So this is my final quarter of school at The Art Institute of California - San Diego, and aside from a few general education classes, the only interactive media design class I have left is Portfolio. So I thought I’d eat up a blog post to give a little run-down on what I have planned for my new portfolio website. My current portfolio site is located at www.03designs.com, but a disclaimer I ought to stick up there is that it hasn’t been touched in over a year (also it was done in AS2). A lot has changed since then. For one, I actually have projects that I want to show in a portfolio. And second, I’ve established between then and now that Actionscript 3 is what I want to do for a while.

I’ve been working on the AS3 version of my new portfolio on and off for the last 6 or so months and here is a small preview of what the main interface is going to look like:



Also, I just received my Phidgets!



So as a first Phidget experiment I’m going to use magnet sensors to create a small kiosk-like experience for people to navigate to the different sections of my portfolio at the portfolio show taking place at graduation. That interface will look a little something like this:



Which ever block the fish is sitting on will control which section of the portfolio you are taken into. Simple, but I hope it will attract some much-needed attention for the major.

That’s about it for this post. Any questions, comments, thoughts and criticisms welcomed.

-Andrew



This is my first deployed Adobe AIR application. You can consider this version 1.0 as there are some needed changes lingering in the back of my head that I may or may not get to. But overall it functions and it looks pretty good, therefore I deem it deployable. The idea behind Tweekr spawned from my Multi-User Authoring class where the objective of the final project was to create a mash-up of internet data. The program itself doesn’t carry an extreme amount of usefulness, but it is visually entertaining (I enjoy chatting on AIM while it runs behind all my chat windows). Basically what Tweekr does is allow you to enter any Twitter user name (or none to pull from the public timeline) and have the latest Tweets from that user parsed into keywords used to query Flickr images which are then tiled across the screen and cycled elegantly. Don’t get it? Feel free to try it out; all feedback is welcomed.

Also, I have started a Tweekr twitter user which I will try to keep updated with synonymous sets of keywords that should provide somewhat unified sets of images in the app.

-Andrew

I’ve been using this DragObject class for a while now. It was just a quick little MovieClip extension I threw together to give any MovieClip I had a destination x and y to automatically animate to. Simply explained, when the destination x and y are changed, the onEnterFrame function makes sure the clip animates to it. Since putting it together, I’ve been very fond of this sort of tweening concept. It allows for dynamic changing of properties without needing to worry about mid-animation changes; with only 1 property determining the destination value, your MovieClip will never get confused or lost as to which way it should be going.

One thing to note is that on the timeline I have set up a globalMouseUp function. This is necessary for implementation of the DragObject if your cursor is able to leave the object when dragging it.

Also added in some fun proximity checking. Source and Enjoy.

-Andrew

This will be quick. I’ve extended the functionality of my RangeList class and made 2 menu systems. The first is what I’m calling a Multi-Set Menu. Which is simply a set of n number of 1-dimensional menus. The example I am providing is a bit crude, but it illustrates the point, this could be put to good use creating a dynamic drop-down menu system of some sort. The second menu is a grid system, not much more explanation needed for that one. The Grid Menu is also a little less crude, and generates a grid dynamically given a class type for the menu items via String. I was hoping to offer the ability to create a grid either dynamically or statically from items on the stage, but without method overloading in AS3 I decided not to come up with an alternative solution, however I simply just commented out the static constructor if you are up for some minor tampering. Also I’m using Tweener for the animation, it is just easier (and pretty efficient).

Click on the example and use the Arrow Keys to see how the menu works.




These examples are available for download here.

Comments, Thoughts and Questions always welcomed.

-Andrew

labs.andrewwalpole.com is up, and although it is nothing more than a few links and some blurry tree thing, it is where I will start to post some of my experiments and projects that don’t quite fit into my portfolio. I’ll give you a brief overview of what is up there right now.

First up is the project that spawned my idea to build my MixBoard AIR application. This is a much simpler version of what the application is today, it loads in a handful of looping mp3 files and allows you to mix them together on the board, pretty simple, instructions are even included.

Second is Commet, a school project I created using AS3, PHP and MySQL. It is my take on a flash-based social network. The entire premise is that you can access all portions of the service by either dragging objects or clicking them. Someday when I have a nice multitouch event system built I’ll spend a few minutes to hook it up to my multitouch screen.

Third is a quick little screensaver idea, I guess I was going for cells under a microscope. It makes extensive use of the Math.random() function and all the graphics are generated through the AS3 drawing API. I would really like to see Adobe pop out a nice little background-running AIR application to run flash-based screensavers - because I’m too busy right now to do it myself.

