Alexa rank under 40K!!!

About a year after being one of the top 50,000 sites in the world, the blog now is one of the 40,000 most visited sites in the web.

That’s an awesome result for a niche blog like this one, and obviously this motivates me to continue posting more and more stuff.

May 31, 2009 | Filed Under Blogging | 12 Comments 

Papervision3D: understanding Plane object – part 3

In this 3rd part we’ll discover two interesting features:

1) How to add a bitmap texture to a plane

2) How to set the camera to make Papervision3D units match pixels

Let’s start… the “units Vs pixels” issue can be a problem when we want a plane (or whatever) to have a precise size in pixels.

Settings the camera properly can solve the problem… this is the same script used in Papervision3D: understanding Plane object – part 2 with a couple of modifications: Read more

May 29, 2009 | Filed Under Actionscript 3, Flash | 9 Comments 

HiRoads developer Diary

If you remember 5 Commodore 64 games I would like to see ported in Flash, you know I am a great fan of Trailblazer, the game that inspired Tileball.

Today I am proud to introduce Filippo Bodei from Monkey Odyssey his Trailblazer-like game HiRoads.

Let’s read Flippo Bodei’s developer diary: Read more

May 27, 2009 | Filed Under Flash, Game design, Users contributions | 3 Comments 

3 years of blogging

Ladies, gentlemen and geeks, today the blog is three years old!!!!!

The blog had 77 posts in the first year, 187 in the second one and 237 this year for a total of 501 posts (and none of them is off-topic… no “got a new sofa” post in this blog).

More than 2,000,000 people visited the blog during the last year.

Now, let’s jump into the 4th year… I am open to any kind of suggestion.

And, last but not least…

THANK YOU

May 26, 2009 | Filed Under Blogging | 18 Comments 

Interesting jQuery effect

You know I am trying to use Gallery theme for triqui.com

Yesterday I played a bit with the theme and I completely screwed everything… something like “how to destroy a complex theme in a matter of minutes”.

Then I decided to code something similar by myself. That’s the only way I know to custom everything whenever I want.

One of the best features of Gallery theme is the slider effect, so I played a bit with jQuery until I achieved something similar.

I have to say I tried to make it with Scriptaculous but for these simple effects nothing beats jQuery in my opinion.

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<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
 
<html>
 
<head>
     <script type="text/javascript" src="jquery.js"></script>
     <script>
          $(document).ready(function(){
               $("#text").stop().fadeTo("slow",0);
               $("#container").mouseover(function(){
                    $("#block").stop().animate({"marginTop": "-30px"}, "fast","linear",function(){$("#text").stop().fadeTo("slow",1);});
               });
               $("#container").mouseout(function(){
                    $("#text").stop().fadeTo("slow",0);
                    $("#block").stop().animate({"marginTop": "0px"}, "fast");
               });
          });
     </script>
     <style type="text/css"> 
     #container{
          border:1px solid black;
          width:100px;
          height:100px;
          overflow:hidden;
     }
     #block{
          padding:0px
     }
     #text{
          font:normal 10px verdana;
     }
     </style>
</head>
 
<body>
     <div id = "container">
          <div id="block">
               <img src = "image.png">
               <div id ="text">
                    Not the classic "Lorem Ipsum"
               </div>
          </div>
     </div>
</body>
 
</html>

Line 6: importing jQuery library

Line 8: we can call it a listener for the document to be ready. When it’s ready, it executes the function

Line 9: fading the content of the text element to transparent. This way I am starting with a transparent text. Obviously I can set this from the css declaration, but I wanted to do it with jQuery because it’s cool :)

Line 10: this is a listener for the container element. Listens for the mouse to be over it.

Line 11: stopping previous animations and moving the block element (the image with the text) up by 25 pixels and once the animation finishes, fades in the text element. This replicates the Gallery rollover effect, and I can display text on multiple rows. The overlow:hidden style at line 24 gives the feeling the image is sliding like a garage door and not simply moving.

Do not use relative positioning in block element or it won’t work on IE7 (yet anohter IE7 bug…)

Line 13: listener for the mouse leaving the container element

Line 14: fading away text element and moving the block element to its original position

And this is the result. As you can see it’s pretty similar to the original Gallery effect.

