BackSpaceStudios Blog

ZOS - Last Tango in Jadac - Impressive Red5!

There are many examples of red5 chat tools and apps all over the web. The downside is, we have yet to see any examples used in commercial projects or any real world examples, which makes it difficult for most developers, who are not involved in open source collaboration’s, to see the benefit of using Red5.

However, that being said, I am very excited and proud to say that I, including many other talented developers, was involved in the conceptualization and development of an outstanding, groundbreaking, and innovative use of Red5 for a major web project…

ZOS - Last Tango in Jadac - http://zostv.com/interactive

Last Tango in Jadac, follows an interactive cinematic following the characters of the series featured on The Movie Network.

The experience is a mix of Papervision3D, Red5, and interactive video that take you on a journey while allowing you to explore and discover your own paths and unfold the dense storyline. This project was produced by Whizbang films in association with the Bellfund and LifeCapture Interactive.

The chat tool is quite an accomplishment, it is very unique, and definitely adds to the over all user experience.  It allows for users to communicate with each other while they are exploring the the PV3 world of Jadac. Considering there are no avatars the chat tool becomes an essential part of the experience and game play by aiding users follow the storyline and successfully complete the 3 missions, and discover hidden secrets and easter eggs.

The chat tool is a multi-layered application that can be minimized and maximize, sort users, find friends, and choose from to different display options. It also allows users users to log in anonymously, randomly puts users in different rooms, displays current population, handles special characters and html tags, stores and tracks user sessions, disconnects during idle time, and more.

ZOS Chat Organized View

ZOS Chat Random View

We had many obstacles and challenges to over come while working on this project. Initially the chat tool was written in AS2 and eventually we decided to port it over to AS3, as well we had to learn how to uses eclipse, compile java, and build server Red5 modules to handle all our functions. Working on this projec was a labour of love and well worth it it.I hope that in the near future we will be able to extend the chat tool and more features as well as open source it.

At some point I will embark on a step by step tutorial of both the java and as, as well I hope to open source it. In the mean time we hope you enjoy it.

Original concepts for the chat are the brain child of Geoff Whitlock ( CEO, Lifecapture Inc. ), creative concept developed by  Dan Riley ( Creative Director, Lifecapture Inc. ), Lead developers Brendan Sera-Shriar and Ryan Andal ( Contracted by Lifecapture Inc. for this project ), Red5 Java developers Brendan Sera-Shriar and Andy Shaules ( Contracted by Lifecapture Inc. for this project ).

The entire project took over 10 months to develop with team of 20 plus developers, designers, writers, directors, producers, motion graphic artists, animators, and other specialty staff, please visit http://zostv.com/interactive for a full list of credits.

Visit http://zostv.com/interactive for the full experince.

Data Visualization + Radiohead + More

Radiohead’s latest video for “House of Cards” was created using a truly unique technology that interprets information from the atmosphere to generate a stream of data that can then be represented visually using resources like Papervision3D and Processing.

Google Code is hosting the Data Visualization application for you to explore the data through a 3D viewer and use your mouse to further manipulate the data and create your own visualizations.

This interactive piece was made by Aaron Meyers and Aaron Koblin using a modified version of PV3D. For more info check it out over at google code.

Casting Shadows in PV3

Andy Zupko posted some very cool PV3 tests yesterday on Papervision Shadow casting. I will definitely be trying this and will post my resutls.

3D engine from nulldesign

Lars Gerckens, a freelance Flash developer and the man behind NULLDESIGN, has always been someone I’ve looked up to when it comes to experimental Flash. I have been following his blog for a while now and he has always been an inspiration for some of my own experimental work. A good friend or mine and Technical Director of BackSpaceStudios has been experimenting with PV3 recently and has begun his own open source project called PV3World.

I’ve been so busy lately experimenting with red5, that I’ve falling a bit out of the Flash 3D loop, so when Geoff passed a long a few files from NULLDESIGN I was amazed to see the work that Lars has been doing building his own 3D engine!

Ok, enough of the banter on to the examples…

Here are 6, of the many, cool examples that Lars has been working on using his 3D engine. Enjoy!

Back from FITC…

FITC was a huge success this year….

I’m happy to report that our booth, Seneca and PHUG, was the most popular booth on the floor…probably ’cause we where giving away FREE chocolate ;0

Attendees where very excited to see the student papervision3D work on display, it’s no swimming dolphin, but the students did a great job considering they had only 7 days to produce a full pv3 interface with collision and interactivity, GOOD JOB!!!

- kapachka interface developed by Students in the Digital Media Arts program at Seneca College, Alex Nasser, Miaomiao Kuang, Dan Coltri, Robbie Luziuz Vanin, Ricardo Jazmines, Amanda Labatia.

Another popular student project at FITC was pv3world.com, developed by Geoff Palin, Digital Media Arts student at Seneca College, this project drew attendees daily. Geoff Palin has also accepted a position at BackSpaceStudios as a lead developer, we are very happy to have him on board!

Geoff Palin was also responsible for designing/developing the official Seneca@FITC blog http://www.phug.ca/fitc

Other highlights at the festival…

I had the opportunity to meet and geek out with the guy’s from papervision3D, paperworld3D, red5, Ribbit, and the one and only AS guru R Blank. I especially enjoyed discussing both PHUG and DMA student experimental pv3 work with Ralph Hauwert. I attended his Flash 2D and 3D effects presentation…all I can say is WOW! I also had the opportunity to sit down with Trevor Burton, the man behind paperworld3D. What an amazing individual, the man is an absolute genius! I’m hoping to contribute to the development of paperworld3D and eventually build some commercial apps with it…One of my favorite presentations was Ribbit. These guy’s have some of the coolest components I have seen in a long time. I am hoping to continue working with them on some PHUG and Seneca events as well as nominating some of my students for internships…I did not forget about R Blank…He gave an excellent presentation on AS3. BackSpaceStudios is happy to announce that we will be helping out with the re-build for the RMI site.

I will back post my blogs from the event under papervision, red5, and AS3.