Andy Li's Blog

I’ve been learning Haxe since the last few months. Beside the reason of many Flash guys moved/moving to Haxe because of better performance of compiled swf, I was tempted to try using its C++ target, which runs even faster(at least in theory, in most parts). Its language feature is also very nice, which is quite similar to AS3 but more powerful in many aspects. Check out its feature page if you want to know more.

And because of I need to write some 3D stuff in a project, I tried finding a Haxe 3D engine  that can compiled to C++, but who knows, there wasn’t one. Actually the 3D engines in Haxe are all quite young. There are 3 I found, all targeting only Flash: Sandy3D, originally written in AS, has switched its trunk to Haxe; Away3D, again originally written in AS, now has a Haxe branch inside its SVN in active development; Haxe3D, developed by Nicolas(the creator of Haxe), written in Haxe from the very beginng, seems to be very light-weight but I can’t found much info about it.

So I decide to work on one of them to enable a Haxe C++ 3D engine. Because Sandy3D should be the most complete and stable one(which actually stopped active development…), I chose it.

In the development of it, some issues are related to nme/neash, which are the re-invented cross-platform Haxe version of the Flash API. With the help from Hugh and Niel, project owner of neash and developer of Sandy3D, most of the problems are solved. However as I can see, re-inventing the Flash API is a hard job as consideration of other target is also needed, eg. JS/Canvas. I really hope Adobe can help this.

Currently some very basic demos of Sandy can be compiled to C++ and it shows that, in OpenGL rendering mode, the performance can goes over 300% of the Flash(Haxe, not AS3) version. However in normal rendering mode, the frame rate may actually be reduced if the window size is large. Anyway, I think the performance is quite depend on hardware/OS, also the 3D scene you’re showing.

Thanks for the Sandy3D team, they added me as a committer in their official Google project. And I have just committed the changes to the trunk There should be a new release soon if everything is fine.

A note to the ones can’t wait for a release:

1.Install hxcpp, nme, neash from haxelib.

2.Replace contents in neash’s neash/display/IBitmapDrawable.hx to a simple “typedef IBitmapDrawable =
nme.display.IBitmapDrawable;”.

3.To make mouse event work, in neash’s neash/Lib.hx, the code:

// Process pending timers …
neash.Timer.CheckTimers();
// Send frame-enter event
var event = new Event( Event.ENTER_FRAME );
mStage.Broadcast(event);

should be moved to the end of the do-while loop, just before the:

mStage.RenderAll();

4.For mouse event in opengl mode to work, additional fix which required a recompile of nme is needed. I haven’t tried
yet. Now just ingore this…

5.You should be able to use Sandy3D in C++ without the above patches for the next release of nme/neash. But for now, please do it.

BTW, I am also porting ported casalib, which I often use in AS3 development, to Haxe, see casahx.

