Per commenters request, I have added the source code for the Morse DeCode project. Not much else to say about that!
http://visualadvance.com/blog/explorations/morse-decode-with-the-arduino-board-and-flash/
Popularity: 16% [?]
We have been doing some revamping of our entrance at work (Manifest Digital). I threw together this glorified screensaver to project onto our doors.
Done in Flash CS4, Actionscript 3. You can view the project online here: http://manifestdigital.com/playground/flip/
Popularity: 13% [?]
When I see a product like this, and its named Perky Jerky, I have to ask myself; which came first, the name or the concept? I have to admit many times I will come up with a phrase, be insanely tempted to buy the domain name, and then build a site around that.
Then I realize sites take time to build, and I watch TV instead.
Popularity: 9% [?]
I see hundreds, if not thousands of articles each week now that I am an avid Google Reader user. After a while it becomes easy to identify each bloggers style. Lets take for example Scott Hansen of ISO50. A lot of his posts and images tend to have the same tone, even when he is blogging about other peoples work.
So when I came across this post from NotCot, I instantly wondered why Hansen was styling his post like a typical NotCot post. Then I realized it wasn’t a post of his at all. It isn’t even his work. Just a Scotch tape promotion that is extremely similar to his work. Is it just me?
Popularity: 12% [?]
In the spirit of open source I have added the source files for my first go at creating a video mask in flash. The source can be found at the bottom of my post: Inventing Flash Video Masks (Part 2)
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As my document class files get larger and larger I tend to have a hard time keeping my place. Especially when I need to jump back and forth between a couple spots. So one trick I just naturally started to evolve was to add my own “bookmarks” into my code.
For example if I am working on a function called “showMessage” and I want to jump between the function and where it is being called I might do this:
//#
showMessage();
// blah blah blah other code
// 1000 lines later
//#
private function newMessage():void { }
This way I can just search for the # and keep jumping back and forth. If you were really ambitious you could derive a whole system from symbols
# = links
! = currently working on
% = work on later
Not perfect since a lot of symbols will be used by operators, but it felt like a good LifeHacker type of tip. I supposed you could always search for //! to avoid the operators.
Popularity: 16% [?]
I made a few small updates to VisualAdvance.com today. I mainly just added all my 2009 work thus far. I hadn’t realized it was that long since I made an update. This includes pretty much all the work I have done since I have been at Manifest.
Making this update made me realize how badly I need to restructure/redesign my site. You learn so much in a 6 month period of time. It was so hard to not just start patching holes as I was making updates, but I would much rather focus that energy into getting it done right for my next release. If anything these updates pushed me to focus on a new release sooner.
Popularity: 9% [?]
My friend Wenner wanted to do another music video for someone’s birthday. I hadn’t done any video projects in a while, so I was definitely in. We only had about a week to compose the whole thing so the only set plan I had going in was to shoot on pretty much every camera I own, and make something happen with that. I trusted Wenner and his choreographer would take care of the moves, so all I had to do was capture it and make them look even better.
With the help of my motion graphics friend Jay Purugganan, and my Producer girlfriend Cristina, I was able to shoot edit, and “color correct” the whole thing in about 7 hours. This gave Jay about 3-4 days to add the finishing touches to make it that much more impactful.
Anyway, have a look:
Popularity: 9% [?]
I recently finished another piece for an upcoming gallery show. I am calling this one The Generative Wasp Landing. Obviously it is a followup piece to my first one, The Generative Eye.
This time I decided to use a slightly different “brush” by using more of a circular glob shape, and I wanted their motion to be different than the first. I ended up using brownian motion to make the brushes move around the canvas this time. This gave it a much more organic feel than my first piece. I also had them scanning over a texture this time so that they would give the impression of real paint much more than just vector shapes. The entire application was written in Adobe Flash CS3.
The final piece will be on display:
Thursday, July 30, 6-9pm
Demitasse Cafe, 1066 W. Taylor ST. Chicago IL
Here is a video of this piece being generated:
And a few other shots I took while working on this final piece.
The Generative Orchid 1:
The Generative Orchid 2:
The Generative Wasp Landing – Detail Shot:
My original photo I used for this piece:
Popularity: 14% [?]
I have two other methods for creating video masks that I wanted to share. The first one is purely for experimental purposes only because it is a processor hog, and probably wouldn’t be very realistic for actual use (though it is exactly what I was trying to achieve visually).
While thinking about my first attempt I realized that by using threshold to split up the video I was essentially creating a very hard edged mask with no gradation to it at all. This is fine, and as I said, you could always apply a blur filter or drop shadow to the bitmap to help soften up the edge, but it wasn’t truly a gradient video mask.
For the new method I did almost exactly what I did in my last attempt, but instead of using threshold to break the video up, I took the color value of each pixel (getPixel), turned that number into something ranging from 0-255 (the full range alpha has), and then reset each pixel in the bitmap including an alpha value this time (setPixel32). In other words darker pixels from the video were less visible, lighter pixels were more visible. The only problem with this is that it is on a pixel by pixel basis, so every single frame of the video you are reading, processing and rewriting each pixel during the transition.
For anyone who thinks their computer is strong enough: Gradient Video Mask Demo 2 (the first time you will see the ink, then if you click it again you will see a random video of a car being used as the mask.)
For my next attempt…
This sort of goes back to one of the original ideas I was working on, but my friend Jay (a motion graphics artist) helped to revive the concept by suggesting rendering the alpha channel from After Effects and just setting that as a mask. Unfortunately, that alone does not work which is why I had originally veered away from this method. If you set a video player, alpha channel or not, as a mask, flash just sees it as a rectangle the size of the video player. Not good.
Then I started to wonder if it would maintain the alpha channel when writing each frame of the video (with alpha) to a bitmap. Bingo! This is probably the most processor friendly method out of the three, but there is one drawback. You need two videos in order to execute a full transition with this method. You need one video with the ink keyed out for the image you want to disappear, and then you need another copy of that video with the area around the ink keyed out for the stuff you want to come in. This could cause issues if you don’t make sure the videos are synced up before they play.
Either way, this seems like it may be the way to go if you have the option of keying out your videos before you import them. Check it out: Video Mask Demo 3
Popularity: 42% [?]
