On October 16^th four people from our technology department attended FlashPitt 2009, an interactive conference focusing on Flash. Only in its second year the conference is still young and growing quickly. All around, FlashPitt 2009 was very well planned and organized, the speakers were excellent and diverse, and it was a great time.

Each of us has written a summary of our favorite FlashPitt 2009 presentation. You may read them below and hopefully they will convince you to attend the conference next year.

Ben Rogers (Director, Technology and Solutions)

Julian Dolce spoke about “iPhone Development for Flash Developers” on the heels of Adobe’s announcement that CS5 would allow developers to compile ActionScript 3 projects to iPhone applications. The announcement came just a few days before FlashPitt, but Julian made his talk relevant by switching gears and researching what it means for Flash developers. Julian and his company Fuel Industries have already spent considerable time in the iPhone SDK to convert Flash applications to the platform manually, and his research on the new subject was impressive.

Julian’s best subject was anticipating Apple’s response. Apple has not officially responded to the CS5 announcement, and if they chose to respond negatively Apple could disrupt plans in several ways. First, the existing SDK signing method has not been available on a Windows platform. It is implied by the CS5 capability that Adobe reverse-engineered the procedure to enable signing on a Windows platform. Would Adobe change their algorithm or policies to thwart that? Second, the Apple team reviewing iPhone application submissions may choose to place CS5 compiled apps at the bottom of their priority list- especially if the market is flooded with new apps from the Adobe community. Finally, Julian’s own research pointed towards CS5 compiled apps being significantly larger than iPhone SDK equivalents – a problem that may cause Apple (or even AT&T) to have concerns in distribution. It will be interesting to see how Apple handles the announcement!

Julian also pointed out that developers are mistaken if they think they can open up every old Flash project and successfully get it running on the iPhone without modification. Flash developers will have to consider image and audio files, among other things, because of the differences in how they are processed and interpreted on the iPhone.

The presentation was informative and well put together on such short notice. Julian’s knowledge and experience on the subject really came through. Find out more about what he’s up to on his blog.

Doug DiFilippo (.NET Developer)

I really enjoyed Josh Sager’s discussion on integrating MIDI information into Flash. Josh had the idea of developing an animated character that would react to input from his keyboard. I think what I appreciated most was how Josh took us step-by-step through his development process. He started with the basics of researching, installing, and learning how to use a Red 5 Server. He then moved on to simple examples of receiving MIDI data and creating different visual displays based on pitch. Each example was a little more sophisticated than the next and before you knew it he was able to visually display pitch, pressure changes, and even recognize basic chords. Overall, it was a very unique application of Flash and I am glad to now be exposed to Red 5 Server as well. You can watch  the presentation for yourself here. Great job Josh!

Matt Manzo (Graphic Designer)

I found the most interesting creative work at the 2009 FlashPitt conference was not in one of the official “design track” sessions, but in Seb Lee-Delisle’s talk titled “Work/Play.” Seb covered everything from homemade 3D Flash render engines under 5k, interactive projected outdoor particle firework installations, Papervision driven 3D websites for the BBC, Stereoscopic motion detecting pong, ball tracking software for Major league Baseball, and more! Seb is constantly pushing the limits of what Flash is capable of, and leading his work in directions that most Flash developers would not think possible. Plus it looks good.  All of this complex code is beautifully wrapped in eye-popping graphics and illustrations, an item that many programmers overlook. The session had my mind reeling at the time, but more importantly has left the gears in my head turning long after the conference has ended.

Nicole Gagliardi (Multimedia Developer)

“Developing MMOs on the ActionScript Platform” by Max Kaufmann, from Silver Tree Media, was my favorite presentation. Throughout the presentation Max returned to a common theme of developing for what is and is not acceptable in gaming environments. Long loading times, for example, are not acceptable so users are often allowed to start playing a game before all the assets are loaded. This means clothes and character accessories or weapons might start popping onto a character during the first few seconds of the game, then background elements such as trees or mountains start to load.

Max also explained a scenario where it is acceptable to award a prize to multiple players. Due to the varying connection speeds of the players, one player may grab a prize, but before the information had time to reach the server and update all the other players’ virtual worlds a second player grabs the same prize. If the prize is relatively unimportant it is acceptable to award the prize to both players, rather than disappoint and annoy one player.

Developing MMO’s is extremely challenging and Max reminded us they do not need to be perfect. The most important thing is handling obstacles in a way that allows players to enjoy an environment they perceive as fun and fair. In fact, it’s even okay for the game to occasionally fail…. as long as it fails with humor!

Tags: FlashPitt

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