Weblog: Pieter Vanderwerff Visualisations

Below is an example for the flash ram player, this is a more advanced version of the one i made for this previous post, Mental Ray Render Optimisation. The main difference is that it now loads in the images instead of embedding them so it is possible to use it for different situations without recompiling the swf file every time.

The flash file receives the url to the images you want displayed via flashvars, it then uses a loader to load the images and display the loading progress. The ram player as it is has some limitations, you can only use it for images 500 x 375px without having to change the action script code and at the moment it does not support the text summary's shown in the Mental Ray Render Optimisation post. I will add this functionality and post an update when i have time.

Richard Lord at Flint has updated the lines and collisions branch of the Flint SVN. It now supports collisions with some new Zone types and I guess in the future it will ideally support all Zones. As my BoundingShape class was written it does not support any Zones other than the LineZone, to accommodate for the new Zone types and for others to be supported in the future I have updated the BoundingShape class. The archive below has the updated Flint code as well as the updated BoundingShape class.

The way in which you use this class is just the same as outlined here, Flint line collision tutorial, the only difference is you will need the archived file above and the BoundingShape class now supports more Zone types.

I have made this tutorial to help make it clearer how to do line collisions using my Bounding Shape action in Flint. This tutorial is not necessarily the best or most efficient way of doing this, it is just the way I have found to work well for me.

First you will need to download and extract the Flintcollide.rar file that I have put together, contained within this archive is the Flint code from the Lines and Collisions Branch of the SVN with the addition of my own BoundingShape.as file in the twoD/actions folder. Within the flint source code I have removed the flintparticles/threeD folder to reduce file size since this technique is 2D only. Also within this archive I have included the flash file of the line collisions example shown above.

Since I have been experimenting with the Flint particle system in Flash I decided to make a basic simulator using this action script library. The simulator did not need to be accurate it just needed to show the basic principles and relationships present.

Image of the TVR simulator | Flash file.

I have been experimenting with the Flint particle system action script library in Flash.

Below is my first experiment using this library, it shoots the particles with an initial velocity and are then affected by the gravitational acceleration towards the centre, creating a very nice effect.

This was very simple to make with Flint and this library is well worth checking out. Although I would recommend stopping this video when not viewing as it is very processor intensive.