Shockwaves

One focus of the next release is Director is on updating 3D, so how hot is Shockwave 3D already? I was struck by a visit to Shockwave.com online last night. I went to the site, and noted that there was a new Motocross game from Silent Bay Studios.

I was gripped because I have always wanted to do or see a decent motocross solution - (I'm yawning from all those silly side scrolls of motocross) and figured it was totally 'doable' in Shockwave 3D. Silent Bay proves it can be done and it can be cool in this online offering. But as I was trolling the Shockwave.com site, another realization struck me - when I sorted the games by popularity.

14 of the top 20 Games on Shockwave.com right now, use Shockwave / Director for the delivery platform. 13 of those 14 are Shockwave 3D.

Continue reading "How Hot is Shockwave 3D?" »

Posted by Allen Partridge at 8:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Adobe tonight announced immediate availability of Director 11.5, and Shockwave 11.5. The upgrade comes less than a year after the release of Director 11, and is the second major release of Director from Adobe. Shockwave is sounding cooler than ever with brand new 5.1 surround sound in Director / Shockwave 11.5. The multimedia update introduced at this year's Game Developers Conference (GDC) today, brings streaming 5.1 audio, an all new sound engine capable of lightening fast playback of hundreds of simultaneous sounds over 16 amazing channels each capable of playing, filtering and mixing down 5.1 surround sound. Also added, three new video formats, all NATIVELY rendered, making video faster and smoother than ever - and adding great features like full screen, streaming, alpha, and dynamically grabbing video images to use with everything from filters to video-as-texture displays in 3D.

Continue reading "Director 11.5 Released" »

Posted by Allen Partridge at 12:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Shockwave version 11.0.3.472, releases today. It is a simple update that includes no changes in features or functionality. Some small elements of the plugin, which in no way affect the multimedia engine, installations, or other performance aspects, have been updated. We anticipate no change whatsoever in plugin performance. This version of the plugin was extensively tested to ensure reliability by the Adobe Director / Shockwave Quality Engineering team.

The next release of the plugin will include new features, and changes and is currently being thoroughly tested by an experienced group of more than 150 independent and third party developers along with the Adobe Director Quality Engineering team. Third party developers with business critical dependencies on Shockwave should contact Adobe Director Shockwave Technology Evangelist Allen Partridge, allenp at adobe dot com, in order to apply for enrollment in Shockwave pre-release testing.

Posted by Allen Partridge at 4:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Okay, I've been neglecting this post for ages. One of the most endearing and intelligent connections I've made via Adobe is to Chris Brannigan. Chris and Graham Duncan run Caspian Learning, a genuinely amazing company that can literally put out a 3D game in under 2 weeks. What's all the more stunning is that they've built a widget allowing kids to do the same - though perhaps not at the same quality levels, still absolutely astonishing work is coming from kids all over Europe using the tools Caspian has created.

Continue reading "Beers with Chris at one of London's oldest pubs?" »

Posted by Allen Partridge at 9:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Shockwave Developer and Professor of Chemistry at Aristotle University of Thesaloniki, Dr.. Nickolas Charistos was award a 2008 Classic Award for his popular molecular visualization and simulation system created in Director.

http://www.molwave.com/software/3dmolsym/3dmolsym.htm

3DMolSym is an educational program designed to visualize the symmetry elements of molecules and to animate the corresponding symmetry operations in an interactive 3D environment. It is aimed to help chemistry students conceive the symmetry properties of the molecular structure. 3DMolSym includes a database with symmetry and geometry data of 48 organic and inorganic molecules, corresponding to all point groups of chemical interest.

Posted by Allen Partridge at 2:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tabuleiro, long time Director & Shockwave Xtras developer and Distributor Announced today the release of OPENSMUS - an open source Shockwave Multiuser server based on the very popular Nebulae server. The server allows seamless integration with Director and Shockwave projects using the Multiuser Xtra to create networking projects. Announced as a gift to the community, the project stands to be enormously popular as it will both facilitate community development and will enable many companies creating MMO's and other Web 2.0 Social Networking projects to easily create customized server solutions.

Continue reading "Tabuleiro Announces OPENSMUS!" »

Posted by Allen Partridge at 9:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

What would happen we wondered if we brought together some of the most amazing educators and community leaders in the history of Shockwave & Director for a quiet little weekend full of sneak peeks, roadmap discussions, information exchange and brainstorming? And why not bring them all to the amazing tropical oceanside vistas of Puerto Rico? In November, Adobe expressed a very serious interest in sharing the ideas and experience of one of the most stunning groups of Director Developers ever assembled in a single place.

Chris Brannigan, Caspian Learning and Peter Desberg, CSU pause for a quick photo.

Continue reading "The Director Shockwave Education Assembly" »

Posted by Allen Partridge at 8:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

One of those amazing resources fast growing from DirectorForum is the new Director Forum Collaboration Wiki. The section on Subversion - version control system supplementation for large Director Projects is espescially cool.

Continue reading "DirectorForum Collaboration Wiki" »

Posted by Allen Partridge at 8:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I just heard from Dean Utian who has launched a new website http://www.deansdirectortutorials.com/ The site leverages years of Dean's collected knowledge on Director and features a host of very valuable tutorials along with really useful links from around the web. Dean has collected an amazing array of information that Director/Shockwave developers from beginning to advanced will find terrifically useful.

