I never do a post just about somebody else’s blog post , but after reading this - http://kevinsuttle.com/found-and-lost-the-flash-ide I felt compelled to react.

I fully agree with the author about the majority of the points he makes in this article. Adobe, and many other users of the flash platform, seems to think, there’s a clear distinction between flash user : developers and timeline artists. Developers use flex / flash develop, artists and animators use Flash IDE and perhaps Flash catalyst. Unfortunately that’s not the case, especially if you work in advertising or e-marketing agencies (such as myself) and create rich media, experience campaign microsites. You have to do a lot of coding while integrating timeline based animations and graphics. There is really no way such sites can be build in Flex. Or purely in Flex. Take my latest project - Gap1969. It’s a good example of highly visual , stylised experience microsite for which Flex would be completely inappropriate tool. There’s quite a few instances of using timeline z-depth positioning of the assets, the transition timeline (3D renders) is a png sequence that needs precise control with labels etc.. Now just to clarify, I don’t use the Flash IDE for coding of course, that AS editor is a joke unfortunately. I use FDT 3 set up to compile in Flash CS4 IDE. Also for the record, I use the updated version of Flash IDE - 10.0.2.

During the course of development of this project I observed the following :

1. Flash was crashing at least 1-2x per hour.

2. Flash compiled a project with some weird visual (sometimes also code) errors, like some sort of red square in the middle of the screen, my object positioned in 3d space were suddenly shifted by couple hundred pixels of screen. Without changing any code, just restarting the Flash, recompiling.. suddenly everything was working fine.

3. Flash compiled a file with 0 bytes. After flash restart , and recompile it was OK.

4. After clicking on the item in the library and getting it open in flash IDE took about 6-10 seconds. Very slow. (I use 8 core Intel Xeon HP computer!)

Yes, the main Fla file was quite big - 72 MB - producing about 13MB swf and it seems like flash was running out of the memory quite often, but I do have 4 GB RAM,  I did decrease levels of undo to 10, increased the system swap file to 8 GB. How much more memory flash needs ??

So basically I had to save my project every 1-2 minutes to protect myself from loosing work due to the frequent crashes, restart flash IDE probably 10 - 15 times in hour… Many times I couldn’t copy over frames from another flash file as I got out of memory error message, although there should be enough memory available.

I spend quite a lot of time hunting for bugs that weren’t there, only to find out , after restarting flash everything was OK again.

It was quite a frustrating experience , to put it mildly..

All of that would be acceptable if this was a free open source tool in beta version, but this tool cost a LOT of money, especially if you live in the UK.

I really wish Adobe would stop assuming real developers doesn’t use Flash IDE, and stop concentrating all the effort on developing new tools, but rather made sure

their (still main/flagship) tool works smoothly, reliably and fast!

 Rather then writing the summary of the FOTB conference experience, as I did the last time, from 2 year ago, this year I decided to write some suggestions, or a wish list of the things I’d like to hear about, and perhaps as well, things I don’t want to hear about.

Perhaps now could be the time the speakers (and organizers) are starting to consider the content of the next Flash on the Beach conference in Brighton..

First I need to say, I do love FOTB. I’ve been to the all of them so far (apart from the very first one) and always stayed throughout complete duration of the conference, which hopefully gives me the right to speak about it from the experience ..

So, here are my suggestions:

More advanced level talks!

Let’s consider the target groups, for a sec here.. I think it’s safe to assume, 70-80% of FOTB visitors are professional flash/flex dudes. Amateurs with little interest in this technology would hardly invest  in rather steep admission price (around 1000 EUR), price of the hotel accommodation for 3 days plus price of transportation , and journey hundreds of kilometers from all around Europe… Yet for such a large group there seems to be a very few sessions aimed at upper intermediate - advanced level.

While it’s fairly easy to get your hands on beginners level video tutorials, Lee Brimelow’s gotoAndLearn website is an excellent source, there’s Lynda.com and Total Training of course, that is not the case with the more advanced stuff.

