Seb Lee-Delisle

UPDATE – HTML 5 Canvas version now online

During my session at the Flash Gaming Summit, I showed a very simple 3D particle renderer to attempt to demystify the process of converting 3D into 2D.

The actual code that converts from 3D to 2D is easy! First you have to figure out how much you have to resize things depending on how far away they are. (ie what their z position is).

newscale = f/(f+z);

Where f is a notional field of view. Changing this will change how wide the (virtual) camera is. A good starting point would be 250. Then you multiply the 3D x and y positions by the newscale to get their 2D x and y positions.

x2d = x3d * newscale; 
y2d = y3d * newscale;

So that’s where we put our particle, in this case represented by a MovieClip that we also need to resize by our new scale :

clip.scaleX = clip.scaleY = newscale;

And then the final thing we need to do is sort by the z position so that particles in front appear above particles in the background.

particles.sortOn("z", Array.DESCENDING | Array.NUMERIC); 
for(var i:int = 0; i< particles.length;i++)
{
	particle = particles[i];
	particleClip.setChildIndex(particle.clip, i); 
}

There’s some other stuff in there too, to create the depth of field blur and also the bitmap trails, but have a look and see what you can do with it.

Download the source code for simple 3D engine.

* I haven’t actually counted the number of lines. I’m guessing it’s about 10.

I’ve just published a blog post on the FITC blog where I explain what inspires me and how to learn to love the constant demand of changing technology.

http://blog.fitc.ca/post.cfm/stagnating-in-your-cubicle-learn-to-love-to-learn

It was great to catch up with Pablo and the ActionScriptHero crew in Amsterdam, and we had a good chat about the future of Flash, the exciting changes in digital and what inspires me.

FITC Amsterdam 2010 – Seb Lee-Delisle Interview Part 1/2 from ActionScriptHero.org on Vimeo.

FITC Amsterdam 2010 – Seb Lee-Delisle Interview Part 2/2 from ActionScriptHero.org on Vimeo.

I’ve just finished my Brighton training courses which were seriously good fun, and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, I’ve certainly got excellent feedback so far!

My next training course is short notice; it’ll be a Papervision course in San Francisco on the 9th March particularly aimed at 3D games. It’ll coincide with the Flash games summit so if you’re interested, let me know and I’ll make sure to get in touch with more information as I have it.

Then it’s on to Cologne for FFK in April, where I’m running both a Papervision3D course and a Flash games training course! More info on the FFK website.

And back to NYC for Flash and the City in May, and I’ll be running courses around the conference. Again, mail me if you’re interested and I’ll send you the details as they are announced.

And finally in FlashBelt in June, I’ll be teaching a one day Flash games workshop. Teaching you maths by stealth – who knew that you could learn trigonometry from Asteroids and vector maths from platform games? It’s a fantastic conference and I’m really looking forward to coming back for my fourth year in a row!

Can’t make any of these events? Then help me organise one near you! Mail me.

Most people don’t know it, but before I was in digital media I was a professional musician. It’s not something I talk about very much but last week at the £5App Christmas special I had the chance to offload my story onto an unsuspecting audience.

I revealed exactly what it was like to be an almost-ran band in the 90s, including recording demos on dodgy equipment, mail outs that actually involved cutting things out and stuffing them into envelopes and being one of the first bands to use the internet to promote ourselves (using the “revolutionary” new RealPlayer ). From playing in front of 25,000 people, and recording in George Martin’s Air Studios, to what we had to do for money, and struggling to get out of the London “toilet” venue scene. And I even exploded a few music industry lies (including our own) along the way.

And of course, unveiled some horrifically embarrassing footage.

£5 App #20 “Seb’s Slightly Failed Music Career” for the 2009 Xmas Special from IanProCastsCoUk on Vimeo.

There were so many stories that I didn’t have time for. Like the time we ran out of petrol on the way back from a gig, and the police (seeing an abandoned transit van with bags full of cables inside) assumed the worst and initiated a full scale terrorist alert.

Or about our close friend, who was in a girl band doing really well, only to be dropped by her label. She was on Top of the Pops and then the next month she was signing on. She even filled in “Pop star” as her occupation on the form.

Or the university gig where the stage was invaded by an drunk, naked and overweight rugby player who I tried to shoo off the stage with my guitar. He was disconcertingly sweaty.

