As of February I quit my job and started as a freelance Flash-designer/developer (by the name of Power-up Media) so it was time for a fresh start all together; I finally made a decent main site (http://www.powerupmedia.nl/), I restyled this blog (hope you like it) and moved it to a new domain (http://blog.powerupmedia.nl/). The main site still needs a little tweaking and it needs a lot more content, but it’s a start…

At the moment I’m trying to figure out what to do with my labs section (http:/labs.powerupmedia.nl/).  I’ll probably combine it either with the main site or with this blog but whatever it’s gonna be, you can expect some changes there as well.

All said and done I’m now open for Flash- and/or design-jobs so if you got any work laying around please don’t hesitate to contact me…

The chalange was to create a new design for their “Tedde”. The shape of the tedde was a given and you were only allowed to use 3 colors (apart from black I guess because some early submission also had 4 colours)
Here is my submission to the contest:

You can check out the full version here:
http://www.tedde.com/store/?p=1007

If you like it please vote for it! (just one click)

Manny thanks

PS: While you’re at it, my colleague would be very pleased if you would vote for his submission as well:
http://www.tedde.com/store/?p=1011

I made this game in collaboration with a colleague of mine (Berthjan Achterop / http://www.berthjan.com/)
I started of with the coding of the engine and Berthjan made the design. After applying the design to the game I animated most of the characters to bring it all to live. The result is a “colums”-like game wrapped in a world of weird (but wonderful) creatures

Enjoy and let me know what you think of it…

PS: here is a nice wallpaper to accompany the game

Whether you are fed up with your marriage (and/or life) or you just want to learn some new Photoshop tricks, you should check out the tutorials of Donnie Hoyle. This desperate guy has a tutorial series called “You Suck at Photoshop”:

Lesson #1:

Lesson #2:

Lesson #3:

Lesson #4:

Lesson #5:

Lesson #6:

Plz, somebody put this guy out of his misery

UPDATE (2008-03-09):
Two new lessons for your ass:

Lesson #7:

Lesson #8:

UPDATE (2008-03-27):
Another new lessons for you to chew on:

Lesson #9:

UPDATE (2008-04-15):
Putting it all in perspective:

Lesson #10:

Since I should now have some actual readers I thought it would be a good idea to promote the labs section of my site once more.

So here it is: http://labs.justgreat.nl/

For those of you who haven’t seen it yet: check it out and be amazed and inspired by some very cool Flash experiments.
I’ll try to upload at least one experiment a week so stay tuned!

For those of you who are just looking for a short work break, you should give my latest (puzzle) game Bubble Schmubble a chance:

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/417633 (or http://games.justgreat.nl/bubbleschmubble/)

Have fun!

I also moved the game to a new location. From now on you can check the game here:
http://games.justgreat.nl/bubbleschmubble/

Besides the online highscore option I also added some sounds (again)  and I animated the creatures inside the bubbles a little (quick and dirty).

Last but not least I removed the MochiAd from the game because it was way too annoying and I needed at least a 1000 players a day (!) to make just a little profit from it . Instead of the MochiAd I added normal google-ad-banner though,  in the hope it will pay me off some day .

I hope you enjoy playing against each other because your highscore will be visible to everyone who plays the game.

You can try it here: http://games.justgreat.nl/bubbleschmubble/

I already added some functionality to the game like local highscores, but there is still a lot of work that needs to be done:
- some bugfixes on the current code
- overall highscore
- better tweens and animated creatures
- sounds
- a splash screen
- a setting page
- a credits page (so far it’s only gonna contain my own name :P )

I added a MochiAd just to check how it works. If the ad becomes too much of a nuisance or doesn’t bring in enough money (according to the number of players) I will remove it again.

Let me know what you think of the game so far. Also suggestions are always welcome…

Flash on the Beach 07 was just GREAT!

Although I had to miss some of the sessions on Wednesday because of the amazing party on Tuesday (read: loads of beer and dropshot) the whole event inspired me to really start experimenting in Flash again.

In contrast to Mad in Spain (which was mostly about great webdesign) this event was all about Flashy-artwork (it was to me anyway).
Almost every session I went to dealt with particles, algorithms, particles, fractals and then some more particles….

Fractals all over the place…

The absolute particle/algorithm/fractal climax was Jared Tarbell’s session “Algorithms to Fill Space”. Although I was familiar with the basics of the algorithms and particles, this session made me see how easy it mas to make very complex and cool experiments with them.