It's a definite first stop when you're looking for anything from a how-to tutorial to that link you can't remember how to find. Extremely well organized and thorough, it is a great collection of all things Director and sure to be a hit. Thanks Dean as always, your contributions to the community are worthy of praise indeed.

Posted by Allen Partridge at 11:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well it's official, on Tuesday, Feb. 19 at GDC, Director 11 was announced. The announcement featured a demo of a really unbelievably cool game by Lucas Meijer and the Artplant team that features BMX Bike racing across a series of terrains. The new physics look good and the graphics in the game are especially nice.

The news was pretty extensively covered. I've included links to the various articles and blogs below.

Continue reading "GDC and the Director Announcement" »

Posted by Allen Partridge at 9:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm back in San Francisco, and thrilled to find that the Director Podcast is in fact back. Skip emailed me to tell me that there had been over 1400 downloads in the first 24 hours. Honestly, how many software packages have theme songs and podcasts?

http://www.magicgate.com/podcast/director/

Rumors are swimming about Director. I heard whispers all over the plane. One kid ran up to me pointing and shouting 'Look mommy its that Director Preacher!' Needless to say I was totally flattered. After I slipped the kid a 20 I sat down to watch Wired Science on my iPhone. That's right, I did it. I bought the iPhone. I hate to admit it, but I haven't been happier with a tech-purchase since my blue clamshell ibook. Man I loved that thing. That was the first Mac I ran D8.5 on. You may bow your head in reverence when I mention 8.5.

Continue reading "The Director Podcast, iPhones, and Air" »

Posted by Allen Partridge at 7:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I realized today that at long last all of my promises to buy beer, may finally be collected upon. I have been actively developing software and participating in the Director community for more than 15 years and in all that time I have eagerly thanked fellow developers - with the idle expression - "Hey - when i meet you, I owe you a beer!" I have been graciously invited to speak at this years Game Developers Conference (GDC) and now that the appointment approaches - I realize that the beers I owe far outweigh those that I may have earned.

So I'm clearly thinking a lot now about beer. Where in San Francisco will I find cheap beer? How cheap can it be without causing further offense? How much beer can we 40 something developers really drink? And a host of other beer related nonsense.

Continue reading "My Beer Debts May Be Coming Due" »

Posted by Allen Partridge at 12:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

If you haven't gotten down to that funky beat you haven't really celebrated the magic which is the Director Podcast. MagicGate's Director Podcast is a celebration of all things Director. The entire community mourned when the podcast stopped appearing at the start of 2007 and one of the first things on my mind when I started serving as Director Evangelist was getting Skip Kimpel to re-establish the coolest Podcast in his arsenal.

I'm thrilled to report that Skip confirmed today that the Director Podcast will return to service in a matter of days. Its the perfect chance to download any back issues you may have missed and get caught up as Skip revamps the format and preps the podcast for its reintroduction to the community.

Continue reading "Phoenix Rising: The Director Podcast is coming back baby!" »

Posted by Allen Partridge at 9:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

I ran across a blog by Hanford Leemore about using Director for casual games http://blog.hanfordlemoore.com/2006/12/09/director-for-casual-games and i couldn't agree more with the sentiment. Give Hanford's blog on the subject a look, its a very well reasoned argument.

As you may know I recently authored a book "Creating Casual Games for Fun and Profit" published by Charles River Media (I know the title is ... ugh ... but they never let me choose titles.) Nonetheless it's reallly the first and I think still the only serious investigation of the topic. I surveyed the active casual game community and came to simlar conclusions. Given the incredibly short development cycles for casual games today and the need to deliver online and offline solutions, Director is the obvious choice.

There's an excerpt from my book online here if you're in a reading mood.

Continue reading "Director for Casual Games" »

Posted by Allen Partridge at 9:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I've spent the week in beautiful downtown Bangalore with the Director engineering team. A week filled with non-stop planning and development for future versions of Director has left me numb with delight. I must admit that from the astonishing spectacle of tropical birds gliding among the tree tops to the startlingly beautiful local blooms that pepper the trees I am totally enamored of Bangalore's beauty.

The signpost is genuine. The service apartment in which i stayed was about 2 blocks from the Adobe office. A brief, albeit exciting walk in and among Bangalore's buzzing 5mph traffic led me to the morning each day.

Now I don't want to be accused of sugar coating anything, so i'll add that like most westerners I found my initial reaction to the dense traffic, wild dogs, wandering livestock and wind strewn trash was initially cautious suspiscion. It was difficult at first to see beyond the primitive and ancient structures and traditions to the heart of the city. But after some sleep and a bit of extraordinary food, I came to find that there was a giant place in my heart for Bangalore.

Continue reading "Life is Beautiful on Bannerghata Road: My visit to Bangalore" »

Posted by Allen Partridge at 2:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Welcome to Shockwaves, a new online resource for users of Adobe Director and Shockwave. Your host here is Allen Partridge, Adobe Director Evangelist and I'm joined by authors from Adobe and beyond in an effort to encourage rapid delivery of information about Adobe Director and Shockwave. The basic theme of this blog is the same as its mission - to encourage you the authors and developers of Adobe Shockwave and Director content to create all the media you wish.

Here we say, Don't just make waves, Make Shockwaves!

Continue reading "A Place to Share Your Director / Shockwave News, Ideas, Projects and Conversation" »

Posted by Allen Partridge at 9:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)