NOTE: this post was last updated with new links on March 9, 2011

New and truly revolutionary versions of Flash Player and Adobe AIR named “Incubator” (formerly Molehill APIs) were made available on Adobe Labs. To those who are unfamiliar with the new release, it features hardware accelerated 3D graphics support.

As Adobe puts it: “The Adobe® AIR® and Adobe Flash® Player Incubator is a technology preview program for more adventurous developers who are willing to experiment with Flash Platform runtime features that are in early development stages.”

New Incubator builds of Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR available here:
Download Incubator Builds and check Wiki

If you are keen on exploring 3D capabilities right away, you can use one of the pre-release versions of the popular 3D frameworks that also announced Incubator support. To see a list of all features that are included in the Incubator builds, check out this post.

3D frameworks supporting Molehill:

• Away3D 4.0 Alpha
• Flare3D 2.0
• Aerys Minko
• Sophie 3D
• CopperCube 2.5
• Zest3D
• Alternativa 8 (available soon)

Here are some LIVE demos:

(make sure you have Flash Player Incubator installed first)

Added on March 9:

• Grid Map Generator
• AGAL Demo (cool shape morph)
• Snowboard Demo
• DeltaStrike
• Fractal Tree Generator
• Simple Game Physics Example (M2D)

Added on March 8:

• Flickr Coverflow
• Spiral Carousel
• Full Quake 3 game
• Sofa (Sophie3D)
• Fiat 500 (Sophie3D)
• Fractal Sponge
• Normal Map Shader
• Animated Creatures
• Bloom Demo
• Molecule Viewer(article + demo)

Added on Feb 27:

• Quake 3
• Zombie Tycoon
• MAX Racer Demo Alternativa 8 (150MB)
• 40k polygon terrain demo
• Shallow Water Manipulation
• Hi-res Head Model (OBJ)
• Duck Demo
• MD5 Animated Model Demo
• Environment map test
• Animation blend test
• Environment map diffuse test
• 2D performance demo: with molehill and without
• Treasure Dungeon
• How fast is molehill (article and demos)
• JigLib Physics Demos (Away 4.0) – demo1, demo2, demo3, demo4, demo5
• Plane and triangle by Ryan Speets (demo + source)
• Ambiera CopperCube Backyard Demo
• Radiolarian
• Starfish
• 500 Particles
• Away3D + JigLib
• Voxel Renderer

Videos (only new stuff):

• Tanki Online 2.0 Trailer (Molehill)
• See What Flash Can do with the Molehill 3D API

Just Source Code:

• Molehill Spinning Cube on Gist

Tutorials and Articles:

• Digging more into the Molehill APIs by Thibault Imbert
• Molehill from scratch with Adobe Flash CS5
• Simple 2D Molehill Example
• 2D Sprite Sheets with Molehill by Tinic Uro (demo + source)
• How fast is molehill (article and demos)
• Molehill 3D APIs article by SwfGeek
• Changing the web, again article by Thibault Imbert
• Using FTD and Away3D 4.0 by George Profenza
• Quickstart for Molehill and Away3D by John Lindquist
• Simple Bunnyhill Demos (article and sources)
• Per-Polygon Distance Fog tutorial by Pixelante
• Per-Vertex Distance Fog tutorial by Pixelante
• Fast Vertex Lighting tutorial by Pixelante
• Demystifying Molehill – Part 1 – good read
• Using Flash 3D API in haXe
• Converting wii game to Molehill (Video Interview With Mandreel)
• Convert C++ application to Molehill using Mandreel
• Molehill Getting Started – great article, recommended
• AGALMiniAssembler Primer
• AGAL basics

Related News:

• Unity3D announces support for publishing to Flash Player
• GameBuilder Studio announces Molehill support
• JigLib adds Away3D 4.0 (Molehill) support
• HxSL – haXe Shader Language (announcement and manual)

Now, let’s change the web!
Follow me on twitter @pauliusuza for more news and updates on #flash and #molehill

Day one of Adobe MAX 2010 announcements brought some pretty amazing things, and the conference is just getting started!

