60fps scrolling using Starling

I really do love the simplicity of one-touch mobile games. They’re just so much more accessible to a casual audience compared to modern console games that typically require you to mash a thousand different buttons. However, their apparent simplicity may mislead many to think that such games are easy to make. They’re actually anything but. […]

Launch Image Bug on Landscape iPad Apps

I had a conversation with interactive designer Chris Gannon the other day regarding a screen flicker he’d noticed when his iPad app was transitioning from its launch image to the first frame of its SWF. Of course the transition between the two should actually be seamless but Chris had noticed that an intermediate black screen […]

Flash Roadmap Whitepaper

Adobe released its eagerly anticipated whitepaper outlining the future direction of Flash and AIR. With the desktop Flash Player fighting a losing battle against HTML5, and the mobile player dead, it’s no real surprise that Adobe has decided to focus on gaming and the deployment of premium video. Personally I think this is a good […]

Kinect Native Extension for AIR

My brother was telling me how much fun he’d had over the weekend playing with a Microsoft’s Kinect he’d borrowed from a friend. It prompted me to dig out a blog post I’d seen not too long ago showing Kinect integration within Adobe AIR. The post was by Adobe Platform Evangelist Serge Jespers, and showed […]

Default Deployment Settings in Flash Pro CS5.5

If you’re working your way through the code samples provided with Flash iOS Apps Cookbook then you may receive the following error when trying to publish each of the FLAs: It seems that when working with FLA files that were authored by someone else, your own copy of Flash Professional won’t try to use the […]

Angry Birds on Facebook

Rovio’s smash hit, Angry Birds, is now available on Facebook thanks to Flash Player 11 and the Starling framework. For those who don’t know, Starling is built on top of Adobe’s Stage3D API and provides hardware accelerate 2D graphics via the GPU. If you take a look at the game’s credits screen you’ll see Starling […]

Minko ShaderLab

Take a look at the video below. Minko ShaderLab is an amazing web application that provides a visual programming environment for creating, testing, and sharing shaders. Written using Flex, it’s for anyone with a basic knoweldge of shader basics and 3D maths, and looks very easy to use. It’s so powerful that you can build […]

Flash iOS Apps Cookbook

I’m delighted to announce that my book, Flash iOS Apps Cookbook, has been published and is available in paperback and various eBook formats including Kindle. Written for both beginners and seasoned developers with a working knowledge of ActionScript 3.0 and Flash Professional, the book provides the recipes required to build native iOS apps using the […]

Creating a Deathmatch

It really does amaze me what’s possible with UDK without the need for any scripting. I thought I’d try my hand at creating my first deathmatch, and it really wasn’t that difficult to get something up and running. My map was fairly simple, consisting of three rooms connected by two corridors, but it still provided […]

More Unreal Engine Fun

Bro: Hey is that Crysis? Me: Yeah why? Bro: It still looks pretty awesome. Look at the foliage density! Me: Ha! Just kidding, I created it using UDK. Bro: Wow! You totally had me fooled. You rock! Me: I know. Yup, I finally found some time to mess around with UDK again and decided to […]