Flex (and thus ActionScript 3 / Flash) are going open source, according to an Adobe announcement today. Ely Greenfield, Flex architect, and David Wadhwani, vice president of Flex Product Line, explained to Robert Scoble what it all means:
It’s difficult to say yet exactly what all the implications are, but something very exciting is happening in the realm of coding digital visuals. Let’s review:
I’m boarding a Greyhound bus for Boston and the Ideas in Motion weekend of Boston Cyberarts, two packed days of events on dance, motion, interactive technology, artificial intelligence, and augmented bodies:
Boston Cyberarts Festival 2007 - Ideas in Motion: The Body’s Limit
If you’re in Boston, stop by and see us! I’ve been preparing two works — creating digital music and digital motion in each, if you will. Palinopsia at 2pm Saturday is my own work with choreographer Elise Knudson and dancer Pauliina Silvennoinen, for which I’ve done a music score and live visuals in Jitter (some infrared, as seen above). Take a Seat is Andrea Haenggi’s work in a conference room of the SHARE Swiss Consulate 11am Sunday, at which I’ll be mixing live sounds in Ableton Live and built an interactive barcode scanner that sends barcode-label messages to the dancers.
And of course the whole weekend is packed with dances and lectures and other good stuff. If you’re there, do introduce yourselves. If not, I hope to report back next week.
(I sometimes feel like I hit the body’s limit on a regular basis, but I’m a weakling who doesn’t respond well to stress.)
You’ve got open source and public domain video footage, operating systems, software tools, photos (hello, Creative Commons flickr search), music … why not fonts, as well?
Open fonts are especially useful to visualists, because it means fonts can be freely embedded in web applications, remixed and edited, and otherwise abused.
My current favorite resource is Orgdot’s open source font page. If you love pixel/LED fonts, you’ll find some truly top-notch choices here, plus links to many, many other resources. Lovers of typography could easily spend a weekend doing nothing but creating animations and visuals out of the pixel fonts from this site and the various linked repositories:
Orgdot open source: pixel and LED fonts for Flash
I’ve got these pixel fonts specifically slated for some experiments with Processing. Could open source typography catch on the way Creative Commons / open source licenses have for other media? Possibly, but so far the efforts are a little immature. One of the best resources is Bitstream, which has open sourced its Vera font family:
Vera Open Source Fonts [Bitstream]
Onyx, the lovely open and extensible Flash-based live visualist tool, now runs on Mac as well as Windows. (Next stop, since it’s built in Flash: Linux.) And the latest build has some great new features:
Lots of new UI tweaks and keyboard shortcuts, as well, plus a home on Google Code. Add that to great features like the ability to use flickr streams.
Sounds like a must-install, even if as a secondary / backup visual tool.
VJing with flickr? Clubbing with Yahoo Maps? Flash/Flex and Apollo-based apps present some interesting new ideas. We’ve been tracking the excellent Flash 9-based Onyx VJ tool, among others, and it’s nice to see the “open source Adobe-based VJ app” category growing. Mute is very early in development, perhaps not as far along as Onyx, but here’s a quick look at what it offers:
You can grab the Windows beta now, or inquire about Mac compatibility.
I like the open source idea here, because so many visualists are developing their own projects and need a way of integrating them without reinventing the wheel. In sound software, this is pretty easy — just route audio from one place to another. But in visual software, you need everything to be integrated on the same output to the display, even more so if you’re not using a mixer (and many of us computer-based folks aren’t).
Let us know if you’ve got projects of your own or want to share more about Mute or other tools.
Video overview from the product creators:
Thanks to Yansky for the great tip!
Linux is looking better and better as a fully open-source, multimedia-optimized operating system for visualists. Adobe has announced the availability of Flash Player for Linux. The bad news is, it’s x86 only, and as expected, there may be some issues. But the good news is, it’s here, and early reports indicate it works. Even as a regular Mac and Windows user, I can see building a cheap PC box for an installation and saving the cash I’d normally have to spend on a Windows license. Download Squad has some good commentary and links. If you’re on Linux, just go grab the player the normal way, and you’ll get a Linux option (neat!)
Flash Player 9 for Linux Final Released
What else does this mean? It means you can go fully free + open-source with your next VJ set, taking advantage of the ActionScript 3-based project Onyx pictured here:
I’m converting a PC laptop here to a Linux-only box. One of the first things I want to test: video4linux Flash support, if Adobe delivered that as promised. If you’re trying a mixed-OS environment on the Mac, be sure to catch the other gem from Download Squad, a how-to for MacFUSE, which gives you Linux volume access on the Mac.
