DynImage: Powerful AS3 Image Util

Posted on 28 July, 2010 by patrick

Loading an external image in your flash/flex project isn’t that difficult, but mostly there are too many steps involved just for showing a regular image. As a flashdeveloper I need to show a bunch of external images for almost all my projects. Therefore I decided to write something that does all the loading logic and displays it in a smart way. DynImage is a very simple but powerful image util with extensible functionality. It’s very lightweight and easy to use! You can even assign a preloader and create custom animations in a single line of code. Besides, cropping and scaling an image to fulfill your needs can be done in a breeze!

So how does it works?

addChild( new Image("image.jpg") );

Is it really that easy?

Yes it’s that easy. The example above loads the image in it’s original size.
Mostly you want to constrain an image to a certain bounding box. Play with the parameters below and watch the generated AS3 code!

A zip file of DynImage can be downloaded at github.com. The zip file contains the source code and working examples (Flash CS4/CS5 & pure AS3).

If you have suggestions or questions please let me know! Or fork me at Github.com.

Flash Voice Arkanoid

Posted on 11 October, 2009 by patrick

Today I have been working with Jankees van Woezik on a new voice controlled game. We wired up a version of Arkanoid with our open source audio framework in a few hours. Below is a video of the result.

(It’s work in progress… the final version will be presented on the Dutch Design Week next week)

ps. the source can be found on Google Code

Easy loading assets

Posted on 11 May, 2009 by patrick

Today I finished my asset loader class, which can load any type of asset. This can be very helpful! Loading external images or swf files became a daily procedure, so why not writing my own asset loader class that is agile and easy to use?

Performance

I know! Not really rocket science, but it’s extremely useful! This asset loader class acts more like a helper class, you can write your own custom asset (by extending the asset). What I like very much is the ability to attach a preloader asset to it. When writing your own custom asset, you have access to all loader events so you can write for example a nifty preloader. Continue reading →

3FM Mugshot Tool

Posted on 17 April, 2009 by patrick

A few weeks ago, I created a simple (hyves) tool in collaboration with LBi Lost Boys for 3FM Radio. In this tool, Hyves users can create a mughot from their profile picture. This picture is automatically stored in the user’s picture library on hyves. It took me 3 days to make this tool. The technique behind this is fairly simple. The profile picture is desaturated and the new image is send to the server as raw octet-stream through the ByteArray which flash provides.

Below is a short video of how it works. (It’s HD so check it fullscreen)

Gaia Framework

Posted on 26 March, 2009 by patrick

For many developers a well known tool! The Gaia (as3) Framework offers a really good solution for page based flash application/sites. The only thing I don’t like about it, is that this framework creates a .fla and a swf for each page, which is in my oppinion an overhead of data. For the framework where I’m working on, I try to adapt the fundamental elements from different existing frameworks. The sweet thing of Gaia is that it handles the loading order and transitions of pages really nice, besides it can be easily indexed by search engines like Google. What I want is a good solid solution for page and non page based applications. The flowmanager of the ASAP framework has that paging functionality too, only it’s fully in code. My goal is to build an as3 framework that is agile and reusable in all situations, whether you create a game or just simple page based content.

Enexis Pipeline Game Online

Posted on 10 March, 2009 by patrick

Today the Enexis pipeline game (Gridded) is going public! I created this game for a game developing agency called ‘Playability‘. The design is done externally. Enexis, an ‘Energy Grid Manager’ company focussed on recruiting technical people.
In this game you can connect pipelines to build a constructive way to your goal. Just a simple game with some complex game mechanisms. The developing process was really fun to do! This game can also be played on the social community site Hyves, for which I created an opensocial gadget and where I used the Hyves API to retrieve the necessary data.

Inlet

Freelance Creative Developer

Category Archives: Actionscript 3