Rockonflash.com is backup!

Sorry for the hassle and broken links everyone!  Rockonflash is back up!  Links for xray and all other demo files should work just fine now. Please let me know if you have a problem

rockonflash.com home

hey all, I just wanted to let everyone know that if you’re looking for demo files/videos/etc rom rockonflash or some of my links are broken, that’s because I’m trying to locate a new home for rockonflash.com url.

If anyone has a good provider suggestion, I’d love to hear about it.

also, i’ve been really busy with a current project I mentioned in an earlier post and that’s been going very well.  The great part is that while I have put in some extra hours here and there, I haven’t been burning the midnight oil so that’s good.  I’ve been able to stay on track without killing myself and that’s been huge.  Still, I *have* been exclusively putting my time and energy into that one project, so some others have really taken a back seat for now.

Anyway, please forgive the broken URL’s I’ll get them fixed as soon as I can.

In a bit of goodnews, I DID find time to model a new low poly xwing, and since I’d been using the other one for the past 3 yrs in all my demo’s here, I wanted to show you guys the results of the new one:

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[ New and original low poly xwings

Like is says in the image, this new one is nearly 400 polys smaller, the texturing is much much better and the model altogether is much closer to an actual XWing (… if one actually existed )

I just want to say thanks to the wolfpack for a great texture and hi poly xwing reference!

Flash on Tap Slides:

Flash on Tap was a GREAT conference – unbeleivably cool and laid back (at least for me it was).  It was truly great to see old friends again and hang out a bit.  Last time I went to a conference I was so stressed about about getting hours in on a project, I couldn’t enjoy Brighton.  It was a shame really.  But this time around, I really took the time to enjoy myself and just do what I wanted.  The class went great on Thursday, and the 3D panel discussion today was very cool.  I was nice to get to voice some opinions about about Flash, Unity and 3D in general.

Anyway, I rushed through my Papervision to Unity to iPhone session like mad at the end and promised I’d post the slides, so click on the image above or here.  I’d clearly planned to talk about way too much in my presentation, but I was at least able to do the sample demo app I’d put together of the obstacle course.  I was happy that people enjoyed seeing Unity in action and creating a simple game, but was bummed I didn’t even get the chance to show some scripting so they could see how very similar Unity’s Javascript is to ActionScript3.

There’s always next time!!

new iPhone game: SWITCH!

Finally, SWITCH! has been approved and is now available for free in the app store!

Getting object type in Unity3D/Javascript

for archive sake really:

Debug.Log(”Type of object: ” + gameObjectCopy_1.GetType().Name);

Can be used in a conditional like so:

if( gameObjectCopy.GetType() == GameObject) // do something

prints out what the immediate class type is of the object.

Stoked.

I just had to say it – I’m rediculously happy to go to work today on a project that i’ve been planning for nearly 6yrs now.  Thanks to Chris, Dom, Reb, Mike and Nic, a long time goal is finally being realized.

Trust me when I say, this project is nothing short of a total dream for me   On top of that, I get to work with Keith on it, and every time I work with that guy, we come up with something extraordinary or I learn some crazy new thing that I’d never put together on my own.  I’mma have to pull out the 11 rock rating on this one I think \m/

If you’re at Flash on Tap, I’m sure I’ll sneak a preview in somewhere

Papervision Training at Flash on Tap

Man, I was just over at Keith’s blog and saw him realizing that FOT is just 3 weeks away!!! I instantly had the same reaction – holy beer batman!

I thought it’d be good a good idea to post what Andy and I will be covering and what you’ll need.  We’re giving a live full day workshop the day before the event starts.  If you haven’t signed up and you’re interested in going to the 1 day work shop (you don’t have to attend FOT for this), email me at neoriley at gmail dot com and I can get you the same $70 off discount code.

What we’ll be covering:

John first half of day:

1. Papervision basics – scenes, cameras, setup
2. cameras and animation
3. Primitives
4. Materials
5. Collada
6. Papervision3D component for Flash IDE (requires CS3 unfortunately)

Andy will cover:

1. Effects and Layers
2. Effects Filters
3. Shaders

The class has filled up nicely I so far and I’m really glad to get out and teach again.  Its something I really enjoy doing

Change to my Session at FOT

It was a year ago when i’d put up my description for my Session at Flash on Tap and I’d really intended just to follow through with that, but now that we’re getting much closer to the actual event, I think my topic is really not in sync with what I’v been working with in the past 6+ months.

So, I’m going to be covering the development crossovers between Papervision/actionscript3, to Unity3D/Javascript, to iPhone 3D gaming.  I’ll be showing the differences and similarities between Papervsion and Unity3D and talk about the caveats to iPhone 3D gaming with its abilities and limitations.  I’ll also being showing the Unity3D IDE,  features and workflow.

Stunt Bike iPhone game in Unity3D IDE

Stunt Bike running on iPhone

Many of the issues we deal with in Papervision3D are applicable to the iPhone 3D gaming development.  With Unity as a middle man for development, I think there’s plenty to talk about

Hope to see many of you there!

5 Seconds to Glory finally updated on app store

well, after finally convincing them that my “submit score” and leaderboard was identical to Keith’s “falling balls” game, they finally approved my 1.1 update last night.  Now we’re able to see how people rank against each other as “world’s fastest drummer”!

This version is re-written from the ground up in objective-c.  The previous version was built with Unity and did a good job, but this version is much smaller in file size, more accurate and responsive.  Thanks to Keith for helping me out with some leadboard code!  And a big thanks to the guys over at Geocade for the leaderboard service – they seriously rock \m/

Ok, I mistaken about the Ratings/reviews – Thanks.

Thanks for clearing it up for me everyone!  I feel stoopid for not realizing the difference.  I’d never given just a rating personally, and what with all the bogus ratings problems apple had previously, well, I’m sure you can understand why I thought what I thought.

But now I’m up to date

Now, to the person who suggested that I should write a better app for better ratings: Bite me.  Thanks.   (this person is likely the BIGGEST predictable marketing stooge in his age group.  I will refer to him as the “Koolaide fluff boy”).

I can handle getting bad reviews – for sure.  Trust me, I’ve had plenty of critism in my time.  But this application happens to be the most simple application available.  You either like it or you don’t – and as it so happens, the ratings that came through reflects exactly this.

So do I still have a beef?  Hell yes.

It’s simple – doing ratings when you uninstall just isn’t a fair time to ask for an assessment.   My opinion is that most of the people uninstalling the app are unhappy (or clearing space) and therefor, at that moment are more apt to give you a bad review.  So, I have 240 ratings, but over 3000 installations.  So am I to assume that I have 2760 satisfied 4-5 star customers?  Yeah, MAYBE, but my ratings on iTunes don’t reflect that happiness AND there is no JUST AS EASY way to rate an app as when you uninstall it.

I guess I should see if asking for a rating within the game is possible.  If it were possible, at least I could have a chance for positive ratings on my app.

Oh, and an update on the approval process:  14 days later, I get a rejection email saying I hadn’t done something to comply with their SDK when in fact, I had.  So I wrote back, complained and was told “thank you for explaining, please resubmit”.  Now I have to wait another 5-7 (or 14 days).  I think this is rediculous.