Archive for the 'Announcements' Category

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From the announcement:

We are happy to report that the second public beta release of Flex 3 is now available. This release adds important new features including .NET support, web service introspection, project import and export and major new improvements to the profilers. You can also check out the new Flex Skin Design Extensions making it fast and easy to export Flex skins from Photoshop, Fireworks, Illustrator, and Flash.

Beta 2 is a near-feature-complete version of the Flex 3 release and the quality should be very high. The goal of this release is to give the community an opportunity to continue to provide feedback as we refine the final features and to help identify any bugs and missing
capabilities.

You can get the complete details and download the beta on Adobe Labs at:

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flex.

Please be sure to also get involved in the open source Flex project at:

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flex.

Thanks,

Dave Gruber

Flex Product Marketing Manager

Ellis Elkins - Displacement Maps

Ellis Elkins began the meeting with a great intro to using Displacement Maps in Flash. He did a great job explaining how they work, and was able to show some great examples on how to use them.

Links:

Psyark Example

Sample Files

John Lindquist

John continued his presentation from where he left off last week at the UDFUG meeting, and was able to show some great examples of exporting 3D models from 3D Max and importing them into Papervision. (Including more of a gorilla than anybody needed to see.)

(I’ll add any sample files or other links when I get them.)

Thanks again to Ellis & John for volunteering to present on these topics - it’s greatly appreciated. If you’re interested in presenting on any topics for an upcoming meeting, just let us know. Drop me a line at josh@joshbuhler.com.

Don’t forget - our meeting on Papervision 3D & using displacement maps is TONIGHT!

We’ve got a lot to cover tonight, so don’t be late! As usual, the meeting will start at 6:00 PM, at the mediaRAIN office.

255 S. Orem Blvd.

(Directly behind the Pep Boys on Orem State Street)

This week’s meeting promises to be a good one. Ellis Elkins will be talking to us a bit about using Flash’s built-in displacement maps & some other neat visual effects.

Then, John Lindquist will be continuing his intro to Papervision3D, from where he left off at last week’s UDFUG meeting.

For those who weren’t there last week, (or were, and just need the links), here is a list of the source files from the last meeting, and what we’ll be covering at the next meeting.

Source files from where we left off:

http://flexyouras.com/tutorials/Papervision3D/InsideTheBox/InsideTheBox.swf - (Drag mouse and use arrow keys to move around)

http://flexyouras.com/tutorials/Papervision3D/InsideTheBox/InsideTheBox.rar

We’ll be covering two things:

1. Importing materials from a .fla library to map to 3d objects
2. Importing 3d models from 3ds max

And a demo of what we’ll try to build in the meeting:

http://flexyouras.com/tutorials/Papervision3D/uFlashMax/uflash.swf - (Drag mouse and use arrows to move around (you can also use the spacebar to ‘fire’ a cube)

As usual, we’ll be meeting at the mediaRAIN offices, directly behind the PepBoys on State street in Orem. The meeting starts at 6:00pm

If you’ll be attending the An Event Apart San Francisco conference, you can save $50 by using the following promo code for Adobe User Group members:

AEAADOB

Last nights meeting was pretty good. Scott Stoddard of SpiritOnin.com was presenting a collection of Flash games that he has developed. In addition to showing the games, he also took time to show us some of his “secrets” - how he handles things like collision detection, animation, and timing issues in games - applying slow-motion effects, for instance.

He also offered some tips for improving the performance of your games, and examples of how a game can be very basic, but still a lot of fun.

The meeting was pretty small, and very informal - we spent a lot of time simply discussing various tips & tricks that we’ve picked up over time for working in Flash.

Next Month:

September’s meeting will feature both Ellis Elkins and John Lindquist. Ellis will be showing us how to use the built-in Displacement Map filter for various effects, and John will be discussing PaperVision 3D.

More details will come as we get closer to the meeting.

Just a quick reminder for tonight’s meeting. Scott Stoddard of SpiritOnin.com will be speaking to us about his game development experience with Flash. This should be a good meeting, so don’t miss it if you’re interested in developing games for Flash.

As usual, we’ll be meeting at 6:00 PM, at the mediaRAIN offices in Orem.

Within the family of Flash CS3, Flex 2/3 and the Flash 9 player, there is an abundant amount of ways to deal with data, both local and remote. Making the right decision as far as what technologies to use can make pinnacle difference in the success of your application. On Thursday’s meeting, we will have an open forum to discuss what options are available and what have proven to work best. This is everybody’s chance to teach and learn. Bring your solutions on how you deal with these different areas:

· Displaying Data (What components do you use or have challenges with?)

· Managing Data (XML, JSON, Array Collections, etc: What have you found works best?)

· Sending and Receiving Remote Data (PHP, ASP, Remoting, etc: What server technology do you use, and in what format do you send it in?)

· Sending and Retrieving Local Data (Shared Objects, Local Connection, External Interface, Zinc, Apollo: What do you use?)

· Alternative AS3 Options (GZip, AMF3, Zip Archives: What are some of the new AS3 formats you have chosen to use to distribute data?)

The meeting will be held this Thursday at the MediaRain office at 6:00 – 8:00 pm.

Quick reminder - this week’s meeting is Thursday, April 26.

We’ll be getting an intro to developing Apollo applications, and be able to see a few examples of Apollo apps as well. Also, if you have made any Apollo apps that you’d like to show off, bring them in.

We’re meeting at the usual time & place:

mediaRAIN
255 S Orem Blvd.
Orem, UT 84058

6:00 PM