Move the mouse on the image and see

Download the source code with jQuery compressed library.

May 25, 2009 | Filed Under Javascript | 2 Comments 

Papervision3D: understanding Plane object – part 2

Here I am to continue the tutorial about Papervision3D and planes. I suggest to take a look at the first part if you are a new reader.

This time I am going to explain the basic color material and a trick to make a plane have two materials, one per side.

Before you continue reading, let me say you can’t have a plane with two materials, one per side. So if you are planning to have a double sided plane, such as a gambling card, you’ll have to make a trick…

let me show you this code: Read more

May 22, 2009 | Filed Under Actionscript 3, Flash | 6 Comments 

Understanding AS3 and XML

When you are about to design a Flash application using dynamic content, such as an image gallery or a tile based game, XML is one of the best ways to handle external content because it’s very easy to create, understand, read, and update.

AS3 now uses a system called ECMAScript for XML (E4X) that will do most of the dirty job, allowing us to focus on the application we are goingo to write.

From Wikipedia: ECMAScript for XML (E4X) is a programming language extension that adds native XML support to ECMAScript (which includes ActionScript, DMDScript, JavaScript, JScript). The goal is to provide an alternative to DOM interfaces that uses a simpler syntax for accessing XML documents. It also offers a new way of making XML visible. Before the release of E4X, XML was always accessed at an object level. E4X instead treats XML as a primitive (like characters, integers, and booleans). This implies faster access, better support, and acceptance as a building block (data structure) of a program.

So let’s start playing with it, and let me show you the one of the worst XML you can find… a collection of Sokoban levels (guess why?) Read more

May 21, 2009 | Filed Under Actionscript 3, Flash | 4 Comments 

Understanding how Box2D manages boundaries

Sometimes you may need to determine if your Box2D object has fallen off the screen. This mostly happens in games, where you are going to build something and some pieces may fall down, but obviously you can extend the concept to any application you may write.

There are two “obvious” ways to do it:

1) Checking x and y coordinates of every object… this is the “old school” method… very easy to determine which object is in the visible area and which one got lost into the deep nowhere… but we live in “Web 2.0″ age, and this method is “Web 0.1 pre alpha”…

2) Using sensors placed in the right spots and check if an object touches them… in this case this means the object is outside the screen. Yuou can read more about this method at Erase Box: the tutorial post. Very cool solution, but not what I am going to explain.

3) Using the b2BoundaryListener class – Box2D has a class called b2BoundaryListener that handles objects outside the boundaries. Let’s see some code: Read more

May 18, 2009 | Filed Under Actionscript 3, Box2D, Flash | 13 Comments 

WordPress MochiAds plugin beta FIXED – UPGRADE

Loyal readers know I am developing a WordPress theme and plugin to run an arcade site using MochiAds games.

Released some months ago, it has been fixed when the mochi feed changed and while I was working to make it compatible with Gallery theme and add some new features, the feed changed again so I am updating the plugin again.

Now you can download the mochi.php file and replace the old one.

Refer to WordPress MochiAds plugin beta released for full installation and how-to.

Then, before you start feeding the blog again, you must select Mochi Table to update your table.

You also will notice two new menu options: Mochi Directory, that you should click to create a directory to save your own games, and the alpha version of Manage Game Files that will allow to download selected games from Mochi servers directly to your blog, earning money with the MochiAds publisher program.

Even if it’s just a beta, you can look at the script to see how I developed this function.

If you have some suggestions, let me know. I am working to the theme+plugin so any idea is welcome.

May 15, 2009 | Filed Under Php, WordPress | 10 Comments 

JiglibFlash 3D Physics engine for AS3

I want to introduce you to a 3D Physics engine for AS3.

Unlike engines like Box2D and the other ones listed in Flash physics engines galore, this engine adds the third dimension.

JiglibFlash

JiglibFlash is a open source Actionscript 3D Physics Engine. It’s ported by muzerly from the c++ open source physics engine jiglib and uses a part of jiglibX.

I still haven’t played with it, but it looks really interesting, give it a look.

May 13, 2009 | Filed Under Actionscript 3, Flash, Links | 3 Comments 

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