Finally, I present to you my award-winning widget, the ThumbPlay Ringtone Radio. I built this widget for the ThumbPlay Widget contest put on during FlashForward 2007. Even though my company was planning on forking over the conference money, they were pretty happy when they heard I had won all of my expenses paid, I was pretty stoked as well. If you are wondering why it’s not making any noise, that’s because it seems that ThumbPlay has removed their crossdomain.xml file. Maybe one day I will bug them to stick a new one up there. Total development time from start to finish: 6 hours (4 in Photoshop).

So that is my new laboratory. I’ll be sure to post my updates here and if there is any source code you want to peruse, just ask nicely.

-Andrew

Quick little BitmapData Experiment. I wish I had more time for this stuff.

Download and Enjoy

-Andrew

Well, it is not quite dead yet, but it seems inevitable after I was pointed in the direction of Phidgets. Check them out! If you are like me and absolutely drool over the idea of building your own USB device and then programming it through a Flex or Flash-based application please join me in signing over my soul to this company. Not only do they offer you an assortment of sensors, solder-less connections, affordable prices and a giant amount of documentation, they have also gone and written an extremely comprehensive Actionscript 3 API for it.

While attending FlashForward 2007 this past year I was fortunate enough to sit in on Craig Swann’s presentation about userfacing (directly interactive physical interfaces). It was one of the most inspiring talks I have ever attended, so much so that I set out to create my multitouch FTIR based screen just a few weeks later. As much as I do love the things you can do with code, especially Actionscript, you can’t touch it. Phidgets abstract the complications of building userfaces and promote the creative process. Sounds like a business model I’d like to see more companies wrap themselves around.

I’ll be sure to keep updating about my mad scientist Phidget experiements. First up I think will be the proximity-based magnetic interactive screen.

-Andrew

In a recent project that came across my path, I found myself needing to write a custom data structure. When I began constructing the structure in my head, I thought back to my C++ days and templated classes. Templating the functionality of a class allows you to use the class in many situations without extending the class to deal specifically with the data type you are working with (Numbers, Strings, MovieClips, etc). In AS3, there isn’t exactly a construct built in to specifically declare a class as a template. However, the perfect container is available to us to simulate this functionality; the Array.

By creating a class that acts upon objects in an Array, the data type of the objects contained in the array is irrelevant. Note that if you are planning to modify specific properties of the data type contained in the array, you will have to extend the class. This is where the templating in AS3 begins to break down, but that’s ok, there is still a lot we can do.

With the RangeList, I have created a data type similar to a circular list, however it defines a range of items that allows you to traverse a subset of the entire array and also allows you to independently modify the subset that you are currently working with. This set of functionality is great if you want to create any sort of dynamically sized menu.

And here is the source and the fla

-Andrew

In my very little spare time I have been working on an Adobe AIR application based on my initial Flash Project done for a Sound Design class. I began porting it to AIR literally during Flash Forward 2007, in between presentations, and have since refined the look and feel and functionality. Over the next few months I hope to devote a little more time to the project and hopefully get it into a deployable state.

The application is intended for live audio mixing, and although I have not sought out to conquer audio sequencing in flash like some, I feel the project is worth my time both as a final product and learning experience. I also hope to integrate the current drag and drop interface into some sort of multi touch technology.

It is 2008. I’m finishing up my career as a student and starting to develop one in the business world. As a proactive step to create or enhance my own footprint in the digital media field I’ll use this blog to talk about technologies I am working with, concepts I’m interested in developing or exploring, and really any old thing I think is worthy of publication.

To those of you who don’t know me (and I thank Google or whatever href sent you my way), allow me to introduce myself and provide a brief overview. My name is Andrew Walpole and I’m a digital media addict. I have been programming since 2002, and through an undergraduate program in Interactive Media Design I have taken the time to hone my abilities in Adobe Flash technologies. For more details on my professional training feel free to read through my Resume. Also take a look at my Portfolio.

I’m enamored by new technology and new media. In 2007 I built a single-user multi-input touchscreen using the concept of FTIR (Frustrated Total Internal Reflection), which I know is just the first step in hardware interface design that I will take. I’m fascinated by the user experience. I enjoy utilizing the Actionscript 3.0 language to explore ideas and concepts for user interfaces and experiences and I will continue to explore the depths of my own imagination to create and invent.