Flash-fx Blog

2011-10-10T10:39:00.002+01:00

More for my future reference but if trying to set up the flash player debug version on chrome then you have to know a couple of things. Firstly chrome uses its own integrated flash player which attempts to keep up to date with the latest version. Secondly if this is switched off then it will look on the system for a flash player to use.
So.. you need to disable the chrome application flash player and then grab and install a version of the flash debug player you need from the adobe site. Once done you can check the version in use by going here.

Proper instructions are on the adobe site on this page:
http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/839/cpsid_83950.html

Drupal baby

2010-12-09T14:56:00.004Z

I'm probably going to be posting a fair bit about drupal for the forseeable future as I am porting my new company's website over to it.
Drupal is a Content Management System (CMS) which allows you to do just that, manage all your website content in an easy way. It is written in PHP and has been designed to be extremely expandable - as outlined by the number of add-on modules that can be plugged into it.
Many years ago I worked on replacing an aging Intranet system with Plone, a Python based CMS which was quite advanced at the time. I can see lots of similarities between the two CMS systems and this will help as time goes by.

First up to note with Drupal is the module Custom Breadcrumbs.
Breadcrumbs on a website are the little categorised navigation links that you usually see somewhere at the top of the page. They basically form a breadcrumb from your starting location on the website, into where the actual useful content is located.
One of my major requirements in the current project is to have a breadcrumb navigation path that mirrors the actual url used. So for example the address I have is 'mysite.com/category/subcategory/posting'. I want to be able to map the breadcrumb to show 'Home -> Category -> Subcategory -> Posting'. This is entirely possible with Custom Breadcrumbs until you start playing with Views. As per the Views module page description: The Views module provides a flexible method for Drupal site designers to control how lists and tables of content are presented.

The current development version of Custom Breadcrumbs has some support for working with Views but this does not appear to be very easy to understand or implement in ways that you might expect.

I have been through various ways of mapping the breadcrumb to the url categories but in the end plumped for a little way which invloves rewriting the breadcrumb content when looking at certain types of views. See http://www.danielhanold.com/story/views-breadcrumbs-using-arguments for a better rundown.

Another issue that cropped up when using Views is when you have multiple Views on a page and both are using pagination (showing 'next' and 'back' if there are more items than can be displayed on the page). As a default each view will pick up when 'Next' is clicked and all of the views will move to the next page. Not ideal.
Hidden inside each View that you have created will be the 'Use pager' option in the Basic settings. This turns on and off whether the View will paginate or not but when setting it you need to be aware of an option called 'Pager element'. This defaults to 0 and is picked up by all Views on the current page. To make sure that only individual Views move through their own pagers on one page you need to give them a unique number. Doing this will mean that each paginates as expected.

Si

2008-08-14T18:31:00.002+01:00

Not much going on at the minute, I'm back in the world of work doing IT contracting on some cool stuff over at a company in Manchester.
At some point I'm hoping to continue with the bristol blenheim model and maybe move onto a spitfire (with help from the haynes spitfire manual) :)

Si

new 3D work...

2008-04-28T01:25:00.002+01:00

Got a distinction for my Masters degree - woohoo!
I'm busy DIY'ing the house at the minute but get time every now and again to work on a technical high resolution model of a bristol blenheim bomber from World War 2.
Its going quite well with a few areas more to model (it takes ages to complete each area as virtually all my reference information is gleaned from photos found on the internet).
Click the little image to the right to view a screengrab of the cockpit and engine area. Once modelled it will be textured and probably used in some animation ideas I have.

Course finished :o)

2008-03-14T14:24:00.002Z

Woohoo, I've finally finished my Masters Degree!
Its been a fun if extremely busy time working on the degree but definitely worth it. Time for a little relaxation before getting together a showreel and looking for a job.

In the meantime here are the tutorial videos I've created to demo my bTraffic tool. I'm toying with the idea of modifying bFlocking, my other animation tool, to simulate pedestrians and then add that together with bTraffic. Following on from that is another idea that I'm looking into which would encompass both bTraffic and bFlocking. More on that as it develops.

more bTraffic...

