As I recently wrote, there’s a new game in production.
Mr. Chalupa and me are working on a new action title. Watch this space for updates!
Tags – project.
MumboJumboT: Done.
I am finally done with the MumboJumboT project.
As you may know from this blog, I recently wrote a few paragraphs about progress of the project. And there is even MumboJumboT’s Twitter stream with more detailed tweets. But — believe me, it’s hard to tell — now I am not very happy with the results and I have to confess I failed on several places.
First, as usual, I was way too optimistic. I thought I’d be able to code more and harder, but it was not really possible for several reasons. Just a few hours before I started the project I had finished another long term job and hence I was somewhat tired. Our kids were sick two days as well and on the end I was lazy too :) As you may know I planned to create a blabbing machine. And… Failed. Sorry about that, next time I’ll think twice before I start a project like this one.
But! I think even with my failures I’ve got something for you. The MumboJumboT project lite. Very lite. If you’re interested, I’d be glad to show you my humble Adobe AIR application, which you can install by clicking the badge here.
So what is it all about?
This is just an eye candy and mainly a tutorial AIR app. You can click links below to read more on how the project was done and meanwhile you can play with it.
MumboJumboT allows you to:
Load a sample song (thanks to Jakub Steiner aka Jimmac for The Sphere song from his Organic album, the other song done by me),
Load your very own Ogg Vorbis file (info on Xiph.org as well),
Play an Ogg file — actually it was not possible before, because Flash knows just MP3s. If you don’t want to get into dirty details on the Wiki page, you just need to know Ogg provides much higher quality on lower bitrates. The playback is done by Branden Hall‘s Ogg Vorbis Alchemy port, heavily altered by me for purposes of this app,
Somewhat visualize the playback.
That’s pretty much for now, so let’s continue on the code stuff.
MumboJumboT code
You can read everything about the project’s code on the documentation page of the MumboJumboT project. Please don’t forget to visit its GitHub repository.
What you will learn:
PureMVC and Startup Manager
PureMVC is a cool Model-View-Controller framework aimed to help you to create cleaner code in several languages. And its Startup Manager is a good way how to put initialization of your application in a queue, while following each Proxy requirements.
- Application facade (Documentation and code)
- Application mediator (Documentation and code)
- Loading and queue of proxies (Documentation and code)
Config files
Here you can see my Proxy helping to easily parse config XML settings. The online flavour allows you to merge parsed settings with FlashVars. You can localize the app from the config XML as well, you know, it’s not a good thing to have any static text in the SWF (it obviously doesn’t apply to the logging output).
- Config proxy (Documentation and code)
AIR Updates
Adobe AIR platform allows applications to self-update when there’s a new version available. See the code below to see how to do that:
- Checking for updates (Documentation and code)
Away3D
Away3D is a well known 3D library. And its new Lite flavour finally provides hardware acceleration via Flash 10 postcards in space acceleration features.
- Spinbox (Documentation and code)
- Spinbox Mediator (Documentation and code)
OGG Decoding
As I wrote above, thanks to Branden Hall I was able to use Ogg Vorbis files in the app, even it was not possible before.
- Ogg Vorbis Decoder (code)
- Sample Proxy (Documentation and code)
Advanced mouse controls
You can see there’s a somewhat sick mouse handler allowing you to drag-and-rotate so called Spinbox.
- Mouse Proxy (Documentation and code)
Skinning
Here you can see how to skin the app with my vancura-as3-libs library. Download the skin folder here.
Mocking up
Just to revisit what was written in previous articles, here’s an archive of PSD files you can download. Just in case you’d be interested on how the GUI part was done.
You can watch a screencast of the mocking up on Vimeo.
Legal stuff
Licensed under Attribution-Share Alike (CC) license. OGG Alchemy Decoder by Branden Hall and Xiph.org Foundation. More info RaveIN font by Jakub Steiner aka Jimmac.
Posted in Blog
MumboJumboT: Day 2.
Ok, here’s a weather forecast for today: coding coding coding, since main graphics of the MumboJumboT project is done done done.
MumboJumboT body
The space in the middle will be canvas for all audio controls and displays. I am not entirely happy with his head, so I’ll revisit it at some point. I planned to make it in 3D (rotating while playing), but maybe I’ll keep it static, while making it richer (I think robot needs ears, antennae etc). PSD is here.
Screencast
While drawing I recorded a movie you can watch here:
Now what
So now let’s jump into coders’ world. Don’t forget to follow @MumboJumboT on Twitter!
Update
MumboJumboT project is done. Read more here.
MumboJumboT: Day 1.
Ok, here’s the last day’s news digest on the MumboJumboT project.
Unfortunately on the first day I was not really working as hard as I would need. Mainly because I finished a large project yesterday morning and I was not so fresh. I need to concentrate more during next few days, so I won’t be a promising looser.
But there were few things I’ve successfully done. First, I made a Twitter account. Pretty sweet, huh :]
Then there was the logotype. The application is based on a concept of a robot blabbing nonsense. Because I’ll use Away3D library, everything will be somewhat raw – boxes and angles everywhere. That should be OK for a robot, except Eva from Wall-E nearly all robots are made of boxes.
