I remember 7 years ago while I was at uni…this amazing site came out called 2advanced. It was beutiful, awsome [insert x good terms here]. Soon everyone was saying "thats just a 2advanced ripp off" for cool sites. I now find myself not having visited thier site for 3-4 years now. Why? Well I think a big part of that was they werent a part of the community.

Eric and 2Advanced were like the hot blonde that Macromedia brought to the show to get you drooling over the new release of flash. You would sheepishly walk up and say hi, half expecting to be shut down or some st00pid comment made back. I realise Eric is a great guy and has actually held alot of conferences etc. He did such awsome work that he reached what we sort of know now days as the 31 signals status. It then seemed that 2advanced went off the map and just hunkered down to produce great work and earn money

The biggest problem is that they never really gave back to the community, and didnt follow the whole open business ideas that have evolved today. I know nothing about the company or Eric. Really the fact that I dont know this doesnt effect his business any way at all. 2Advanced could go on producing great work as ushal. Well recently Eric got an email which was rather a slap in the face. He took this email and with 2advanced has done something. He started a blog where he will be releasing tutorials and insights into the inner workings of the studio.

"[BEGIN WAKEUP CALL] Here it is our seventh year and there is very little actually known about 2A?[END WAKEUP CALL] – In fact, there are actually people out there who still believe we are just one person?  "

It seems as though he has taken a bad thing and turned it into a great thing, lets hope I find myself visiting 2Advanced more often. So go check out http://www.plat4m.com/ Theres not a huge amount up yet but im sure well see more to come.

A while ago in november I posted my take on web 2.0 ver 1.34.5433 HERE likening it to the matrix and outlineing how Microsoft and Adobe were crusing at 100mph on a colision course. I was expecting the big bang similar to that on the matrix 3 where all the windows burst, raindrops get blown away etc etc…. Well it has started to happen but It seems more like Mr Smith has wandered up and offered his hand forth as a friendly gesture. Wether or not he will spin round and attempt some sort of judo throw I do not know.

You see Microsoft has a native PDF system inside Vista. Aparently some sort of wrist slapping has gone on and now Microsoft are offering to place flash 9 in the OS standard. Adobe would really have to be crazy not to accept the offer. I remember when another platform was in a similar position and took M$ to court and got the java virtual machine taken out. I think that really hurt Java as a platform.

So while all logic should be saying take Agents Smiths had and skip merely on up the road, saving millions of peoples lives and making a eutopea for all to enjoy, I find myself as you would while watching a movie. I really want to see the two battle it out. See Adobe pull out the giant PDF upper cut with a good right hook of flash, then see what M$'s  sparkle kick does in return. More details on www.digitalbackcountry.com

Ok so it has generated a fair bit of interest in the flash 3d interest group. Jono seems to have popped up out of the blue with an engine hes has spent his spare time on. I got an email from him regarding some of my comments on an earlier post. I asked if it had more interaction and if it could load more polys. The true test of and flash 3d engine.

"I’ll get my site up in the next few weeks, and I’ll post up the Quake levels, they are currently a bit slower though cos some of them are 30,000 polygons.I figure people will make simple Quake3 maps 5,000 – 10,000 polygons and those will render fine." 

What can I say. If your into flash and 3d you should be wipping your chin about now.

The good news is that he will be releasing some parts of the engine to opensource. Which is really a great thing for all. The guys at OSFlash have created an unbelievable resource for flash developers, all with a non funded effort, Props to them (Aral).

Byte access in AS3 has really opened some doors for the developers ready to peek under the hood of this dark mustang. It has enabled developers access to all the information of files that once was hidden behind what Macromedia though we would need access to.

"OpenSource parts will be the FileManager which queues files to load, and parses a few unknown image formats (.tga, .bmp) Also the zlib stuff will be made available – this reads zip files, so you can zib all your game resources, have Flash download the zip and then unzip them in the player to start using them. " ——drooooooooooool!!!

I can see the Zlib classes being really usefull not only in games but alot of developed applications. At the moment when developing C# apps alot of resources I use are embed into the exe itself or into bin resource files. This is something not to uncommon for win forms apps but for RIA it is something entirely new. We could possibly develope bundled builds of applications and release them. Just convienient really.

And finally the engine. After for years working to learn the secrets of 3d in flash I can understand why Jono would want to see some fruit roll back his way. Hes looking to license the engine to developers for a really reasonable fee. So we're all waiting now to see some of the demos on Jono's site when he sends it live…..cant wait.

http://www.custommedia.co.nz/

I got a comment on my last post from a fellow Kiwi flash developer. Jono. He pointed me to his entry into the International Flash developers derby. Its a 3D engine called SWFZ. And it sounds like it wasnt an easy road to such a great looking dancing yellow dinosaur.

"SWFZ engine is the result of four years of me messing with 3D in Flash."

He had noticed my love of flash and 3D, but rather than bore you woth the details of what it can and cant do, head on over and check it out. http://www.custommedia.co.nz/swfz/

The sky box renders out with little to none distortion. I can see this going places if it can take all the ushall camera movement inputs. 

He hasnt got his website up and running at the moment so if you have any comments for Jono leave them here and he can pick them up. After all his work it would be great to get some feed back.

Its a 3d engine that sounds like it can parse Quake scenes and display animation. Tip if you wait 10 secs or so and the dinosaur stops dancing you can control the view using your mouse. I think if Jono can produce a few more example scenes that are interactive hes in with a really good chance of winning. I am wondering if he will take his place in the leauge of extraordinary flash gentlemen and release it to open source one day? He comments in his documentation that it has 171 classes, which is alot to let go of so Im picking we wont see it on OSFlash anytime soon. Props to Jono for busting out a great example of the power and speed of flash 9. Lets see Javascript do this. And for some reason I really really want to see Barney the dinosaur break out the running man and the washing machine to that music…..too many late nights I spose. Well done Jono!

A pretty famous local trader website has an interesting way of advertising thier jobs. View the source and you will see:

<!–
If you’re looking at our HTML source, you’re exactly the person
who should send us your resume.
View current vacancies at http://www.trademe.co.nz/careers
–>

Cheers to JD for spotting this interesting tid bit.
http://blog.bluecog.co.nz/archives/2006/05/27/trademe-job-advertising