3D support in Flash

First of, the most important announcement in my mind, full 3D support in Flash Player. While there’s no details about the technology itself, we have seen Kevin Lynch demo a 3D racing game which looked nowhere far from stunning and the processor was hovering around 0-1% of CPU. This is HUGE! With the current adoption rate of Flash Player (73% in 3 months) it will be the most popular 3D gaming platform once released to the wild, surpassing Unity3D and other smaller competitors in no time.

Game Controller Support

This is epic as well – Kevin Lynch demoed controlling a game running inside a browser using mouse and then switching to a steering wheel and a PS3/XBOX type controller. By itself it means that Flash will finally be able to use a whole new range of game controller devices. However I think that this might be a hint to a whole bigger announcement Adobe could make in the next few days – PS3 support? Xbox? Who knows…

AIR for Android and TVs

AIR for Android SDK is now publicly available for download. Any developer building an app in AIR can now package their app for sale in the Android Market. Also it is now possible to build an app for Google TV, which runs Android. Adobe blog has more info.

Stage Video

Native performance for video running inside Flash on tabled devices, mobiles and desktop. Again, awesome!

You can experience MAX conference streaming live using new Flash Player P2P technology:
http://max.adobe.com/online/

Let’s see what day 2 of MAX 2010 brings us!

Today we have released the second version of our award winning puzzle – Alchemist 2 and this time it’s for Google Android platform and it’s build using Adobe AIR 2.5 for Android.

Alchemist 2 features a lot of improvements over it’s predecessor, including a completely new gameplay engine, new gorgeous graphics, adaptive AI and unlockable achievements.

Buy Now! | Get FREE DEMO

At this year’s Mobile World Congress 2010 in Barcelona Adobe Systems Inc. officially announced the much anticipated Adobe AIR for Smartphones and Mobile Devices. Using Adobe AIR, developers and designers will be able to build standalone applications to target devices running the Google Android operating system.

Adobe’s own Michael Chou was kind to feature our “Alchemist” game in their technology announcement post which you can see here.

We at InRuntime Ltd. have been working closely with Adobe for the last couple of weeks to deliver our new games across a range of new platforms and devices using pre-release and lab versions of Adobe CS5 family products. As a result of that “Alchemist” game is currently available in three formats:

• Adobe Flash 10.1 version for web (optimized for mobile) – play for free
• Native app for iPhone and iPod Touch – info | purchase
• Adobe AIR Mobile for Google Android (technology preview)

If you are attending MWC 2010 this year, make sure to stop by Adobe’s booth at Stand 1D45 in Hall 1 and see “Alchemist” running on a wide range of devices!

During the next few weeks I will be posting information on our company website and this blog about cross-device and cross-platform development using the exciting new tools available in Adobe Creative Suite 5 (CS5). Please follow us on Twitter @inruntime and @pauliusuza to get the latest updates!

Thanks!

AS3 Scale9 Bitmap is helper class that lets you create scale9 sprites with bitmap data fill – originally this was not possible in Flash 9. The helper class creates a “fake” scale 9 sprite containing 9 shapes that scale according to user-defined scaling matrix. Extremely useful for user interface work (creating buttons, scalable UI elements etc.).

Read Documentation
Download AS3 Scale9 Bitmap (5454)

Demo:

Scale9SimpleStateButton (top left), Scale9SimpleBitmapSprite (top right) and original skin files (bottom row)

On an extremely short notice (5 hours) me and my team at ZenTeam.gr have made it possible to watch MTV EMA 2008 awards live on MTV.gr website and through AIR application installable from the frontpage. The video feed is live now and streaming Perez Hilton directly from the EMA Red Carpet as we wait for the main event

ENJOY THE EMA 2008 SHOW!

For your convenience the video feed is served through Akamai CDN so the connection and sound quality should be top-notch wherever you are.

Once in a while in my business there’s a customer who thinks he is the greatest thing that happened to me and then disappears. Some of them go silently – just stop answering emails when you send them the source code (lesson learned). For some of them it’s enough to get the demo file to be able decompile it (lesson learned too). Some of them go away loudly citing Aristotle, calling names and naming matters of principle.