Another great and very funny session was Joshua Davis‘ “Dynamic Abstraction”. This guy makes just GREAT art using mainly flash. Although his site doesn’t fully do justice to his work you should check it out because he has some great pieces there…

Besides these two amazing sessions there was a lot more that inspired me. As I want to spend most of my time experimenting in stead of updating my blog here is a little sum-up of these sessions (no particular order):

- Alex Jenkins – Pulling the emotional trigger
A session with a some very entertaining websites. Check the Unit9 portfolio:
http://www.unit9.com/

- Seb Lee – Delisle AS3 Particle Effects – Now 1000% Extra FREE!
A great session about the basics of particles. Although the session started of very easy, it got more interesting near the end as it showed some really pragmatic solutions to common problems (e.g. with a few tweaks you can make your particles look like real smoke without speed loss). Check out the Plug-in Media! site for some cool effects!
http://www.pluginmedia.net/

- Keith Peters – Make Flash Games. Retire Early
A session about how to make money of your “simple” flash games. Since I already have some game engines in store I really need to turn them in to real games and start making money.
His site is more about his experiments but it’s really worth to check out:
http://www.bit-101.com/

- Craig Swann - Perceptive Interactions + Alternative Interfaces
A nice and inspiring session about Craig’s experiments with alternative in- and out-put. The experiments are a weird combination of video, sound, webcam, and a bunch of home-made electronic input devices. Check the lab-section on his site for some of the freaky shit.
http://www.crashmedia.com/

- Robert Hodgin - Breaking away
Although (or maybe because) his work was not made in Flash, it was just fucking GREAT! By using processing this guy created the most amazing art. Check his blog for some of his work (make sure to check the videos).
http://www.flight404.com/

- Erik Natzke – Beyond the Knowledge: The Art of Playing
I’m not a big fan of his work (particularly the old stuff) but he has got some nice pieces out there.
http://jot.eriknatzke.com/

There were a lot more interesting speakers, but as a already mentioned I really like to get busy right now my self. So after I finish my uncles portfolio site (any time now) you should expect some great experiments and games! Stay tuned…

AllOfUs:
A really cool agency that showed some amazing mobile phone apps and interactive installations. They really gave me the inspiration to create new experiments (if only they could give me some more time as well).
site: http://www.allofus.org/

Group94:
I was already familiar with their amazing work, but it was really nice to see how they handle their projects and how they solved some complicated Flash problems with really simple solutions. The most surprising thing about Group94 is that they work with only 8 people and yet manage to create so much fantastic products.
site: http://www.group94.com/
old site: http://www.group94.com/home_old.php 

Pleix:
A group of freelancers with various disciplines who join together to create cool commercials, music videos and non-commercial films.
site: http://www.pleix.net/

de-construct:
A webdesign agency who have a great vision towards user experience on their websites. A nice example of this is a site they made for Panasonic:
http://lumixdifference.archive.de-construct.com/
The three cameras that are exposed on the site are presented in a short story. Each camera has it’s own story in which it’s characteristics are displayed. This way the user is not directly confronted with all kind of specs (which he has to compare to find the right camera), but he can simply select a camera by a specific purpose. A very nice approach towards potential customers if you ask me.
site: http://www.de-construct.com/

Of course there were a lot of other interesting speakers but for now I’ll leave this post to these four agencies because I need my time to work out my newborn ideas.

Stay tuned….

PS: drop a line to the guys of DoubleYou:
http://www.doubleyouhi.com/

Game Physics – Engine Development

I’m not really a book person, but when I tried to create a physics engine a while back I ran into a couple of major problems which stopped me from going on with it. I tried it a couple of times ever since but I always found myself stuck on the same problems (complicated collision detection etc.). Back then I searched for decent books to help me but there wern’t any. Either they were way too easy (coming with all kinds of crappy solutions) or way too hard (most of them all about theoretical physics).

I ran into this book by accident as I was actually looking for an all picture book with cool and stylish web design (Web design index by content).

I haven’t read any of it yet, but looking at the pics inside it is exactly what I needed .
I tend to read it in my vacation so you might expect some nice experiments in the near future.

For those of you who are interested:

Game Physics – Engine Development by Ian Millington
isbn: 978-0-12-369471-3

Web design index by content
isbn: 90-5768-069-6 | http://webdesignindex.org

PS: I saw this Ian dude also has a book on AI which sounds interesting too, but that something for the future. (God, where am I gonna find the time…)

If you like this one you should also check out the rest of his tricks.

Photosynth

It’s a program which allows you to take a bunch of photos from some place and create a 3D-scenery without any sweat. It’s just some alpha version so you can’t use your own photo’s, but it’s still really exciting to view the examples they’ve got on their site (see “try it” (need to install a pc-only plug-in)).

Go check it out:
http://labs.live.com/photosynth/default.html

Here are some explanatory videos:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/129
http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=220870

*) If you already heard of it, don’t blame me for posting it just now, but blame yourself for not telling me about it