2008-02-25T21:46:00.002Z

Here is another update on the bTraffic tool, showing how easy it is to set up a road with a few different vehicle types.

and another one showing 2 roads that have been generated by bTraffic, a 6 lane motorway on the left and a 3 lane road at the front right (just uploaded so will show soon).

more traffic...

2008-02-19T21:25:00.002Z

Well I'm coming towards the end of the Uni course at Leeds Met and am putting some final touches to my bTraffic animation tool. Below are two highres samples of traffic flow. The first simply shows a fairly heavily used road with numerous highres vehicles moving along.

The second shows an earlier version using a primitive movement between lanes. That has recently changed and an ease in/ease out movement is now moving vehicles nice and smoothly. An updated video showing the effect will be posted up soon.

traffic congestion...

2008-01-17T15:03:00.000Z

Here is an update to the congestion element of the tool. You can drag one or many locators onto the road and position them on lanes to restrict traffic flow. For this example I added a couple of boxes as a simulated accident that the traffic tries to get around.

bTraffic opposing roads...

2008-01-06T21:03:00.000Z

Here's a bTraffic update on a few bits I added just before xmas and just after new year.
This version now has opposing road generation so you can set up a motorway/freeway quickly and easily. You can now also change the lane widths and specify a separation value between the roads. It's using the same particle emitter to fuel each road but it will later let you set the weighting of how busy each is.

bTraffic - multiple vehicle type selector...

2007-12-18T19:33:00.000Z

I've finally got back to working on bTraffic, my traffic animation tool. The latest update includes the addition of vehicle types. What this means is that you can easily add multiple vehicles to the animation, such as models of trucks, cars, bikes etc just with a simple click of a button. Next up is to allow a weighting to the traffic so that you can have some simulations heavily laden with trucks whereas other simulations might be sparsely populated with traffic and only consist of cars.
Plenty more to do...

Here's an example of the generation of a road and the assignment of 3 different vehicles to the simulation:

virtually free virtual reality...

2007-12-02T11:40:00.000Z

I've recently got back into some games I played a few years ago - Live for Speed 'LFS' for short (racing game) and IL2 Sturmovik (WW2 Flying). Each are great games and LFS even lets you play the demo online where there are hundreds of other demo players all wanting to race.
Anyways while getting back into IL2 I found that the hat view method of looking around the screen while flying was a bit restrictive and started searching for other methods. Two that I found were TrackIR and Freetrack. Both use the same idea of using infra-red or leds attached to your head (e.g, on a cap) and tracking the positions using standard webcam technology. From the captured information algorithms are run to determine whereabouts your head position is in 3D space and then this is transferred to the game that you are playing (if it supports it).
TrackIR is a commercial product including everything you need to start out of the box - an infra-red webcam, software and head markers but will set you back a fair amount of money. Seeing as I didnt want to fork out too much money I decided to have a go at Freetrack - the free one.
Freetrack is the actual software that takes your webcam information and figures out your current head position.
If going with Freetrack you will need the software, a webcam, a cap, some leds, some resistors, a bit of wire, a battery pack and some batteries and an old metal coathanger to make the framework that the leds sit on. It's probably advisable to get a switch as well so you dont have to keep taking the batteries out when you're not using it. So for the cost of a webcam (£20) and the other bits (a few pounds) I have a virtual reality type system :o)

Here's an in game example of someone using Freetrack in IL2:

and here's an example of using it in LFS

research paper...

2007-11-21T21:38:00.000Z

Thought I'd post up a recent research paper I wrote for my Masters course. It's entitled 'Group Behavioural Animation Tools' and looks into using existing and modifications of existing theories to create tools specifically for computer animators.
Have a read and let me know what you think ;)
Group Behavioural Animation Tools - Simon Mann

space navigator annoyance...

