If you’re interested, here’s a chance to do a little charity work:

Greetings,

The World Organization of Webmasters (WOW), a non-profit professional association, has teamed up with the Adobe Corporation to conduct the
first international Web Pro Community Challenge, to be announced at Adobe MAX in Chicago, IL, October 1-3, 2007.

WHAT IS IT?

The Web Pro Community Challenge is an opportunity for industry professionals to give something back to the community by designing, developing and promoting a fully functional web site and/or web application for a designated non-profit organization.

The idea is very similar to the Flex CodeJam that was run as part of 360Flex - Seattle, where a group of developers got together for a code-a-thon to build an application for a non-profit organization.

WHO ARE WE SUPPORTING?

The Challenge is supporting two charities: Say Yes to Green, and Direct Relief International.

The SayYesToGreen.org initiative Statement of Work surrounds a complete makeover that includes elements of Web site design, development and
business. The SayYesToGreen.org initiative is an international effort to educate the population about energy saving tips and resources.

The Direct Relief International’s Statement of Work surrounds a Flex Based Multimedia Annual Report which will be used within their website. Since 1948, Direct Relief International has worked to improve the quality of life for people in need. Direct Relief provides medical assistance to improve the quality of life for people victimized by poverty, disaster, and civil unrest at home and throughout the world. According to Charity Navigator this charity is rated 4 out of 4 stars, and your contribution in time will help this charity grow in the future.

HOW TO GET INVOLVED

Grab a couple of friends or co-workers and join other web professionals in giving something back by signing up your team of 3 to participate at http://www.webprochallenge.org/enter-now.html! Also, feel free to take a tour of the challenge web site for more information.

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)

For those of you who will be attending MAX 2007 in Chicago, here’s an opportunity for you to win some free Lynda.com training gear when you visit the Lynda.com booth:

If you wear a lynda.com T-shirt (like the “Trust me” shirt we offer online) and agree to have your picture taken, we will enter you in a SPECIAL UG drawing! The grand prize is 10 CDs* of your choice!

Drawing will be held at 6:30 p.m. on Monday. Winner must be present.

*CDs must be available in the lynda.com store at the time of the Adobe MAX UG drawing, and will be shipped from lynda.com HQ on the day of the drawing.

I’ll forward on any other MAX related news get as it comes.

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

Adobe has partnered with Total Training to offer Free Online Flex Training for 30 days. Visit the link below, and start learning some Flex!

www.totaltraining.com/guest/adobe

This promotion runs until Dec 31, 2007.

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

Just a reminder of a nice resource available for those of you wanting to develop AIR/Apollo apps. Adobe has the full PDF of the Apollo for Adobe Flex Developers Pocket Guide available for download from labs.adobe.com.

You can also buy the book in print form, or, save yourself $15 and get it now.

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.