What happens in Amsterdam…

… doesn’t stay in Amsterdam. In fact it returns all the way to Kortrijk in a big bus with a lot of exhausted people. FITC was great. We had a great time in Amsterdam, although the weather was pretty damn cold.
It’s the second time I attend FITC Amsterdam and again I’m a very delighted I did. I met lots of new people, had a few very interesting conversations and I saw lots of cool shit (which is in fact why I am there).

Day 1

I thought it would be a good day to keep my habits going in Amsterdam, so I turned up 15 minutes late for the beginning of the first day. Happily I didn’t miss much new stuff. In fact, I didn’t miss a single thing.

Ever since I started going to conferences, they always began with the Adobe Keynote. Today would be no different. Adobe would come on stage and talk about their latest numbers and how fast the latest version of the Flash Player is spreading among the internet’s users. 2 years ago, I would listen with full attention and be amazed by all those details. However on monday: I couldn’t be bothered. It’s great how fast the player is spreading but it’s really not worth half of the duration of the Keynote…
The rest of the keynote would be about the Flash Player on mobile devices. I think it’s a great step forward and I’m looking forward to future development on that aspect of the platform but the guys on stage just couldn’t interest me. So I left the keynote early. Read the rest of this entry »

Bezier animation fun!

Last week I went to FITC in Amsterdam. It was great! I had such a great time. I met a lot of intresting people and although Amsterdam turned out to be quite expensive place, I really liked being there a few days.

During the conference I attended Joshua Davis‘ session which really inspired me. I’ve never seen Joshua Davis present, nor did I know his work. Let me be as crystal clear about this as I can be: The man is a freakin’ genius!
During his session he showed a few demo’s of bezier animated stuff. I felt like trying that myself, and this is what I came up with.

The basic concept is to create a bezier in Actionscript and animating movieclips using the bezier as its motion path.

• Basic principle (this is actually just a basic pentool (without the option of adding new points ))

The following versions use the same concept as this one, except instead of fixed anchor points, they all use random points defined in 2 planes. This makes a bit of variety possible allthough the main animation stays the same and that’s absolutely cool!

• Animation fun
• Animation fun V2

I added a few keyboard controls to give you some control of what is happening

• spacebar = show the handles
• r = clear the bitmap
• p = pause the animation
• n = randomize handles
• b = blur more

My FITC schedule

I’m attending FITC 09 in Amsterdam next monday. I thought it’d be good to start the day by making up my schedule for the conference.

Monday

• Keynote
• Aral Balkan – The future is so bright, I gotta wear shades
• Ralph Hauwert - Professionally Pushing Pixels (with Flash 10)
• Niko Stumpo – Unique Experiences
• Seb Lee-Delisle – Papervision3D, simplified
• Joshua Davis - New Works

Tuesday

• André Michelle – Boing Bumm Tschak!
• Keith Peters – Art from code
• Mario Klingemann – The Tinkerer’s box
• Jared Ficklin – Seeing sound
• James Eberhardt – Introduction to iPhone SDK for Flash Developers
• David Carson – The rules of graphic design

I really must admit, there were some hard choices… The FITC schedule is packed with intresting topics… I wonder if they’ll record the sessions and release them to the public afterwards.
If you happen to be going to one/some of the same sessions: feel free to let me know in the comments. I’d love to meet up!

Shootout at MAX Milan!

Kind of an intriguing title, isn’t it?
But you should take a look at this: the guys at Boulevart created a great Flash Lite shooter for MAX Milan. Make sure to check it out and give it a shot! The winners will be announced at Adobe MAX in Milan. Prizes seem to be quite interesting: There’s a ticket for FITC Toronto waiting for a new owner

More information here: http://labs.boulevart.be/index.php/max-milan-shooter/

FITC Toronto Mobile Guide

Thomas is deze morgen vertrokken naar Toronto (Canada) waar hij naar FITC gaat. Vlak voor zijn vertrek heeft hij zijn Mobile Guide op zijn blog gepost. Dit is een Flash Lite applicatie die je op je smartphone kunt installeren. Op die manier heb je allerlei handige informatie over de event bij je, op elk  moment op elke plaats.

De Mobile Guide heeft volgende onderdelen:

• Info over de event (site, grondleggers, etc)
• Agenda van de volledige event (dagen, uren, zalen, sprekers, onderwerp, soort sessie)
•  Plattegrond van het gebouw
• Twitter applicatie waarmee je je vrienden op het event kun laten weten waar je bent, en wat je doet!
• Party Guide: FITC is niet volledig als er geen bijhorende party’s zijn
• Sponsors

Het geheel ziet er ook deze keer gelikt uit.
Ga jij naar FITC Toronto? Download de Mobile Guide van Thomas hier.