I've been learning Haxe since the last few months. Beside the reason of many Flash guys moved/moving to Haxe because of better performance of compiled swf, I was tempted to try using its C++ target, which runs even faster(at least in theory, in most parts). Its language feature is also very nice, which is quite similar to AS3 but more powerful in many aspects. Check out its feature page if you want to know more. And because of I need to write some 3D stuff in a project, I tried finding a Haxe 3D engine  that can compiled to C++, but who knows, there wasn't one. Actually the 3D engines in Haxe are all quite young. There are 3 I found, all targeting only Flash: Sandy3D, originally written in AS, has switched its trunk to Haxe; Away3D, again originally written in AS, now has a Haxe branch inside its SVN in active development; Haxe3D, developed by Nicolas(the creator of Haxe), written in Haxe from the very beginng, seems to be very light-weight but I can't found much info about it. So I decide to work on one of them to enable a Haxe C++ 3D engine. Because Sandy3D should be the most complete and stable one(which actually stopped active development...), I chose it. In the development of it, some issues are related to nme/neash, which are the re-invented cross-platform Haxe version of the Flash API. With the help from Hugh and Niel, project owner of neash and developer of Sandy3D, most of the problems are solved. However as I can see, re-inventing the Flash API is a hard job as consideration of other target is also needed, eg. JS/Canvas. I really hope Adobe can help this. Currently some very basic demos of Sandy can be compiled to C++ and it shows that, in OpenGL rendering mode, the performance can goes over 300% of the Flash(Haxe, not AS3) version. However in normal rendering mode, the frame rate may actually be reduced if the window size is large. Anyway, I think the performance is quite depend on hardware/OS, also the 3D scene you're showing. Thanks for the Sandy3D team, they added me as a committer in their official Google project. And I have just committed the changes to the trunk :) There should be a new release soon if everything is fine. A note to the ones can't wait for a release: 1.Install hxcpp, nme, neash from haxelib. 2.Replace contents in neash's neash/display/IBitmapDrawable.hx to a simple "typedef IBitmapDrawable = nme.display.IBitmapDrawable;". 3.To make mouse event work, in neash's neash/Lib.hx, the code: // Process pending timers ... neash.Timer.CheckTimers(); // Send frame-enter event var event = new Event( Event.ENTER_FRAME ); mStage.Broadcast(event); should be moved to the end of the do-while loop, just before the: mStage.RenderAll(); 4.For mouse event in opengl mode to work, additional fix which required a recompile of nme is needed. I haven't tried yet. Now just ingore this... 5.You should be able to use Sandy3D in C++ without the above patches for the next release of nme/neash. But for now, please do it. BTW, I am also porting ported casalib, which I often use in AS3 development, to Haxe, see casahx.

Mirage‘s extension, re-work of The Scream, “Miream” is exhibited at Playful Media this year (2009).

I get Miream re-constructed in PhotoSynth too!

Read the rest of this entry »

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9sWYOKxooY[/youtube] Mirage's extension, re-work of The Scream, "Miream" is exhibited at Playful Media this year (2009). I get Miream re-constructed in PhotoSynth too! Playful Media is just over. Our team members were staying in the exhibition area explaining the art work. We've heard a lot of comments from visitors, mostly positive, some negative, which are all appreciated by us since we enjoy communicating with visitors face-to-face. If you've missed the showcase, and want to know more about Miream, here I'll try explaining to you. Official project description It's a bit long, but really informative: ‘Miream” is an excursion of artistic and technological collaborations crystallized in form of an installation. The title is an amalgamation of two words: “Mirror” and “Scream”. This work is an inventive attempt to create a magical transformation from 2D image to 3D installation. The core of the installation is a vertical grid which holds drips of hanging metal ball chains with different lengths. A mirror is installed below the hanging metal ball chains. By applying reversal effect being viewed from the mirror, the result is a 3-dimensional interpretation of the acclaimed painting “The Scream” (1893) by Norwegians expressionist artist, Edvard Munch. The Hanging metal ball chains can also generate trembling motions which intensifies an immersive experience for audience. The creative process starts with studying the visual elements of the painting (twilight sky, bridge, scream head, etc.) and analyzes the image’s composition (curves, depth and perspectives) in relations to the anguish and fearful emotional expressions. With aids from precious computation, the painting was translated into 3D pixels then later replaced with 3mm metal balls. Lengths and placement of each metal ball chains were preciously calculated by computer. More than 2000 yards of metal chains were used to transform an image into this captivating 3D entity. It is very intuitive and even meditative for all team members during the process of putting links and links of metal balls together in order to unveil the three-dimensional representation of both the visual landscape and inner emotions of this illustrious painting. How did the idea come? Well, actually this is the extension of another installation we made last year (2008), "Mirage". "Mirage" is using the same technique, hanging up metal chains and using mirror to reflect the 3D structure. What we created in "Mirage" is a city, so there were basically buildings formed by the chains. "Miream" extending "Mirage" in several dimensions: physical size, chain intensity, content meaning, technical challenge, budget and team size. Miream's topic is aiming to effectively using the properties of metal chains. That is, because of its weight, when the chains are hanged up and grouped together, the overall motion is very elastic and able to express a strong emotion (similar to audience wave). That's the point why we choose the painting "The Scream". "The Scream" is a famous piece of expressionism, which is usually distorting reality for an emotional effect (oh ya, you shake the chains to get the emotion for our case). What if the visitors are not able to relate it to "The Scream" when they see it? First of all, we're re-creating "The Scream" in a different way, so visitors need to know "The Scream" in order to appreciate it. If the visitors do not know the original painting, definitely this art work has no meaning to them. But "The Scream" is so famous that at least most Hong Kong people know it. Secondly, we're not cloning "The Scream", we're expressing the emotion in a different way which is even in a higher level. Just like other kinds of abstract art, focusing on meaning and feeling but not real-world structure and perspective. Thirdly, this is the first time we choose this kind of "3D reconstruction" topic which is very challenging. We do not have that large budget to make a large enough piece to re-create all the details in the painting. So the resulting picture is quite "low-res" but we think it is acceptable since our focus is emotion and meaning. What is the software used? To create a depth map, we used 3ds Max and PhotoShop with our artistic sense. For converting the depth map into 3D model and calculating each length of chain (exporting to a csv file, which can be opened in Excel), I wrote a program in Flash to do so. The custom made program can be found here. It is really not user-friendly and buggy since it was made for ourselves only. But you can still play with it as long as you are not using for commercial propose (and I have not removed it yet :P). If you're a Flash developer, you may noticed that the program is very similar to the Alchemy particle pusher. In fact, I used Joa Eberts AS3 only version as a base and altered it as I need to overcome the limit of int. How many metal chains are there? The resolution is 133x177. So, approximately there are >20,000 metal chains. Where are the photo, video or other documentary? We are organizing them. There will be a website dedicated for "The mirage series" (in weeks, hopefully). The url will be announced in this blog. Or you can email me: andy@onthewings.net. Update: See my new post for the documentary interview.

