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As it seems, my lecture on Flash server solutions can be heard again at the Internet-Briefing Developers Conference in Zurich. On the 28th and 29th of May, a whole bunch of lectures on project management and development methods (28th) and developing Rich Internet Applications (29th) will be held in World Trade Center Zurich.

Right now, the public programm hasn’t really been updated but for anyone wondering: my lecture will be held right after lunch on day two (29th). Members of the Swiss Flash User Group (SFUG) will get a discount on registration fees. Just contact me, if you want to know how.

Hope to see you around!

Now it’s official: I will be speaking about Flash server solutions on this years Flash Forum Conference in Cologne - one of the reasons I didn’t have time to blog, recently. I’m very much looking forward to this event, meeting up with colleagues, chit chatting about Flash… you know the stuff :) Hope to see you around!

A few weeks ago, I stumbled upon Thibault Imbert’s Banana Slice Component and since I’m always on the lookout for new techniques to improve the performance of my upcoming games (somewhen at the end of march) it immediately caught my attention.

Thibault is currently working on a book on ActionScript development, so, he didn’t have time to publish neither the component nor the class it is based on, so far. So, I started pondering on a concept of my own, experimented a little and finally got totally caught up in the challenge of creating a component that highly improves vector based animations by rasterizing them. So far, I was able to make some tests that affirm my basic concepts but there still is a lot to be done. Plus, I have several approaches in mind that can be derived from this concept. I want to evaluate which of them make most sense in the different use cases before publishing any details.

Thibault, thanks for this fruity inspiration! I’m so excited about this :)

Last week’s Adobe AIR Camp in Zurich was interesting, challenging, fun and exhausting at the same time: After a short introduction of Serge Jespers and Mike Downey about the new features that AIR has to offer and how to create applications with the various tools, everyone was up to develop the coolest AIR App within 24 hours.
I, for my part, tried to create a multi player game, that would connect to a Milgra based Java server. Turns out, it wasn’t the best idea to start developing my first Java application during a contest… So, sadly, when judgement minute came after 24 hours of coding, consuming engery drinks and no sleep at all I didn’t have much to show :(

At least, after a few days on the couch trying to recover from the camp, I was able to write a few lines on the Liip blog expressing a critical view on AIR’s potential.

And since I assume, winning is overrated anyway, I’ll just finish up that game in the next months and simply pretend I won that ultra smooth, super light and shiny MacBook Air … oh, crud, that’s not the same!

While everybody else seems occupied digesting the fun they had attending Flash in a Can in Amsterdam - why, WHY did I miss it? - I’m trying to mentally ready myself for tomorrow’s Air Camp in Zurich.

Since the workshop is being followed by a 24h contest in building the coolest Air application, we’ve been racking our brains to find ideas for suiting programs we could enter with. While my buddy Sandro still seems unsatisfied with his options, I’ve given up thinking and decided for a small desktop game thing. Don’t wanna go into detail too much, right now, but it seems I’m gonna be using Milgra to implement multiuser interaction.

Milgra is a small lightweight open source java server that I recently stumbled upon. So far it has only reached version 0.5 but that one already comes with a good bunch of needfull features and handy examples on how to use it right away. It seems quite easy to setup and use for as little as I’m gonna be needing. Red5, on the contrary, seems way to heavy for my needs.

Can’t wait to dig into this and develop my first multiplayer game *shiny eyes*

Sometimes it seems unbelievable how time flies. It’s been a week already since we had to call off our second devjam, since Wolli caught the flews. So we’ll have to delay the work on our new game.

But my own game, that I decided to call “BubbleMath”, advanced pretty well during the last weeks and I put some extra attention to the engine that’s behind the game: I added a ScreenController and AbstractScreens, which allow building static menus easily. I hope to be able to post a first screenshot soon. Right now, I’ll have to work on a quick slideshow player for my parents big birthday this weekend. Pew!

In other news… I got an invitation to the Adobe AIRcamp, Switzerland, which takes place in Zurich on 28th and 29th of February, and signed up right away. Besides a six hour AIR workshop the free event includes a 24 hour contest in developing an AIR application. The best program does not only win a Macbook but will also be promoted at this year’s best of swiss web awards in March. Only one thing left to say: Wheeee! :)

So, time to practice my Flex skills, which reminds me: my Liip colleague Sandro and I will be giving speeches about two ActionScript 3 workflow approaches at the Swiss Flash user group meeting in Zurich next Monday. One will consider the basic workflow setup with FDT and one will be about our recently evolved Flex template approach. So if you’re around and interested, sign up today! :)

News just arrived that the iconomix project, Liip is heavily involved in, has been nomiated “Master of Swiss web 2008″. Find out more (and vote for it) at http://vote.liip.ch

Since February 1st, I’m on the lookout for a new job. Having spend about five years altogether studying and working in Fribourg, Switzerland, I feel I am ready for something new. It’s not the atmosphere at Liip that drove me away, as one might suppose, on the contrary, that is going to be the thing I’ll be missing the most. It’s rather the fact that I want to experience and live something new.

I’m looking for a change in my private life and some design influences on my daily work which I hope to find in one of Germany’s greater capitals such as Cologne, Hamburg or Berlin. But I am open to any nicely situated company anywhere in western Europe, actually (especially GB and France). If you’ve got something in mind, I’d be glad if you’d drop me a line or request the password for my CV to obtain more information about me.

The day I found out that it is possible to define code snippets within the FDT plugin my productivity went up about 20%. I wasn’t actually aware of the feature until I stumbled upon it by chance so I venture there are more people out there that are missing out on this unique chance to boost their productivity. What is this all about?

FDT lets you define templates for frequently used code snippets that you can call via a key word you define.

For example: when you type “fori” and hit CTRL+Space FDT will suggest to write a regular for-loop for you and guide you from one crucial element of the loop to the other e.g. to change the suggested index or array the loop is performed on. Isn’t that great?
And it gets even better: you can create new templates and call them via the keyword you choose. Never want to write a singleton from scratch again? Here is how it goes:

Read the rest of this entry »

After a week of snowboading down the slopes of the austrian Zillertal mountains, I’m back with fully charged batteries and ready for action (script - hrhr). There are various things I’m planning to write about in the next days so here are some infos to get you drooling with anticipation:

• At Liip we’ve done some major research on the various methods of embedding fonts into AS3 projects with or without using the IDE. I hope, I’ll soon get my boss’ go to publish the essentials of our results either here or directly on our company’s blog.
• I’ve set myself the aim to develop a game in less than 24 hours (not in a piece, though) and the outcome is already at 90% status. Screenshots and more info by the end of the week.
• There is a new Devjam session coming up on the 8th of February, but we’ll start working on a new game since the Christmas theme seems kinda … misplaced till next November :)

So stay tuned!