, and spritesheets rendered from 3D Studio Max.

The game in Flash ran at 59-60 FPS in the browser, and ran on my Pre Plus at 30 FPS... no changes to the code. I was amazed at how well it worked. To be fair, a game written in haXe, using NME, is compiled as a native C++ application, the performance is about as good as you are going to get from the platform. I have noticed a significant difference between what I am able to accomplish with NME compared to what I see in AIR or Flash Player on mobile devices.

So really I think it depends on what you are trying to do. Obviously if you need to use timeline animations or streaming video, you need to use Flash Player, or if you need Flex, you would want AIR, but I think that for serious games, the performance of NME is much more comparable to what you might get from the desktop, so you don't need to "dumb down" your games when moving to mobile.

As an added bonus, I liked that the project is open-source and allowed me the ability to step into C++ (if I wanted to), so when I needed something OS-specific, or wanted to optimize the framework in some way, I could. Some of this stuff would probably be possible with AIR, but you would likely spend much more time tinkering to optimize performance, rather than moving on and creating something neat.

I made MineHX, my first haXe game, in about two days. I made Whack-A-Mole in less than 6 hours. I made my Hoops game in a couple of days, most of the time spent tinkering with Box2D to get the "feel" that I wanted from the basketballs and from the physics of the net.