Anybody can find a tutorial on how to make a rotating cube in PV3D, but there are very few resources on how to integrate papervision in flex to make a custom transitions for example..

FOTB should be a platform for flash gurus to come and share this kind of advanced knowledge…

More focused skill level sessions!

When you looked at the FTOB schedule there are sessions with levels marked as Level : Beginner - Intermediate - Advanced. I have been to quite a lot of those. Unfortunately; what happens there is a speaker starting with the beginner stuff and by the time he gets to the juicy bits everyone came to hear about, he runs out of time. In better cases, they would have about 10 minutes left to cover it, so they would rush through it with hectic tempo, barely scratching the surface.

I am not saying there shouldn’t be a basic level sessions. Last year for example, I had only a vague idea about Red, so the level of the session was perfect for me. This year, if I went to the same session, it would be a wasted time.

I am saying there should be session DEDICATED to a certain skill level. Not trying to cover all skill levels within the breadth of a session. That’s way too short time!

Have a webspace for sessions follow-up

I would suggest that on the official FOTB website, under the session description, would be a place to post comments, or questions for the speakers about the session, and to have a space for speakers to upload a source files. Although after speaker finished his session there’s usually a little space for Q&A what often happens is that speakers barely manage to finish on time so there’s actually a very little time afterwards. Also sometimes speakers promise to upload a source files on their blogs, but more then often they forget to do so…

Some topic suggestions :

Open source packages

We all know and heard about PV3D of course, but there are other interesting projects that deserve an introduction: e.g: FlexLib, AS3Lib, Box2D…, would be interesting if somebody did a brief overview of about 6-10 of the most accomplished open source flash projects , that have been developed for some time now, and are being used by an increasingly larger group of developers.

AS3 Frameworks

Again some top level overview of frameworks, i.e: Pure MVC , Cairngorm, Prana, Mate…their strengths and weaknesses, examples of usage and what their are most suitable for..

OTHERS

- Gumbo, of course, practical sessions for all levels, this would include nuts and bolts of FXG + examples..

- Advanced session about the new Flash plugin 10  text engine (Advanced text layout)

- Advanced session dedicated to new Flash plugin 10 sound capabilities.

- Air 2.0  (I’m hopping by the time of FOTB there will be at least demo version..)

- Advanced practical session on Flash Collaboration Service  (Cocomo)

- Advanced session on Alchemy

- Advanced session on how to use Pixel bender for things other than custom effect (i.e. sound, hyperthreading, 3D computations etc..)

I’ve decided to share a bunch of flash games I build for various clients over the past few years. Most of these aren’t online anymore, and I thought it wold be a shame if they all went to waste : ) Read the rest of this entry »

This is a highly subjective list of books I think every developer should read at least once. Some of them are worth reading couple of times, or from time to time coming back to re-read certain passages. The first 3 books do not mention Flash inside them even once. All five, however; do cover spectrum of Flash related topics. As this is a list of books flash developer should read, I do not go into areas of multimedia, there could be another list dedicated to just sound editing, just video editing, just to 3D etc.. Read the rest of this entry »

UltraKillz is a 3D FPS “Quake Arena like” flash game build by my friends and ex-colleagues Mike Barrax and Malcom Bailey. Mike was responsible for the flash end of development (coding of game engine, characters, gameplay etc..)  and Malcom (Malcx) for the it’s back end. The result is killing spree joyride . And all needed is to have a flash 9 plugin.

Well done Mike and Mal!
After the BETA stage, game will be released to the general public, till then you can pre-register for the invites on the game project page www.ultrakillz.com.

The video of the gameplay is available on : YouTube.

Bellow is a little interview with the creators of the game that explains a technical side of the game and some development background details. Read the rest of this entry »

At the last moment, but better later then never I was holding my 3 day company passes to this years Flash event of the year.  Speakers line up was fantastic and so were the seminar topics. I have to say I wasn’t disappointed.

Read the rest of this entry »