And the really nice part is that I could finish up my presentation with a happy story about brilliant independent internet artists (like Pomplamoose), and how it’s now possible to record your own music and promote it online. And as if to prove this, me and Jenny did our own Pomplamoose inspired videosong of our own and put it on youtube. Which was quite a fun experiment, we recorded it all in GarageBand and videod it with a Flip MinoHD. Quite a difference from ten years ago when we needed budget studios and friends with video cameras.

And I couldn’t really tell you about the video without including it. So here it is. Happy Christmas!

And if you want to download some of our recordings, you can do so temporarily on my music page.

It’s so heartening to come to Pittsburgh and be a part of FlashPitt, especially after the craziness of MAX. And just because it’s small, that doesn’t limit its awesomeness.

Having put on FlashBrighton’s Big Day Out (which was less than half the size of FlashPitt) I know how much work goes on to produce conference like this. And if anything, Val makes it look so easy. Too easy in fact. It’s hard to comprehend all the hard work that went into this when she looks so damn cool all the time.

But don’t be fooled, a lot of love goes into this conference, and there’s an incredibly high caliber of speakers. My good friends Jer Thorp, Stacey Mulcahey, Julian Dolce, Phillip Kerman, Scott Janousek were there. And it was a pleasure to meet new speakers who were also incredibly inspiring, particularly Josh Sager, Dan Mall from Big Spaceship, Boris and Damon from Odopod, and Ian Coyle who has a letter press printer in his office – cool!

So keep up the good work, and people of Pittsburgh : Be thankful that you have something this cool in your city and make sure you make the most of it.

Still to come: Overdue reports on the rest of MAX, and visiting YouTube and Odopod in San Francisco.

Post FOTB is usually a very sad time of year for me. Such a great group of friends from all around the world flock to Brighton for an amazing couple of weeks of fun. And when they leave, I can’t help but feel somewhat deflated.

But not this year! Because on Friday (tomorrow!) I’m starting my mini USA tour! And I’ll be seeing pretty much all of them again!

Starting in LA for MAX courtesy of the awesome Influxis crew, where I’m speaking at the FITC unconference. And I’m in good company; in an endevour that has become know as the EuroMaxInvasion, I’ll be there with Joa Ebert, Ralph Hauwert, Mario Klingemann, and Andre Michelle! In other words, the best Flashers in the world! How did I get in with that crowd?

Thanks to Scott Janousek for the photo!

Followed by a few days in San Francisco to see my friends at Odopod and check out the NoiseBridge hacker space.

Then off to FlashPitt; I’m really excited about this one. I met Val the organiser at FlashBelt, and she seems so cool, I just know that this will be a great conference.

My final destination is New York City for my one day Papervision3D workshop (only 4 spaces left!) and hanging out with Josh and my friends at BigSpaceShip and FlashCodersNewYork.

All in all, I’ll be gone for three weeks. Perhaps I’ll see you there?

It’s next week! NEXT WEEK! The most exciting digitally creative speakers will be descending on my home town to the 4 day inspiration-fest that is Flash on the Beach.So I thought I’d take a look at the schedule and let you know who I’m planning to watch.

Except John has totally screwed me over by booking such great speakers that for many sessions I can barely manage to narrow it down to two! Thanks John!

So here, are my recommendations…
(more…)

I’m very pleased to be running a Papervision workshop at Flash on the Beach this year! What better excuse to come to my home town and learn everything you need to know about getting up and running with Flash3D!?

I’ll also be showing you how to use FLARToolkit, RenderLayers, and loads more. I may even share a few little tips and tricks from the epic Big and Small project! Read a full description of the Papervision3D training course at Flash on the Beach.

And I look forward to welcoming you to Brighton!

It’s about that time of year where a few of us Flash speakers get together and have a good old whinge about Adobe’s speaker expense policy. In fact it’s become somewhat of an annual tradition.

But this year Adobe have ruined our fun by blatantly covering speakers full expenses including flights and hotel!

Seriously though I think this is a major improvement. It sometimes feels like I only complain about Adobe and so this is a good opportunity to prove that I can be positive about them sometimes! I think it’s pretty much down to the efforts of Ted Patrick who I’m fairly certain has been beavering away in the background trying to make this happen.

I have no doubt that it’ll encourage speakers who have exciting work to share with the community and it sends a good message out to speakers that Adobe appreciate their contribution to their conference.

Of course the irony is that they haven’t invited me to speak this year. I won’t hold it against them.