Here are some tips to avoid unfortunate problems while doing freelance work:

No rocket science

As a service provider you have to give away the completed product ONLY after the full payment has been made, or at least such guarantees are in place (such as Escrow process). If you don’t have such guarantees – you can be easily ripped off and not paid for your work.

Client’s size or his reputation should not be a factor for trust. Especially if you are an in-house developer, ask yourself: why would a multinational company with years of reputation and millions in cash would give the development of it’s most anticipated online product to your hands? Why do they care to bargain until the price gets ridiculously low?

Trust can be gained through depositing funds in Escrow and releasing them shortly after adequate project steps have been finalized, this will help both sides to feel that the project is going well and no one is trying to fool anyone. If you don’t use Escrow for your projects, make sure that you at least ask for an advance payment that should cover your basic development costs. The worst thing that could happen is to spend weeks on something that will not be published online at all. Even if you get ripped of and your source code get’s decompiled and reworked, you still have the benefit of claiming copyright rights to the final published work and putting it in your portfolio.

Budget and Timeline

Project’s time line and budget CAN and often DO change. Communicate any technical problems you encounter as soon as possible to your client and ask for extension of development timeline / budget if it is necessary, especially if you are working on an hourly basis – every minute you delay will cost you money.

If the project is large it is hard to keep track of every little detail, shift of deadline or little change in the specifications. So it’s very good if you communicate with your clients through an online tool such as Basecamp, then you can easily keep track of the changes to the project and adjust the budget / timeline accordingly.

Communication

Communicate professionally without getting into personal details with the client and keeping your tone official. Always remember – this is just business, there’s deadline, requirements and budget – nothing else nothing more. Use email as much as possible, if a problem occurs it helps to keep the emotions down to minimum and pick your words carefully. Respect the client and never talk with him in a disrespectful manner, if it happens that you are on the verge of a big conflict – take a walk to cool down, think how you can solve the problem and finish your project without escalating the tension.

Things To Avoid

• Avoid clients that get too personal too early. Calling you “buddy”, promising you fame and fortune, a new 3G iPhone, shares in their business or a vacation with them in the Caribbean.
• Avoid people who undermine your professionalism by citing your age, race or religion. It is discriminatory and should not be tolerated. In my current company the greatest talent is 18-24 years old, most of them are better than me in one discipline or another.
• Avoid projects that are below your budget requirements, in case the project goes flop the advance payment will not be enough to cover your basic development costs.

That’s about it. I am sure that learning from someone else mistakes is better than learning from your own.

And I wish best of luck to you all in freelancing!
Paul

Long time since I wrote my last decent post and I think it is just the right moment for change!

During these few months a lot has happened in my life, new job, new industry, new experiences – both good and bad. It was all overwhelming for me however I felt that I was lacking something. While trying to solve a million of daily tasks and work related problems in my head I forgot my best friend – Flash.

So I’ve made some adjustments to my schedule and since beginning of this month I’m officially a freelancer (again), woohoo!

To strengthen my position and to get you, dear readers, interested in what I do, I’ve put together a simple portfolio website which will be constantly upgraded and updated with new additions during the next 6 of months. Showcase site uses Papervision3D as it’s main rendering engine and also features a very cool custom made search engine which in theory could handle 1.000.000 items without hanging the Flash Player!

No more taking. Ladies and gentlemen – click away: http://www.uza.lt/showcase, besides this link the showcase should be accessible via a dedicated link in the top menu.

And as always, don’t forget to leave feedback (bad or good)!

Today (February 25, 2008) Adobe has finally released AIR 1.0 into the wild.

It has been a wonderful experience to see this technology mature in Adobe’s Apollo pre-release program and to take active part in this process. I want to congratulate the Adobe AIR team and all pre-release program members for their great work and valuable input into finally getting AIR through the door! Woohoo!

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I want to take a moment and talk about Flash and and what You can do with it. This is a mini-guide for people who are looking into Flash as their primary platform but have not made up their mind yet.

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