2007-11-09T13:01:00.001Z

I've been using a space navigator for a while now and really like how you can move around the viewport in Maya or 3ds Max without having to use the mouse.
The only problem in Maya is that whenever you install or update the latest drivers it defaults your current Maya shelf to be the 3dconnexion tool shelf - very annoying.
To get around this you need to hunt down and edit a file called MagellanStartup.mel that is located where ever you installed Maya (e.g, C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Maya\scripts\startup). Once you have found it search for the following line in the file 'C3DxShelfTab();' (without quotes) and comment it out by putting two forward slashes just before it like so: '// C3DxShelfTab();' (again without quotes). Now start Maya again and you should be presented with your old shelf preferences as before.

2D illustrations...

2007-11-05T22:37:00.000Z

I've just updated my 2D section with a few older illustrations that coincide with the 'warcones' game I made a while back. The idea was to make a few different themed posters and resulted in a war, horror and family oriented style for each. I also made a science fiction one but that was a combination of 2D and 3D so it was added a while ago to the 3D section.
Have a great bonfire night :o)

maxscripting...

2007-10-30T23:17:00.000Z

I had a go at Maxscript for the first time today. A group project at Uni required some automation of .obj importing and exporting so I sat down and started learning the language. The help in Max is pretty similar to Maya and so it was quite easy to pick up and do the necessaries. Here is the simple script for anyone who is interested import export .obj script
One or two interesting things to note is that running multi-line code in the Maxscript listener doesnt work. It took a while to figure that out and so I moved it all into an actual Maxscript and things started working fine. Another is the use of normal brackets () for loop statements and enclosing functions, a little strange when you've been using curly braces {} for years (PHP etc) and have just started learning not to use them as with Python.
All in all it looks a pretty goof thing to learn alongside Mel/Python and should be of value in the future :o)

bTraffic progress

2007-10-27T14:18:00.000+01:00

I'm currently working on a particle based Maya animation tool called bTraffic.
What this allows an animator to do is to draw a series of lines in Maya and auto-generate traffic that drive along the lanes.
Further updates will add in extra functionality such as inner lane changing, exit road options, density controls and replacement of cubes with custom models.
Click the image to see some demo videos.

barcamp leeds...

2007-10-24T13:13:00.000+01:00

Thought I'd do a little bit of advertising for barcamp leeds here seeing as I'll be going along and having a look at what 'barcamp' events are all about. It looks like an interesting lineup and has some people there that I used to work with back in the days of hardcore web programming. It's also at the Old Broadcasting House in Leeds which has facilities available for our current Masters group project (more about that when it is complete). It's a rather swanky place, nicely laid out and kitted out with some cool equipment.
Should be fun :)

you tube updates to the site...

2007-10-21T18:43:00.000+01:00

Just a little note to say that I've uploaded my 3D videos onto you tube and linked them straight to these pages so people wont have to download movies before seeing what they are.
I've also split the 3D section into relevant categories so that it is easier to follow.
Finally all the videos that I have uploaded can be accessed from the following you tube page: My videos

An example can be seen below:

Boids and flocking...

2007-08-28T19:03:00.001+01:00

Currently I'm working on creating a tool called bFlocking in Maya to simulate artifical flocking. This system called 'Boids' was originally created by Craig Reynolds.
My first tests were conducted in Flash using Actionscript 2 and I have now progressed onto writing the system within Maya 8.5 using Python.
If you want to look into what boids are then the best place is to start is at Craig Reynolds website at http://www.red3d.com/cwr/boids/
To see my experiments and to download and test the current version of the tool go to my tools section at: http://www.flash-fx.net/3D/tools/bFlocking/

dvd drive disappeared?...

