ActionScript Hero Interview
Recently I had the pleasure to get interviewed by Peter Elst - it looks like you can read my babblings on aSH now.

...and vote for my SXSW session, too please!
After reading Aral's post I realized that I totally forgot to ask you for your support, too. Just like him I also had submitted a session proposal for the South by Southwest Interactive conference 2009. Mine is called Fly, Peacock, Fly: Generative Visuals Without a Line Of Code and will be about Peacock the visual laboratory I'm developing for Aviary. So if you have got 3 minutes to spare it would be great if you first registered a voting account here (a step which you might not need since you have already voted for Aral): http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/users/register (this account is only

Firefox 3: Go Away, Location Bar
I've recently upgraded to Firefox 3 only to notice an ugly new security feature: in order to protect us all from nasty phishers the fine mozilla developers decided that it is for our all best if the location bar cannot be hidden anymore when a website opens up a new window via Javascript's window.open() method. Well, thank you very much guys for so much care - only, I don't like that. Actually I find it totally annoying and patronizing. So what can be done about it? Fortunately as a self-responsible grown-up you can override the default behaviour in the Firefox

Interview on Create or Die
Recently I was interviewed by Frank Reitberger about generative art, Aviary and Flash in general and it looks like the article (which is in German) is now online on Create or Die.

Optimizing Perlin Noise
Via todays post on nodename about Perlin Clouds and Frocessing I came across Ron Valstar’s AS3 version of Ken Perlin's Improved Noise reference implementation which I must have missed last year. As Ron mentions the AS3 code runs way slower than the native perlinNoise() method that Flash's BitmapData class offers, but on the other hand his class is true to the original version and offers real 3D Perlin Noise and the possibility to control the falloff factor. So the reason for my belated post now is that I couldn't help noticing several opportunities to optimize the code. As usual optimizing

ColorMatrix Class for AS3
Okay - after I just received the nth email of someone who offered to convert my AS2 ColorMatrix class to AS3 I finally have to get out this post: Of course I have created an AS3 version of it a long time ago, I just didn't find the time to document it or create a demo for it. Anyways in order to save all those helpful people out there any more unnecessary work here is the barebones com.quasimondo.geom.ColorMatrix Version 2.1 for you to download - it's released under MIT License. Compared to the AS2 version I have added several new

How to draw anything into a BitmapData properly
Looks like Eric has a little problem with getting a sprite with an non 0/0 registration point correctly drawn into a BitmapData object. Here's help. The problem is that by default the draw() command works in such a way that the registration point will line up with the upper left corner of the bitmapData. So what has to be done is to offset the sprite by the amount it's off from that point using the second argument which is a drawing matrix. You can retrieve a clips "real" registration point by using the getBounds() method. Feed the negative of the

Free Flash Conference Anybody (yes, as in free beer)?
Yes, you read correctly. Free. Multi-Mania 08 is a one day, five(!) track Flash + multimedia conference taking place in the beautiful small town Kortrijk, Belgium on Friday, May 23rd 2008. Koen De Weggheleire has once more managed to gather a hot lineup of more than 30 top-notch presenters - among them Aral Balkan, Peter Elst, Dave Schroeder, Ralph Hauwert, Rob Chiu and Hoss Gifford, just to name a few. I, too, have the big pleasure to speak there for the second year in a row and I'm really looking forward to it, especially after Koen told me that my

Next big thing: Source Binder
Yesterday at the 10th flashconference in Stuttgart I was amongst the lucky ones who could witness the first public presentation of Source Binder by Visual Minds from Hungary and I can say that I was deeply impressed. What is Source Binder? In short: it is a lightweight framework for node based editing built in Flash. Oh yes - somehow it looks like this is the year of the node for Flash. Node based editing means that instead of writing code you assemble a set of building blocks each with a specialized functionality on a canvas and "draw" the control flow

Flash Nostalgia: 5K PONG
Searching for an old experiment of mine I just rediscovered a piece from 2001/2002 which I thought I had lost - it's a implementation of PONG in Flash 5 with a file size of 5K. Back then it was an submission for the 5K award - a site which featured some amazing entries all under 5K which is unfortunately not online anymore. There have been some impressive examples in recent time of PONG made in 510 bytes or even in 349 bytes - so 5k is not really world record anymore. On the other hand - this file is from

The Pixel Whisperer at FITC
I am very excited that once more I have the honor to talk at this year's FITC conference in Toronto. Looking at the program I can see that the next days will not allow for a lot of sleep - Shawn Pucknell has once again invited an outstanding mixture of the best designers and creative developers out there. I'm looking forward to meeting lots of friends and of course to the legendary great parties at night - oh my and I will finally get to drink a Ceasar again! In case I make it to my talk The Pixel Whisperer

The Dirty Secrets of Premultiplied Alpha
Okay, I'm exaggerating. Several years after BitmapData was introduced to the Flash player it's not really a secret anymore that Flash uses a feature called premultiplied alpha when it stores transparent pixels. But it is a bit dirty after all. In case you want to skip the following nerd talk you can check out the demo right away - but don't cry if you don't understand what it is telling you. "Premultiplied" alpha means that the alpha information of a pixel is not only stored in the alpha channel itself, but it is already "multiplied" into the red, green and

Thank you Toca Me!
The Toca Me conference that took place this saturday in my hometown Munich was a blast. And it felt a very big honor for me to be among such an outstanding group of presenters. My personal highlights were Andy Cameron who gave me a lot of new ideas in his talk and also afterwards and James Patterson who's sicko genius mind and talent doesn't cease to impress me. Seeing Andreas Müller's beautiful installation "Hana" next to mine made me feel a bit like a caveman rubbing sticks together, but hey - Anaskop 1 has now been running for 2 days

See Peacock in Action
If you wonder why I haven't posted anything during the last months it's because I'm involved with some very exciting projects which unfortunately take all my attention so the blog currently suffers quite severely. But at least the time has come that I can show you one of the objects of my affection and since the beta invites are going out now you even might get the chance to try it yourself. Here is Peacock (together with Phoenix) in action: Peacock comes disguised as a "Pattern Generator" but in reality it's an experimental visual playground. I prefer to call it

John, You Rock!
When there is one thing I really fear than it's high expectations. Since the more you expect something to become the best and the greatest the bigger will be your disappointment when reality cannot deliver. So I must admit that I saw all the upfront excitement everywhere about Flash on the Beach with a bit of sorrow. The more happy I am now to say that my fears were totally unneccesary. No question - Flash on the Beach 2007 was absolutely fabulous and has surpassed all my expectations. If I had to live on a desert island and could