I’ve just presented my graduation work on the physical induction of emotions and an implementation for entertainment on the IFIP Entertainment Computing Symposium.
The presentation can be downloaded at http://www.rockabit.com/downloads/IFIP_ECS_2008.ppt.
The paper can be downloaded in PDF format here:
full version (16 pages)
short version (8 pages)
Here’s some small experiments I did in ActionScript 3 with particles in combination with perlin noise determining how they move.
In all cases it’s a bunch of particles placed in a circle, each one having its position linked to a randomly chosen pixel in a scrolling perlin noise filled bitmap. The third example has only a few particles and interconnects them with a curve, creating a moving type of amorphous blob.
Edit: I’ve added a small motion blur effect to the globule to make it a little bit more interesting, visually.
I’ve just upgraded my blog with the newest version of the software, so that I can add posts from my iPhone.
It is now WordPress version 2.6.1 and if you can read this, then blogging from my mobile works!
Let’s see if this works to increase my blogging frequency 
I recently ‘beautified’ the design of my travel blog and it’s now online at www.reisabit.com (beware: it’s in Dutch).
Before, it looked too much like an application, very rigid and unpersonal. The color scheme was also too dark, using black and dark red.
Hopefully this new design gives the website a more open feel.
After having helped to expand the functionality of the new video player for the Netherlands Public Broadcasting (NPO) this player is now in the news and appears to be the subject of political debate here in Holland.
Complaints about how the online video broadcasts of NPO are only available in Microsoft based formats have apparently even led to concerns from politicians. It’s a good thing that the NPO is switching to Flash to display their video content then 
The player is quite nice, with functionality like embedding only a fragment of a video, adding comments on the timeline and subscribing to a series. You can try it out on http://pilot.omroepplayer.nl.
As a big Mario fan, you know I gotta love this. Brilliant!
Remember when you saw that cool QuickTime movie on the web, but couldn’t save it because you didn’t have QuickTime Pro installed?
Well, I found a post by Electric Monk explaining how to easily get around this problem:
1. Open the file in your stand alone QuickTime player, not in your browser
2. Do a ctrl-click on the first or last frame of the movie (you might lose that frame) and select Cut
3. Close the window
4. Confirm that you want to save the changes you’ve made
5. Specify where to save the file
I couldn’t believe it would be that simple, but it is! No need to buy Pro, you can now save any QuickTime movie through the regular player! Thanks, Electric Monk!
Original post:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20050430173712176
After struggling with it for a while, I’ve finally found the way to set embedFonts and a specific textFormat for all text in a Flash CS3 ComboBox component.
First of all, it is wise to create a subclass of fl.controls.ComboBox to represent your custom comboBox. In this class you can then set some styles in the constructor as follows:
package com.rockabit.utils.as3
{
import fl.controls.ComboBox;
import fl.controls.List;import flash.text.TextFormat;
/**
* Customized ComboBox component. Graphic changes have been made inside the component itself,
* in the library, changes in textual display are made here.
*/
public class CustomComboBox extends ComboBox
{
private var textFormat:TextFormat;public function CustomComboBox()
{
super();textFormat = new TextFormat(”Arial”, 10, 0xffffff);
//textField is the top text, in the closed combobox
textField.setStyle(”embedFonts”, true);
textField.setStyle(”textFormat”, textFormat);//dropdown is the list that shows when you open the combobox
dropdown.setStyle(”cellRenderer”, CustomCellRenderer);
}override protected function drawLayout():void
{
super.drawLayout();
textField.y = 0;
}
}
}
So in the constructor, I create a TextFormat instance and assign that to the textField variable. I then set the cellRenderer style of the dropdown list, which is a class that describes how each item in the list is formatted. For that I use another custom class, which extends fl.controls.listClasses.CellRenderer:
package com.rockabit.utils.as3
{
import fl.controls.listClasses.CellRenderer;import flash.text.TextFormat;
/**
* Custom cellRenderer for comboBox list items.
*/
public class CustomCellRenderer extends CellRenderer
{public function CustomCellRenderer()
{
super();
this.setStyle(”embedFonts”, true);
this.setStyle(”textFormat”, new TextFormat(”Arial”, 10, 0×000000));
}}
}
All this class does is extend the default CellRenderer class and set some styles in the constructor.
Using these two simple classes, you can easily make sure that all your fonts are embedded in the comboBox component, and give them custom text formatting.
I’ve made a small example .fla file. You’ll notice that I added the Tahoma font to the library with a linkage class, which I instantiate in the TextFormat constructor parameter to get the correct fontName. Because I set the library font to bitmap text andset embedFonts to true in code, you get a nice crisp font display in your combobox.
Edit: I have now also added functionality to the CustomComboBox class to set vertical positioning of the main textfield. Right now this is hardcoded, but that could be changed to listen to a custom style.
Download source:
http://www.rockabit.com/downloads/as3/combobox_example.zip
A couple of weeks ago four other guys and me developed a concept for a Japanese mobile game called Happyard. We did this in the context of the GameJam competition which was organized with the intent of promoting dutch design in Japan through mobile gaming.
The Japan Times describes Happyard very much to the point as a game that “(…) integrates real world parameters with a virtual garden environment and sets the player about hunting animals for their collection.” This concepts enthused the Japanese jury so much that they decided on us as the fourth competitor where a selection of just three was allowed (!) So on to the demo creation phase and perhaps this fall we’ll be representing dutch design in Tokyo!
Read more at:
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nc20080319a1.html
http://www.nieuwsbank.nl/inp/2008/03/18/G016.htm
http://www.florusvanbeek.nl/blog
http://blog.thingsdesigner.com
I’ve written a NavigatableList class to provide the already handy ArrayCollection class with a simple cursor-like navigation option. You can call list.navigateTo() and provide for instance list.next or list.previous. You also specify the class to which items should belong and you can search for an item with list.findItem(property, value). And finally, you can clone it with list.clone().
EDIT: the clone() method didn’t work correctly for some reason. I’ve removed it for now.
EDIT: added an equals() method which compares this list to another list. You must specify the name of a unique property which can be used to check if two items are the same.