2007-06-04T23:18:00.000+01:00

Well this was an interesting one. Today I was about to do some DVD backups of my system only to find that my DVD drive had strangely disappeared from the system. I've also got an external DVD drive which I bought when my laptop DVD drive packed in and plugging this in even came up with the same error - that windows could not use the drive.
After some digging around it appears that this can happen occasionally on XP machines (XP 64 in my case) and even on Vista machines...
To fix the problem you need to:

1. Click on the start menu.
2. In the search box type in 'regedit' without the quotation marks.
3. Maximize the HKLM and then go ahead and browse until you reach the key listed HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
4. In the right panel you’ll see something along the lines of 'UpperFilter' and 'LowerFilter' or maybe either one or the other - you want to click on each of these keys and hit delete. Click yes when it asks to confirm if you wish to delete the key.
5. Restart Windows.
This seemed to give me back my original DVD drive and also let me access the external DVD drive. A bit wierd but all in a day's work using Windows ;)

Si

prototype game...

2007-05-29T21:14:00.000+01:00

Well today I can reveal a prototype game I've been developing for Uni. Its done in Virtools, a game development system that makes things a little bit easier than jumping into all that crazy coding you hear about in games (although you can still do that).
The game is called Warcones and the instructions in the game tell you what its about and what to do ;)
You first need to have the virtools life player browser plugin installed and then once thats on you can go to play the game.
It's only basic and is a prototype so dont expect rocket science but I hope you enjoy it.

Si

futuristic city scene...

2007-05-10T08:46:00.000+01:00

Here is a completed version of the futuristic city I've been making recently. While doing it I've learned about render layers which is basically rendering all the different elements of the scene into different layers so that you have a lot more control in modifying it later. I've also touched on matte painting - digitally painting over source material (photos, 3D renders etc) to create a final image, and it is good fun to attempt.

update needed...

2007-04-25T17:51:00.000+01:00

Well I've not updated for a while (thanks for reminding me warren ;) so straight to it:

First up I've posted a panoramic quicktime VR of the Botannical Gardens in Sheffield. It was created by taking about 18 shots around a central point on a hand digital camera. These were then cleaned up in photoshop by altering the lighting and levels and finally stitched together and imported into VRWorx where the quicktime movie was created.

Next up is a couple of HDR images that I have created for use. They are basically around 10 or 12 different exposure shots of a spherical object (the back of a dented ladle in my case) which are then imported into HDRshop and the HDR image generated. Download the first and second HDR images if you want to test them out in a 3D program.

Third up are some test renders of a bathroom scene I created especially to play with basic external single point lighting through a window. They were rendered using mental ray and after a lot of playing about with settings things started to make sense. Check them out (and the other bits) in the 3D section.

Next up is a test futuristic city scene I'm creating for a poster. For the first time I'm using render layers which basically mean you render different elements of the 3D scene out into layers such as a shadow layer, colour layer, specular layer etc. This means that you dont have to keep rendering the whole scene out every time you make a change, just the layer where changes have occurred. It also means you can import the layers into photoshop and play about with them to get a better effect than from the full render. Finally it means you can paint over areas in photoshop with new elements from photos or just hand painted things and this can give you a good final piece. Thanks to Jay and Steve from SimplyMaya for explaning and showing what render layers are about and how they can be used :)

I've got a few more things on the go but they can wait for another posting soon ;)

particles and dynamics...

2007-02-27T17:07:00.000Z

Well I'm on the course at Leeds Met doing what I wanted. Got a few weeks to catch up on but its going ok so far. We've had lots of cool things to look into so far, panoramic VR scenes (which I should have some stuff to post on soon) and looking into particles and dynamic effects as extra work. I've just updated the 3D section with some example tests I've been playing with recently.
I've also been playing with Mudbox 3D, a new scuplting tool a bit like the sculpting parts of ZBrush but apparently a lot easier to get into. Again check out the 3D section for the first try with it on my Emperor Hadrian mesh and a second try as a freeform experiment.

no more course...

