Maximized is my website on the topics of Animation, Games, Education and Flash. Visit it at www.maximized.co.uk
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Flash Builder
Just read some tweets from @adobeted mentioning something called Flash Builder. Seems like the next version of Flex Builder will have a new name.
Adobe Catalyst looks like a great app too - a way for designers to create user interfaces before passing them on to developers who can add the functionality through coding.
I wonder how much these two apps will be integrated, because it sounds like it should be just one app rather than two...
I've been playing Battlefield Heroes, the new free multi-player shooter from Electronic Arts. The game was recently opened up as a public beta, for which I'd registered a few weeks ago.
Similar to the Battlefield series of games, Battlefield Heroes is a team vs team multiplayer with two factions, the Royals and the Nationals. The game can best be described as a cartoon pseudo-World War 2 shooter.
Players choose characters from three different classes - Soldier, Gunner and Commando, and can customize their characters by gaining points in the game or purchasing points in what looks like an innovative method of financing the game. Points can be traded for character customisation - outfits, styles (Pirates for example) and also for abilities and weapons.
The game at present features three different maps, each with different features, such as a pseudo-european village, a seaside map complete with beached pirate ship, etc. Some maps also feature vehicles, which at present are limited to planes, tanks and jeeps.
Battlefield Heroes looks completely different to the other games in the series - using cartoon style graphic similar to those in Team Fortress 2, and also featuring some fun cartoon physics (watch you character fly as he is hit by a tank shell!).
So far, so good. The game plays smoothly, even on my relatively low-spec hardware, and it is very enjoyable. Soon everyone will be whistling the theme tune which sounds like a cross between The Great Escape theme and a football chant!
Visited the photography exhibition 'Black Diamonds' at Kirkcaldy Museum and Art Gallery today. The exhibition is a documentary of a day in Longannet Mine in West Fife, the last deep coal mine to close in Scotland.
The black and white photographs follow a typical day for a miner, starting with the handover of their entry 'ticket', their ride on the trains, on man belts, working, piece time, shift end and showers. The photographs really evoke the sense of cameraderie and tough working conditions of the Fife miners.
Well worth a visit, and a refreshing change from exhibitions of portraits and landscapes.
The Edinburgh Twestival has turned out to be a great success, with over £3500 being raised for Charity: Water.
An evening of fun, music, laughs, drinking and tweeting was promised and was delivered. The Hawke + Hunter was a great venue, with the event split over 2 floors, with the lower floor hosting the entertainment, and the upper floor the bar and chill-out area.
With Twitter becoming ever more popular, it has gained a lot of media attention form the event, and several journalists and TV crews were on hand to capture the event and spread the word (or should that be retweet?)
For avid Twitter users it was a great opportunity to meet face to face with fellow users who they had previously only ever met online.
I managed to catch up with about a dozen of my 'followers' and also gained a few over the course of the evening. I came away from the event feeling that something good had happened - not just the great fundraising for a worthwhile charity, but also that new friendships had started or had grown due to the event. This really was a case of social networking becoming socially concious.
Went to see this exhibition at the Scottish Parliament. Portraits of Scottish people (some famous, some not), with extracts from their favourite work of Robert Burns. The photographs' locations tie in with the poem / story. Produced as part of Homecoming 2009, and tying in with the 250th anniversary of the birth of Scotland's favourite poet, Robert Burns.
As it happens, bumped into one of the exhibitors, Ross Gillespie, who was photographing the exhibition layout for his records. Chatted a while about how the project / exhibition came about and also found out that he's originally from Dunfermline, which is where I live. Great to get a personal insight into the work and the exhibition.
Of course, I had to take a photo - I should have asked which work of Robert Burns he'd have liked to go with it...
