Tyler-Egeto-Design-Flash-Experiment-Blog

I am very happy to share my latest work titled “Tarot”. This project was created in a collaboration with Sara Cheung over the course of about 6 weeks. The goal was to create a short infographic informing the audience on the subject of tarot cards.

The process of building this piece was quite large, involving many steps from hand drawing illustrations, working with professional voice talent, to heavy 3D animation. It was a big process from start to finish, but in the end we created something we are both happy with.

Check out the video below.

Tarot Video

Welcome to the new look of my personal blog!

The new site was designed using a grid system, which is commonly used in print design, but not so common on the web. I am really happy with the result of using a grid for a web design, I feel it was a great way to design a site, and something I would do again. It resulted in a very clean and organized site.

I chose to go with a simpler design this time around, which was the result of sitting back and not designing, but rather thinking more about what the design should be. Who it should reflect. The end result is something I feel is a way better reflection of myself and my work, as well as, a better place for me to share my work.

Look forward to a couple of major posts in the coming weeks.

Here is another update. There is a very interesting visualization which pushes the combination of Ape Physics and Papervision3D a lot further. The challenge here was using the Ape Physics engine to control the 3D particles. This was confusing to approach because the Ape Engine only operates in a 2D space, which means I had to take that 2D data and convert it into 3D space.

The result is similar to my previous particle sound effector, but now in 3D. Using your mouse you can move through the particles as they fall. What the sound is controlling in this one is the number of particles created and the velocity in which they are thrown at. I have another version of this working where the particles change colour as they fall downwards, which is very cool, but it really bogs down the program to the point where it almost doesn’t run. I explored many ways around this, and had it working using a lot of different methods, (including re-writing part of the papervision3D engine), however the problem seems to lie in the way Papervision3D updates textures onto its 3D objects. I managed to trace the problem to the source, but there doesn’t seem to be a solution to it. I will have to continue exploring other methods of this.

Anyways check it out. Note that this build creates a few problems in the other visualizers, this will be fixed for the next version.

Flash-Visual-Sound-Papervision3D-Ape-Physics

Hello everyone. It’s been a couple of weeks since my last post, but that is because I have been extremely busy, not only on this project but others as well. But this is a major update to my visual sound application, and I am very excited to share it with you all.

The first thing you will notice is that the application it’s self has changed a lot. It will look and feel familiar, but it is now larger and has several more options for you to experiment with. The first thing is the ability to control the volume. At launch it is set to 50% volume. I recommend cranking this up all the way for the best experience possible, as the level will effect the visualizations. Secondly there is the ability to pan the music from speaker to speaker. This will also effect the visualizations, so try it out.

There is now also the inclusion of an about page, where you can find a little out about the program, and also a playlist, so you can change songs.

There is also a brand new visualization for you to watch! What is going on in this new visualizer is that the data I am extracting from the audio fies is determining the amount of objects created as well as the velocity that they begin at, or in other words, how high and far they fly. This also plays a factor in what happens when they collide with the other particles. If their velocity is more powerful, they will send the other particles flying further when they collide. This is done with the help of the Ape Physics engine.

The last change to note is the inclusion of colour this time around. You will notice on a couple of the visualizers that the music will also effect the color of the visualizer. The color is based on how far things are moved by the music, so it is also happening dynamically.

The program is very near finalization. There will be a few minor additions from here, and at least one more visualization. Be sure to check back for it, as this next visualizer is going to be good!

Check it out!

This is a very small update to the last version I posted. The way the movement was working with Ape Physics was bothering me. Something didn’t seem right, I knew what was going on, and thought I had solved, but still the animation was quite right. Well this morning in the shower it hit me. The solution was so small. A stupid mistake. 3 extra words.

Anyways, it’s working better now. The animation is a lot smoother. This is simply because it is allowing Ape Physics to do what it does best more often.

Check it out

This audio file is the best example of the difference. But in a real song it is quite noticeable.

This update adds sound to the Papervision3D and Ape Physics test. It works much like my previous Visual Sound experiments. One change in this build is that the sound is no longer split up based on left and right speakers, but grows based on an average of the two. The biggest challenge with this version was definitely working in a circle, which added a lot of math to the code.

basically what is going on here is that the frequency from the audio file is pushing the cubes away from the center. At the same time each cube acts like it is attached by a spring to the center (thanks to Ape Physics) and is constantly being pulled back in.

It creates an interesting visualization, So check it out.

See the new version here

Here is another big update. At this stage I have eliminated all of the 2D elements. Technically they are still there, you just can’t see them. This was a work around for one of the limitations with the Ape Physics system. Everything you see happening to the 3D cubes is actually happening to the flat 2D circles from the earlier examples. I am just reading what they do, and then reapplying the same movements onto the 3D. In addition ti that I have increased the number of objects in the scene to 12. It definitely makes things more interesting to look at.

The other really big change with this build is behind the scenes. This one saw just about an entire re-write of the program. This was for a couple of reasons, one being optimization, and the other is that now the program is a lot more dynamic. What that means is that if I want to change the number of objects to 20, I can do that by changing one number within the code. Before it would have meant adding approximately 15 lines of code to the application for each new object, as well as changes to other existing code. I can also now change the cube to a sphere or other shape just as easily.

The re-write also cut the lines of code down by about 40 percent, which means it is a lot easier to read now, which is always a good thing.

The next step will be hooking it up to my Visual Sound program. (Which is also getting a code re-write) So stay tuned!

Check out the new build here

There are a lot of technical changes in this build. In the process of converting the code so that each object would move outward on the mouse click, rather than one object moving to the mouse position, I discovered a major issue. But it need to be changed in order to get it working with the sound later on down the road. The problem was that the new version uses a fair bit of math in order to position the objects around the circle, and the coordinate system in flash, where the position [0,0] is at the far top left instead of the center, resulted in some math issues.

Basically I had to re-write the way it was working, but it is corrected now. The new movement on the objects is accurate to how they will move once the sound effector is added to it. In addition I started to incorporated the 3D camera system that will be in the final version as well. It is the same camera system that is in the latest build of the visual sound project.

The next step will be eliminating all of the 2D objects from this build and increasing the number of 3D objects to 12. Stay tuned for that update over the next couple of days.

Click here to see the latest update

Just a small update to build off of the previous post. I managed to get it to the next step and added the Papervision3D.

Check out the new version here