UltraVisual Blog

Singletons in Lua

UltraVisual — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 22:10:22 +0000

Since learning Lua and playing around with Corona and as it is not a very OOP language and is very script based, even more so that javascript, I felt like having a go at trying to see if it was possible to: Structure my projects in a class based way to make them seem more [...]

New year – new challenges

UltraVisual — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 22:23:14 +0000

OK with the dawn of a new year - don't worry no reflective blog post here I think it is about time to dust off the cob webs with this blog and dedicate some time to not only blogging but also to my site which has been much neglected over the last 6 months due [...]

Creating a custom HTML Wrapper template in FDT

UltraVisual — Wed, 11 May 2011 20:58:49 +0000

Recently whist using playing with Molehill, which due to the fact that no stand alone debugger exists yet, as the player is still completely in beta version, I have been forced to compile and test my swfs in the browser to take advantage of the incubator build flash player. As I use FDT for my [...]

Three.js and webGL

UltraVisual — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 20:56:03 +0000

To view the example you will need to make sure you have an up to date, webGL enabled browser. As I mentioned in my last post after having a play with the Molehill version of Away3D, I was really itching to try and have a go at recreating the same model in webGL. So knowing [...]

More Molehill & Away3D Fun

UltraVisual — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 23:00:54 +0000

To view the example click the image above - you will need the Flash Player 11 beta for it to run. So after my last post and initial tests with Away3D 4.0 and the new Molehill APIs, I wanted to dig a bit deeper and get together an example that would test the powers of [...]

Molehill & Away3D 4.0

UltraVisual — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 22:35:58 +0000

To view the example click the image above - you will need the Flash Player 11 beta for it to run. Finally just over 1 week after the beta release of Molehill and Flash Player 11, I have finally managed to spend some time to play with the new version of Away3D. So my [...]

Developing for the BlackBerry PlayBook

UltraVisual — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 21:43:34 +0000

OK so at the end of last year I spent some time developing an application for the BlackBerry PlayBook. I was doing this for two reasons, one was to hopefully receive a FREE PlayBook once they get released as part of their offer, the other because at the time the main application platform they were [...]

2010 – Flash’s most eventful year – or will that be 2011?

UltraVisual — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 13:33:51 +0000

This post has been prompted by the lack of attention I have been giving this blog over the last 3-4 months due to heavy workloads spilling over into my free time. The end of 2010 gives me a chance to review the previous year, for myself and what I wish to achieve for 2011, but [...]

Introduction to webORB Java – Flex project set up tutorial

UltraVisual — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 21:12:28 +0000

Here is a quick screen cast I did recently of a run through of the set up for a great Integration server for a Java back end called webORB. WebORB comes in many flavours including PHP, Ruby and .NET so pretty much covers any server configuration and the feature set is easily comparable with Adobe's [...]

Filereference.download creation must be outside function – WTF?!

UltraVisual — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 10:33:18 +0000

I was pulling my hair out yesterday - hair what am I going on about - I'm a baldy! anyway, I have an application that runs on FP9 so needs to use the Filereference.download() function by uploading the file to the server via a php script and then downloading it from the server via Filereference.download(). [...]

Running PHP Eclipse with FDT / FB & Ant

UltraVisual — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 22:11:05 +0000

OK, so lately I have been doing a lot of work in both FDT & Flash builder and building data centric applications with PHP and mySQL back ends, it has been vital that my work flow has been up to scratch to ensure that these project's deadlines have been met and also so that I [...]

swffit – great javascript utility for controlling browser windows

UltraVisual — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 21:38:58 +0000

Ever had a problem where a site or application you are creating looks great when scaled to the browser window at a large screen size but crap when viewed on smaller screens? A major issue with sites that are embedded via SWFObject and set to 100% x 100% is that when viewed via a smaller [...]

Breaking up bitmaps

UltraVisual — Wed, 05 May 2010 21:29:11 +0000

Well it has been some time since my last blog post - nearly three and a half months and now finally I seem to have found a little free time to dedicate to some writing, I tell you dispite all of the fuss in the press lately with the Apple - Adobe thing and also Flash vs HTML5, it seems to me that it sure is a great time to be a flash developer as we seem to be so in demand!

Anyway, to ease my self back into my blog writing I am going to post a little class which I knocked up when working on a project recently as a nice transition effect for adding / removing images.

Are there any benefits to getters and setters?

UltraVisual — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 21:48:01 +0000

Well once upon a time, my answer would of definately been a resounding no....I, along with many other people from what I have read and heard never really saw the point to them. Why go through all the hassle of typing out all that extra code when you can just declare your variables as public [...]

Looking forward to 2010

UltraVisual — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 22:27:46 +0000

Well the new year is almost upon us, and as is usual this time each year we reflect on the year we are leaving behind and ponder on what the forthcoming year may bring. 2009 has been a fantastic year, with its down sides. There was lots of doom and gloom from the media with [...]

TweetParser updated to include usernames and hashtags

UltraVisual — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 21:28:20 +0000

Well the title says it all, the tweet parser I created and mentioned in an earlier post has been updated to include @usernames and also #hashtags. The parser will format these tags into html formatted links ready to be included in your htmlText for your AS3 text fields. Updated source files here

Messing about with the AS3DMod library

UltraVisual — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 12:57:20 +0000

I don't know why but I have had AS3DMod in my collection of libraries for some time now, but have never gotten around to having a play with it....what fun I have been missing out on!. It is a nice lightweight library that allows you to modify the vertex geometry of primitives in many of [...]

My two part Flixel game tutorial now up on Active.tutsplus

UltraVisual — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 15:35:07 +0000

A few weeks ago after messing around with the Flixel game engine I created a tutorial for active.tutsplus.com. The video tute took quite a lot of planning and recording and was finally broken into two parts, each split into four sections and totalling 2 hours and 20 minutes. I tried to include as much as [...]

Tweet parser to format urls in your text fields

UltraVisual — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 10:36:07 +0000

A while back I created a tutorial on Active.tutsplus.com on how to create a twitter widget for your website. This tutorial has resulted in a lot of emails and great comments from people who have viewed it.....mostly good thankfully and a lot for help and advice on how to manipualte tweets etc. A few recently [...]

I am now officially an Adobe Certified Expert.

UltraVisual — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 16:52:28 +0000

Well I finally got around to taking my Adobe ACE in Flex 3 with AIR exam today.....I know not long and I'll have to retake it as Flash builder will be the next tool and the exam will be updated but hey.....anyway, I passed which is really nice so you'll soon see a little ACE [...]