Special Effect Animations with Action Script 3.0

OC Flash - Tuesday, August 3 

The upcoming presentation will show how to generate "Special- Effect" animations, using the Perlin Noise and Displacement Map filters by applying both to still bitmaps. These filters are applied with Actionscript 3.0.

The Perlin Noise is used to generate nature type effects like fog, clouds, fire and water, as well as textures like wood, stone and terrain. The Displacement Map is a filter used to translate pixels for adding an extra dimension to the bitmap.

Applying this both effects to a still bitmap will result in interesting and realistic animated effects.

The presenter, Dan Abramovich, specializes in the development of e-learning programs dedicated for the maritime and offshore oil industries. Samples of these programs can be viewed at the Interactive Training Solutions website.

RSVP on Meetup.com

OC Flash - Tuesday, July 6

Flash CS5 New Features

At our July 6 meeting David Salahi will demonstrate some of the new features in Flash CS5 including:

• the new TextLayoutFramework engine which offers print quality typography in Flash
• Video workflow enhancements including the ability to preview video on the stage and the ability to easily add cue points
• additions to the Art Deco tool including a Flame brush, a Tree brush, a Buildings brush, Fire and Smoke animation and more
• Spring physics engine for the Bones Inverse Kinematics feature
• Code snippets to help ActionScript novices easily create common behaviors
• Flash Builder integration which provides a more full-featured development environment for coding

David Salahi is the manager of OC Flash. You can read his Flex blog at flexperiential.com.

Augmented Reality

OC Flash - Tuesday, June 1 

At our June 1 meeting Andrew Nguyen will give a talk about getting started in augmented reality using the FLARToolKit. Augmented reality is a growing field in which virtual information is overlaid on a representation of the physical world.  By taking physical visual inputs through the use of a camera, one is able to manipulate and interact with the visual information presented to him.  Andrew Nguyen will demo some examples of Augmented Reality in action, as well as presenting a walkthrough of getting started in this new and exciting field.

Andrew Nguyen is a User Experience leader with backgrounds in Flash and Flex who designs novel and engaging applications for clients such as Disney and Mitsubishi.  When he isn't doing keyboard kung-fu, he goes on the hunt for the perfect red velvet cupcake.  You can also find him at meetandrew.com

Introduction to Flash Catalyst

OC Flash - Tuesday, May 4 

At the May 4 meeting Cynthia Gordon will present a talk on Adobe's new design tool Flash Catalyst. Catalyst is optimized for rapid prototyping of Flash and Flex applications. With Catalyst you can easily import graphics from Photoshop or Illustrator and then quickly prototype different application states and behaviors. This is all done without writing any code. When the design has been finalized you can export the project to Flash Builder (previously known as Flex Builder) to hand off to a developer.

Learn more about Flash Catalyst at tv.adobe.com.

Free Copy of Adobe Creative Suite to be given away...