Seb Lee-Delisle

Having finished my first iPhone app in Objective C I thought it was probably time to have a go at setting up my Nexus1 with AIR for Android. Yes. I’m a digital slut. And no. I’m not gonna pick a side. Deal with it.

But anyway, I digress! I found Lee’s very cool intro to Android videos which have been a big help. But I did get a warning from Stephan Jones on Twitter who tells me that there is a virus on the site, so possibly make sure you’re running virus software first! UPDATE : Lee and Serge both assure me there’s nothing wrong with their sites so I can only assume Stephan’s virus checker was being a little overzealous!

A few things caught me out, if you navigate to the tools folder in terminal you can’t just type adb devices as the permissions on the files didn’t seem to be set right. the easy workaround is to type ./adb devices or else change the permissions with chmod if you like that sort of thing.

But the biggest thing was that it just wasn’t recognising my phone. I’m not sure if Lee mentioned it or not (maybe I wasn’t paying attention) but you need to turn on USB debugging on the phone itself. Go to Settings->Applications->Development->USB debugging. That’ll do it!

Also the link for AIR for Android wasn’t on the front page of Adobe Labs and it was surprisingly difficult to find it. But it’s here : http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/air2/android/

And finally I couldn’t actually get my app to deploy from Flash CS5 – the reason? I hadn’t turned USB Storage on – doh!

And it’s working! Lunar Lander on Android, anyone?

Remember when I disappeared mysteriously to LA for a week in February? I can now reveal that I was in Ventura, CA recording a 4 hour long tutorial series for Lynda.com that has just gone live!

It was such a great experience, the team at Lynda are so professional and they have many recording booths with the best gear. I think there were 6 courses being recorded while I was there so it’s quite a production! And they have teams of editors cutting out all the gaps, and fixing my mistakes (thanks guys )

So come learn about importing 3D models, particles, interactivity, ViewportLayers, and much, much more. I’d love to hear your feedback and find out how you get along so let me know!

Papervision3D Essential Training on Lynda.com

I’ve just written a post for Influxis explaining how we used their TVStation app, to broadcast Branden Hall’s remote Hype presentation last week.

Streaming a remote presentation with TVStation

In association with Flash and the City, I’ll be running my new Flash games programming workshop in New York on the 13th May. I first ran this course in Brighton last month and it went really well with over 97% approval rating.

Whether you’re an beginner or advanced coder you’ll get something out of the course. We walk through the anatomy of several arcade games with all source code and game engines provided. We’ll also be covering simple physics and collision detection beyond hitTest!

There are only a handful of super-early bird tickets left and I expect to sell out so I wouldn’t hang around if you want a place!

And I really look forward to seeing you in New York!

This workshop will also be available in :
Cologne for FFK in April (also a PV3D workshop)
New York City sponsored by Flash and the City in May
Minneapolis for FlashBelt in June

UK and Norway dates coming soon.

In my previous collision detection post (in what I expect will become a series), I talked about predicting whether two objects would collide in between frames. This is to avoid the situation where the objects are moving so fast that they pass through each other before you’ve had a chance to see if they’re overlapping. This is often known as a sweep test (amongst other things!)

And I showed how you could predict collisions between a 2D circle and a vertical line but what about lines that aren’t vertical? How do you work out collisions between circles and lines of any angle?

(more…)