Play, Live, Work, Enjoy.

Here's the first screen shot of the SOMA Fields and the basic environment I/O mechanics. After spending a few hours getting OpenFrameworks up and running with CodeBlocks I just had to drop back into the familiar world of Flash and ActionScript 3 and move this demo forward. Thought I'd share.

Hit the jump for a close-up of the web-cam input.

Continue reading 'SOMA Fields Test (screenshot)'

There are so many roads… so many roads to ease my soul. This road leads to the SOMA Fields. A place where emotions and ideas are planted and grown in preparation for the constant harvest.

Is technology our SOMA? Are we who wield it the high-priests of our digital society? Are we in danger of being politicized out of existence? Will the recipe be lost once more or will all of society one day have equal access to the fields?

These are some of the questions that drive this experimental art project. Bridging the gaps between our physical reality and simulacra; wired to the world via the internet and to the local community via gallery spaces, "SOMA Fields" is the first of three interconnected installations. Each contributing to a public interactive art project that will likely raise more questions than it answers.

The SOMA installations are being designed and coded by Jose R. Rodriguez over the next 18 months and be shown both individually and together at the gallery SP@CE224 in Buffalo, NY as well as other venues. Jose is most well known in the art and design world for his work on TypeIsArt a public interactive art project that explores the various aspects of the letterforms of our alphabet when reconfigured as art and design objects. TypeIsArt was shown in conjunction with TypeCon in 2008 at the gallery SP@CE224 in Buffalo, NY.

If you read the title of this blog post and thought… "Wow! Now that's a combination I could really get into!" Then you're right there with us. If not, read on, and at least you'll get where we're coming from. We were more than psyched when Roadrunner Records came calling looking for a metal twist on the casual game.

I pride myself on listening to all kinds of music, and although my earliest memories were of The Beatles and Bob Dylan; the first records I got on my own included Holy Diver, by Dio and Mellissa, by Mercyful Fate (an early Roadrunner Records act). Incidentally, one of Roadrunner's artists, Killswitch Engage does a killer cover of the (Holy Diver) title track…. magical rock lives on!

Anyhow, the news is that we're working on a series of casual games for the Roadrunner Records website. The first game recently launched and we're happy to see that the site's users are already begging for more. Photo Moshup is basically an online adaptation of the barcade classic Photo Hunt where users have to identify differences between two images. All of the games we're making for Roadrunner feature dynamically generated content and quality music clips of the bands featured in the game.

Keep an eye on the Our Work and Games sections of our website for links to more games as they launch. Works in progress include a tile swapping game with an arachnid twist to it and a Legend of Zelda style adventure in support of Madina Lake's upcoming release Attics to Eden.

Play PHOTO MOSHUP on RoadrunnerRecords.com

Wishing all of you a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year from all of us here at JRVisuals LLC.

As has been our tradition since the founding of our company we have released a holiday game as a gift to our clients, friends, and family.

Ease back into your work-flow by taking a little break and playing this unique and original Penguin Panic Flash game… and thing about the environmental impact of our society while you're at it.

Help the penguin stave off the effects of global warming by pushing magical ice cubes into the water. Catch fish to keep your penguin healthy. Try to avoid getting hit in the head by falling cubes. Don't let too many pile up or you will sink.

Play Penguin Panic IV : Penguin Pusher

Flashpitt happens on October 10th, 2008 at the Sheraton Station Square in Pittsburgh, PA. I'll be there as a speaker, friend of the organizers, and attendee. I'm really looking forward to it. As much as I love the larger conferences and festivals like Flash in the Can and FlashForwars there's something to be said for smaller more dynamic festivals such as this one.

Flashpitt is a one-day conference for multimedia designers, developers, and artists. It's Pittsburgh’s first major Flash-centric conference. National and international industry leaders will be present to inspire, educate, and challenge the region’s Flash community. The speaker line up will share inside tips, new technologies and behind the scenes looks to Flashpitt’s attendees.

Just a quick link out… you've got to take a look at what these lunatics have done. Go to the link below and click on NoxTools on the upper-right tab. Basically a whole set of synthesizers, sequencers, and effects pedals — built in Flash!!

Fun stuff — now if you could only export an MP3!
http://www.hobnox.com

I recently had the pleasure of teaching an intro to ActionScript 3 class at Campuslinc here in Buffalo. The students were mostly college level instructors and support staff at regional institutions like the University at Buffalo and Canisius College. We had some great conversations over lunch in regards to how best to teach Flash and how to generate a solid curriculum that would provide job-ready candidates to the talent-starved new media industry. The training location was great, the equipment was very good, the chairs were comfy (which is very important for a 7 hour session) and the fact that there was coffee on hand throughout the day was awesome.

Overall it was a great experience. We covered a variety of topics from the basics ("Variables, Functions, Classes") to more advanced techniques ("Sound, External Loading, XML, E4X").

The one negative note I feel compelled to mention was the book and companion CD-Rom that we were given as courseware. The course outline was solid… and that was about it. The book was riddled with errors, typos both in the English language and the ActionScript language it was meant to cover. It seemed that this was a first draft. The code samples were no better. They were inconsistent with the written portion and in many cases published out with errors. Maybe I'm setting my bar a little higher than most, being a game developer but the "finished game" that was supposed to be the payoff of the learning experience was poor at best. I expected much more from the folks at Fig Leaf.

In the end, based on a student's suggestion we stopped using the books examples and I went through the final 4 units on the fly. This worked out, as we ended up with an extra hour at the end of the day during which I walked the class through creating a simple slide-show using all of the aspects of AS3 we had covered over the three days. I will be posting a ZIP with all of the source files from this class soon.

Patapon. This deceivingly simple and inexpensive ($19) game caused us to pull the trigger on getting a PSP for the office break room. All I can say is wow! Great stuff! Sure… it's not without its flaws… some of which have been honestly pointed out by Jim Sterling's review on Destructoid… but it has to be one of the most innovative titles out on any platform for quite some time. It takes elements of rhythm, strategy, and resource management and melds them into something that when played just right generates a real euphoric buzz.

Yes, I am an instant fan. I've even made my own Patapon ringtones (download in mp3 format)… as if I didn't have a hard enough time not hearing the relentlessly addictive beats and chants as I go through my days.

Sony has a new official website for Patapon with some nice screenshots, gameplay videos, desktop wallpapers and a demo download. Check it out here. There's a cool online Flash game here which was used to promote the European release of the game.

Here's an article on GamaSutra which praises the game and speaks to the artist, Rolito, about the artwork for the game. Apparently he had developed these characters way back in 2002. Rolito has several websites on which you can see more of his unique style of art and design. Take a look at Rolitoland, Black Polito, and the Rolitoland Blog.

Looks like SWF Object 2.0 is finally out of beta. Looks like a bit has changed… merging the existing SWF Object and UFO / SWFFix methodologies — including methods of embedding that are strictly markup based and the more traditional JavaScript based method.
Take a look at the updated documentation for more information or the article on A List Apart, "Flash Embedding Cage Match", for more detailed information on the art of the Flash embed.

A pretty cool addition on the project site is the ability to download an Adobe AIR SWF Object Generator — this nifty little desktop app takes your specific needs and spits out all the code necessary to drop your SWF on a page in style. There is also an HTML version of the code generator online.

Once again you can find the project's home here on Google Code.