2007-01-30T10:31:00.000Z

Well the specific course I was about to start this wednesday is not running. I got a phone call last week saying that it wasnt running due to lack of numbers and that they had screwed up as all the students should have been informed in December but were not. Not good when you leave a full time job ready for the course!
Anyways I'm still deciding whether to go for the 'alternative' course or whether to go back to work (maybe part-time) and enroll on a course at Animation Mentor (AM). I've spent quite a bit of time over the last few days reading AM student blogs and haven't found anything bad yet about the course or the way it is taught.

On a side note, dont buy a standard SapphireTech x1950 Pro card. The problems in one of my previous posts amounted to something on the card going pop and giving off that lovely metallic burning smell you sometimes get in PC's. Needless to say it was returned and I decided to risk going for the SapphireTech Ultimate x1950 Pro which has a Zalman top class fan and completely revised heatsink and the card is running like a dream - BF2142 and Call of Duty 2 fly along great.

wireless Windows XP 64 bit problems...

2006-12-21T11:08:00.000Z

Ongoing from the graphics card problems I've (hopefully) sorted in the previous post I thought it might be useful to add some information about helping getting Windows XP 64 bit (often referred to as x64) up and running with a wireless connection.

I installed the system fine and then tried to get a Belkin F5D7050 Wireless adaptor running so I could use my current wireless connection. This is where I ran into problems. Basically the current drivers are not 64 bit compatible so you have to go through a convoluted process of finding out what chipset the adaptor has and then going to Ralink's website chipset page (who I presume manufacture the chips in most wireless adaptors) and finding the relevant 64 bit compatible drivers, for the chipset not specifically for the adaptor itself. Tip: the entries in the table on the page are links although that isn't very clear. After a lot of playing I still couldn't get it working so decided to try a WUSB54GS Wireless-G USB Network Adapter with Speedbooster. This again didnt have 64 bit drivers but some nice guy on the linksys forums has put some unofficial drivers for the adaptors on their website here.

This solved the problem and got me online fast so thanks to the chap on the forum for making them available :o)
If I find any more problems/solutions then I'll post them up here.

graphics card woes...

2006-12-21T10:15:00.000Z

It's been a long time since I've posted here - blame that on learning 3D Studio Max ready for my masters course starting in January.
Anyways onto the subject in hand - namely the sapphire radeon x1950 pro graphics card. I bought one of these last week for a new PC and seemingly installed it fine. I kicked up a couple of games and within 2 minutes of playing the screen went into standby mode (black screen, no signal message) and the fan on the graphics card spun up to full noise. After lots of searching and nearly sending the card back (RMA which I presume stands for something like return to manufacturer) I found the following thread with lots of information on the card and the problem: here.

The current fix: I installed Rivatuner (http://www.guru3d.com/ - then a halfway down the right column) and went in the settings and changed the fan settings from auto to 80% (just an arbitrary figure I picked). This basically means that the fan is always running at 80% of its speed. I then kicked up a few games on the highest settings and ran them for a while. Everything now seems to run ok and the crashes have stopped.
You can actually run the rivatuner software in your system tray so it might be an idea to have 2 profiles in the settings, one for desktop use where it is set to auto and one for games where you run the fan at a high setting (e.g, 80 or 100%). This is just so that when you are browsing on the net you dont have the fan belting out noise and wearing itself out prematurely.
Another tip for people who want to go further is to actually take the default fan off the card and add a custom one. Additionally you can buy little VMU (or is it VRM) heatsinks which can be attached to the chips on the card and help dissipate the heat that builds up. The only problem with doing that is that you will invalidate your warranty so I wouldnt realistically advise this unless you know what you are doing and you dont mind losing the warranty.

current work in progress...

2006-09-29T10:00:00.000+01:00

In Italy I decided to model some Roman busts (heads) in 3D and see if I could make them realistic. The first stages of the first head I am modelling can be seen in the gallery and is based on a member of the Brutii family. The second will be the emperor Hadrian (of Hadrians Wall fame) and will also be shown in the gallery.
More updates to follow...

married bliss...