Holidays are fast approaching. Do you have enough new gear to keep your brain occupied while your body suffers though the inevitable food-coma? Peter and the CDMu gang have listed their choices for electronic musicans. So we’ve decided to follow up with some last-minute ideas for yourself or the visualist in your life. PK: I like to think of this as, rather than last-minute shopping — or, erm, after-the-fact shopping if you were looking for Hannukah — this as the Way to Cure the VJ Blues By Shopping For Yourself list. And, aside from having been raised half-Orthodox (Christmas isn’t for over a week yet!), my birthday is in January, and should also be a holiday. (Macworld stuffers?) So, without further ado…
VJ: Audio-Visual Art and VJ Culture
Sick of trying to explain what it is you do to random wrinklies at family gatherings? VJ, put together by the immensely talented D-Fuse gang. Pingmag interview about the book and the state of VJing here
US$26.40
Update: Reviewed on We Make Money Not Art
Nintendo Wii
Ok. So with the newest console on the block sold out everywhere, this item may be a little wishful. Unless you’re willing to pay whatever the scalpers extortionists scumbags fine chaps on ebay are currently asking, then it may be prudent to wait until the storm has passed. Of course, that doesn’t stop you from picking up a wiimote, making with the wireless midi for a while, then bringing in the console for some multiplayer boxing at a later, saner time.
Wiimote: US$61
Open-source ActionScript meets Mozilla: it’s either a geek wet dream or an odd title for a Japanese monster flickr. Emmy Huang, Product Manager for Flash Player at Adobe, reports on her blog:
New open source project with code contributed from Adobe ActionScript Virtual Machine
See also Tamarin Project page at mozilla.org
Now, before you get too excited, what this doesn’t mean is that Adobe is open sourcing Flash Player (too bad!). It’s the scripting language engine in Flash Player, the virtual machine that performs the magic of turning your source code into something that actually runs, being built into a new open source project called Tamarin. Taramin should still be exciting to ActionScript developers, though; it means there will be an open source implementation of Taramin and tighter integration of ActionScript (via ECMAScript 4) with software like Firefox.
It also doesn’t mean Adobe is working on a full-blown open source compiler for Flash (too bad), which means there’s still no Adobe-sanctioned SWF compiler that’s open source. But they are contributing portions of the Flex/Flash compiler, and the Flex SDK is free (albeit not open source). Some of you readers know a lot more about this than I do, so feel free to chime in with more clarification. But while SWF is still not fully open on the compiler level, Adobe is increasingly embracing open source, so the trend is in a very good direction.
And Flash Player, meanwhile, will get even more standards-y. According to Mozilla, “The Tamarin project with Mozilla will improve Adobe’s ability to deliver a standards-compliant implementation of the ECMAScript 4th edition specification for ActionScript in future versions of Flash Player.” Other browsers should benefit, too: Apple (Safari), Opera, and Microsoft (Internet Explorer) are also on the ECMAScript working group.
And all Project Taramins are good projects. The other Project Taramin is intended to protect the endangered tamarin monkey for which the Mozilla Tamarin project is named (see creature pictured at top). So, viva Tamarins of all kinds! (And, Mozilla, keep on with the creature nomenclature. O’Reilly Press would be proud.)
[tags]Adobe, mozilla, open-source, Flash, actionscript, programming, development, animals[/tags]
Flash and Processing have some powerful features for animation, interaction, I/O control, video, mixing, and filtering. The natural next step? Turn these into VJ tools. True, there are many wonderful VJ apps out there, but many of them are variations on a simple 2-channel mixer theme. Custom tools promise to open up new visual possibilities.
This year’s Macworld, due to hit San Francisco in January, is shaping up to be an epic event for visuals and motion graphics. True, Macworlds of late have paled in comparison to the heyday of the conferenece, but this year looks extraordinary, especially if you’re interested in motion graphics and visuals, especially since there’s a mini Flashforward rolled up into the goodness and the whole event takes place on the eve of Flash 9’s release. I’ll be in on the action with a session on January 10 (just slip out of one of the other events and drop by for an hour if you have to), and will be in the area all week — read, we should have some great parties.
And, Flash aside, I’m fairly certain this will be the first appearance of Processing at Macworld, so anyone else who wants to find ways to slip Processing onto the show floor, let me know.
Some brief highlights:
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