This my my final project for the course “Interactivity I”. For this final project, my aim is to explore the vector nature of sound wave while making a tool to let people create their own waveform which can then be saved for other use.

The waveform in the program consists of 10 control points. The first point and the last point are fixed at zero so that the wave can be looped smoothly to form a sound wave. The controls points can be adjusted by dragging or by using keyboard. The points are assigned with keys labeled near them, which are number keys (+shift to move points up instead of down). I recommend using the keyboard as you may adjust multiple points at the same time (which feels like using multitouch surface ).

Degrafa is used to construct the wave form. I choose to use cubic bezier curve as it is easier for me to implement the algorithm (with the still-in-beta AdvancedCubicBezier which available via SVN).

The 3D cylinder is made by Flash Player 10′s 3D API. It looks quite nice as similar to landscapes.

Sound is synthesized dynamically in real-time (with some delay… okay? ). If you hear some “clicks” or “pops”, try to export the sound first by clicking on the export button at the bottom-right corner (it will be in wav format, encoded by the WavEncoder from popforge) .

If you hear nothing, you may try to increase the buffer size or use the export function.

source

This my my final project for the course "Interactivity I". For this final project, my aim is to explore the vector nature of sound wave while making a tool to let people create their own waveform which can then be saved for other use. The waveform in the program consists of 10 control points. The first point and the last point are fixed at zero so that the wave can be looped smoothly to form a sound wave. The controls points can be adjusted by dragging or by using keyboard. The points are assigned with keys labeled near them, which are number keys (+shift to move points up instead of down). I recommend using the keyboard as you may adjust multiple points at the same time (which feels like using multitouch surface 8-) ). Degrafa is used to construct the wave form. I choose to use cubic bezier curve as it is easier for me to implement the algorithm (with the still-in-beta AdvancedCubicBezier which available via SVN). The 3D cylinder is made by Flash Player 10's 3D API. It looks quite nice as similar to landscapes. Sound is synthesized dynamically in real-time (with some delay... okay? ;-) ). If you hear some "clicks" or "pops", try to export the sound first by clicking on the export button at the bottom-right corner (it will be in wav format, encoded by the WavEncoder from popforge) . If you hear nothing, you may try to increase the buffer size or use the export function. [SWF]http://blog.onthewings.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/vectorsoundwave.swf, 600, 450[/SWF] source