2006-08-30T15:44:00.000+01:00

Well not much in the way of 3D updates recently as I got married and spent a couple of weeks in Sorrento in Italy. The place was fantastic and we did all the usual tours such as climbing Mount Vesuvius, Pompeii, Herculaneum (like Pompeii but smaller), Rome, Napoli (Naples to us), Positano (very scenic village built down a very steep area of coast) and more.
I've now got a few good shots of some of the Roman busts (heads to you and me) and will probably have a crack at modelling them in 3D. It should be a challenge as I haven't modelled a head for a very long time...

SimplyMaya success...

2006-07-20T13:15:00.000+01:00

Well after a year's worth of SimplyMaya challenge competitions (each runs over two months) I've managed to win one!
The challenge was to create an animation cycle (looping, e.g, a walk or run) and/or an animation sequence. First I tried to create my own animation rig for a walk cycle which is used to control your character. After a month it wasn't working too well so I switched to a free rig called Lowman (version 1.2) and started on a punch sequence using movie reference of myself punching into the air. After a long time getting the main areas animated I then went into the Maya graph editor and spent ages upon ages simplifying and smoothing off every part of the animation cycle.
I was really pleased with the final result and was surprised to win in the challenge. Anyway thanks to SimplyMaya for putting the challenges on and encouraging people to learn more about 3D :)

animation updates to gallery...

2006-07-04T10:08:00.000+01:00

I've just finished the latest SimplyMaya challenge which was to create an animation cycle/sequence. It's only the second animation I've tried but it was great fun! Check out the 3D gallery page for the results.

Plone howto's and quick help tips...

2006-06-06T13:18:00.000+01:00

If you use or are learning to use Plone (Open Source Content Management System) and like me need to remember how to set things up again many months later then you might find my plone tutorials helpful. Each tutorial listed has at some point been encountered by myself. They 'may' apply to plone on Solaris, Linux (Suse) and Windows as I have installed on each of those systems.
Any problems, pointers or help then contact me via my feedback form

MMO browser game anyone?...

2006-05-01T18:03:00.000+01:00

If you have a little time to spare every day to play an MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online) game that is browser-based and wont take ages to learn about then head on over to http://www.travian.com.
Its a little like a simplified age of empires but everybody on there is human and from all over the world. You can build resources up and trade, wage war and even form alliances that will help you become stronger and stronger.
Check it out for some cool fun - it starts slow but gets faster the longer you play.

eve-online corporation website...

2006-04-21T08:18:00.000+01:00

If you play eve-online and are interested in joining an up and coming corporation then check out http://eve.bichirs.info.
We also provide websites for any corporations that dont have the web skills but still wants an online presence.

3D jobsite links...

2006-03-29T11:10:00.000+01:00

Check out the 3D links page for a listing of some sites which specialise in 3D jobs. I found them whilst looking into what jobs are available and what skills are required (for when I have enough work for a showreel)

Online portfolio available at cgsociety...

2006-03-23T14:10:00.000Z

I just found out that you can create an online portfolio of your work on the cgsociety.org website. It allows you to post upto 5 portfolio images for free and if you are a paying subscriber then the amount is unlimited. My portfolio contains some of what is already on this site but is available at: http://t1ck135.cgsociety.org

miscellaneous update...

2006-03-21T14:39:00.000Z

Just added some old/miscellaneous 3D work into the site. The older ones I hope to go back to and improve with the new skills I've learned.

2D update...

2006-03-18T17:30:00.000Z

I've just updated my 2D section with some life drawing sketches from the past six months. It's still raw as I've not done any for about ten years but hopefully it'll start improving ;o)

Welcome...

2006-03-17T15:06:00.000Z

Hello and welcome to my personal website. Feel free to have a look in the 3D section for my latest work and the other sections for older stuff. More bits and bobs will be coming soon.

Btw this is the first test posting to my blog at blogspot.com and is an xml feed from there. Hopefully it will work ok but I will be creating a local cached version for if blogspot slows down (which I've noticed a fair bit).

Anyways there will be more updates on the site and the design as I progress.

Si