Two months into Flex Programming
Date: Monday October 15, 2007Posted in: learning object, flex, courseware
Two months or so into learning Flex. I start to have all basics covered. Add media, adding animations, adding sound, using variables defined in the html document that contains the loader, and much more.
Check out the Flex Gallery
Perhaps of particular interest, an early version of a Tile-Based Game Engine. Fully working. There is of course room for improvement.
Introduced by AlwaysOn founder Tony Perkins, this panel discussion considers the new opportunities related to the social networking space. Panelists include moderator Charlene Li, Senior Analyst, Forrester Research; Travis Katz, SVP, MySpace International; Dustin Moskovitz, Co-Founder, Facebook; Rich Rosenblatt, CEO, Demand Media; Gina Bianchini, CEO, Ning; Karl Jacob, CEO, Wallop.
Podcast from the AlwaysOn Stanford Summit (57min)
Using 3D software to pimp up learning content
Date: Monday October 8, 2007Posted in: assets, courseware
I gave a try to Poser today, toke me about an hour to create these 3 versions of a character.
Don’t be impressed, that’s one of the characters provided with the app. To get there what you do is choose a figure from a menu, choose some haircut from a menu, choose some face expression in a menu, then choose some pose in a menu. Poser is a heft price tag, not really affordable for the hobbyist.
Other products exist in a cheaper range. Take Sketchup, for instance. 3D scenes with the possibility to drop in 3D static characters. 100% free for education!
If you don’t have an artisic drive, no worries. You can find a repository of free 3D content at the 3D warehouse. Alternatively, you can find professional 2D and 3D content at websites like content paradise or turbosquid.
There is a brand new industry that has emerged that tries to give hobbyists like me the tools and assets to produce impressive content without me having to follow a 3 year training in design. So they claim, at least. For my part, I found most useful to read books that explains basic principles of design and composition.
What could be interesting is if services where created like rent a coder that would let you develop learning content on the cheap. Rent a graphic designer to produce four to ten 3D avatar that you are then free to re-arrange the way you like, in infinite number of poses. Rent a learning designer to give you feedback on the (educational) quality of the learning content you have designed. Rent a creative writer to create a story to offer the common elements of a set of lessons. I dunno. I am curious to see if that kind of services, targeted to an education market will appear and how long it will take.
I started learning Flex not that long ago. It takes a bit of time to get familiar with the various conventions that caracterizes it (both mxml and actionscript 3.0). However, once you get the knack of it, it appears to be not too difficult to get things done.
Contribution of the day, a simplistic memory game.
The source can be obtained from the Flex Gallery
