AS3 Physics Engines

Whilst looking for solutions to a roulette themed problem I found a great review of the available AS3 physics engines available here

The rag dol example offers fantastic kinetic realism.

Flash Development for the iPhone finally

So we can finally develop apps using Flash. The ability to output .ipa files straight from CS5 is amazing news! My head is buzzing with ideas about what kind of games, or apps I can now develop. The app store is awash with tosh that people seam to be making a killing from, I imagine there will be an almighty flood of apps to accompany them very soon.

Some lucky developers have obviously got their hands on some pre releases of CS5 as there are already 8 or so apps in the appStore developed using AS3 and published to apps.

The slider mobile framework looks very promising too. Looks like it's going to be a long wait until the beta comes out (Early November)

Answers & Ale

I just watched Lee Brimelow's JUST ASK US session and was pleased to hear that multi-toutch support will be coming to air soon. Exciting stuff! Finally, we'll be able to create really slick interfaces like the ones built for movies such as minority report and Star trek. Well, maybe not that slick but great news nevertheless.

Other highlights from the video included:

• Flashplayer 10 beta coming later this year. Mobile platforms to support include Google Android, Nokia Symbian, Windows Mobile, Palm. Apple, pull your finger out.
• Future version of AIR to support HTML 5.
• The fact that Newky Brown gets a shout.

ASDoc for Flash please?

So I know Flash Builder 4 ships with ASDoc integrated but the support really isn't complete as yet. The internet is scattered with people having build issues and the tool is still only run through the command line. Sure, there are some decent AIR apps that will generate the correct bash script to run but I really think generation of documentation should be made more user friendly.

I'm in the process of standardising all code. Most of the projects I work with are built using flash, unfortunatley ASDoc runs into errors when the .as files reference library generated classes and I really don't want to create dozens of .swc files just so ASDoc can reference them.

This amnoungst other issues has led me towards Visdoc. Just a shame the documentation is as ugly as sin. I think I'm going to have a crack as styling it to mirror ASDoc.

Actionscript Errors Repository

Actionscripterrors.com is an awesome little repository site that enables you to search for, yep you guessed it actionscript errors. I think this is a great resource - sometimes the Adobe appendices could be more helpful. The site is still in beta but seams to work well. It contains full descriptions of all the Flash warnings too!

Thanks to Matt Przybylski over at Evolve for pointing this site out.

Ajar Productions

Ajar Productions keep impressing me with their superb array of Flash CS4 extensions. All free, all excellent. They have already saved me heaps of time as when I've been animating and should be used by anyone who ever does any timeline animation.

http://ajarproductions.com/blog/flash-extensions/

My favourite, by far is definitely the motion sketch tool. Check it out!

Actionscript 3.0 Facebook Library

If you didnt already know, Adobe have recently announced that they have taken control over an open source library project by flash developer, Jason Crist. Facebook applications can target literally millions of users and engage them in exciting social ways. In an effort to increase brand awareness, I've been researching the ActionScript Facebook Library and deciding if it's something that the company I'm working for can use.

The potential that it offers really are great, but only in the right scenario. I've been searching for ways of integrating the technology with the existing systems and thinking up ways to create new ones... I've come up with some good solutions but I can't help but feel I'm suggesting the integration of chance for the sake of change!