Logo
I was not entirely happy with boxy look, so I needed to make it softer somehow. Hence I added the key to the right side. My robot, MumboJumboT, will have a similar key, hopefully rotating while playing.
Then I needed to come up with a Twitter background and of course an avatar. Here’s a screenshot of current state of MumboJumboT’s Twitter home:
Click the image to see the full resolution.
As promised, here you can have PSDs I created.
Source code
Yesterday I was also happy to prepare a functional AIR source base I can use now. It’s deployed to the GitHub repo I’ve prepared for the project.
So now it’s the second day and I need to continue. Today I want to prepare all graphics assets I will need. Watch the MumboJumboT’s Twitter stream at @mumbojumbot for more information about the progress.
Update
MumboJumboT project is done. Read more here.
MumboJumboT.
Since today I’ll be working on a small one week project, something like a workshop. I’d be glad to prepare an application for realtime visualization of audio.
I love this kind of projects: you got a limited time – 7 days should be enough to prepare a small application. Game, audio or video stuff, you name it. When you work alone, you could manage your time more precisely, there’s no one who tells you what to do and what you should avoid. It’s solely your work and you can do whatever you want to – but it has to be done before the deadline, which can’t be moved in any circumstances.
This time I’ll prepare a small audio application. No business plan, no desires to sell it. No visible sight of making money of it. Just simple fun. This app was on paper for too long and this contest made me start it.
The app will mix samples in a never-ending stream of blabs. Everything will be mixed randomly from predefined settings, adjustable by you. And most importantly you’ll be able to make your very own generator by recording audio from your computer’s Line In or Microphone input.
I want to show you some of technologies I developed during last few years. GUI widgets with loadable skins, audio processing (I made few multitrack sequencers and mixers), a slice of 3D rendering. All Model-View-Controller via PureMVC.
I want to use these technologies if you’re interested to know:
- Air 2.0 beta
- Ogg Vorbis / Alchemy
- PureMVC
- Away3D Lite
- PopForge
- BulkLoader
- DestroyToday’s Scale9Bitmap (slightly changed by me)
- Greensock TweenMax
- and a small help of my libraries.
If you want to take a few lessons from ActionScript and these areas, this project is a lovely place to start. I did not tell you? Everything I am going to produce here will be licensed as Creative Commons, open for everybody. And that doesn’t apply only to source codes, I am talking about assets, source PSDs, illustrations, samples etc.
So if you’re interested in what I am going to come up with in next 6.5 days, enjoy me on the voyage. It will be a rather fast, but very fun trip. Watch this place and Twitter stream at @mumbojumbot.
Update
MumboJumboT project is done. Read more here.
Posted in Blog
Also tagged 3d actionscript adobe air application audio flash game gui Illustration media music workshop
2 Comments
Indie Games CZ.
Rád bych vás pozval na první z pravidelných setkání vývojářů her, grafiků, designerů a všech, které toto téma zajímá.
Domácí herní scéna není ve světové konkurenci žádné ořezávátko. Kromě mezinárodně úspěšných titulů je zde i celá řada malých studií a jednotlivých vývojářů, kteří tvoří desítky zajímavých her. Proč tedy ještě nemáme prostor pro neformální setkávání nezávislých herních vývojářů, sdílení informací, myšlenek a nápadů?
Odpovědí na tuto otázku je Indie Games CZ. Chceme více provázat nezávislou herní scénu u nás a vtáhnout do ní lidi, kteří možná netuší, jak začít. Věříme, že prezentace a pozdější networking pomohou jak jednotlivým vývojářům, tak i scéně jako celku.
V případě zájmu plánujeme vytvořit tradici pravidelných setkání se stále zajímavějším obsahem.
Více informací naleznete na http://j.mp/indiegamescz nebo na twitteru @indiegamescz.
Říjen 2011 přinese:
První setkání proběhne v úterý 18. října 2011 v 19:00 v HUBu v Praze. Hlavní sál máme pronajatý na tři hodiny, poté se přesuneme pravděpodobně do Punta. Vstupné je dobrovolné (HUB není zadarmo).
Unity: úvod
Václav Vančura (@vancura) a Michal Hotovec (@mhotovec) nás provedou herním enginem Unity. Po přednášce s ukázkami bychom měli vědět, kdy Unity použít, v čem se liší oproti dalším herním enginům a proč je tak oblíbený.
Flash: 2D na GPU
Tom Krcha (@tomkrcha) z Adobe nám ukáže pár posledních her, na kterých se podílel a jak začít psát až 1000x rychlejší 2D hry na GPU ve Flashi.
Flashpoint & Arma — Indie AAA tituly
Martin Vaňo (@martusak) z Bohemia Interactive Studio nám prozradí, jak se z garážové firmy stane producent AAA titulů a přitom zůstane dál nezávislým. Co všechno udělalo deset let slávy s konkurenceschopností BI Studio, co je omezuje a v čem tkví jeho síla. Zkrátka vám zprostředkuje příběh Bohemia Interactive (podle skutečné události).