Flashmech.net

One of Papervision3D contributing members, Mark Barcinski caused quite a stir even before he arrived at The Actionscript Conference (TAC) 2009. In this interview, Flashmech.net reveals more about this gamer, skater, coder.

Flashmech.net: Hi Mark! Nice to meet you. Can you share with us a little bit of your history, and also what is the main attraction point that got you into the Flash Platform?

Mark: I began working with HTML, then moved into the backend designing databases, using SQL and basically doing a lot of backend work. The main problem with it is that you can’t show what you do to anyone. Flash is one of the most perfect platform to show what you actually do, and so it got my attention. If you do a website in Flash you can go to your mother and say, “This is what I’ve made,” and you don’t even have to explain that much to see what it is.

The other thing is that I feel very comfortable working with both technical and creative people. Flash is one of the very few platforms where the separation between the coder and the designer is so small; you can be both when it comes to Flash.

I always like games, and I always wanted to make games. Again, it is almost impossible to start from the backend. If you are working with Flash, the step to making games is very easy. You can decide one day that you want to make a game, and if you know Flash, it is kind of easy to do it. That’s how I fell in love with the Flash Platform.

Flashmech.net: I think that’s something we share in common when it comes to the Flash Platform. [laughs] How did you begin programming then?

Mark: That’s the strangest story in the world. [laughs] I don’t know if I should tell because a lot of people are not going to believe me. When I was around seven years old, my father came home with a ZX Spectrum 48 Plus one day. It was an 8-bit computer, something that’s even more primitive and older than Commondore. The computer came with three games and some books about the computer. The games got boring really fast even for a seven year old.

I began playing around with the books about the computer, typing in the codes from the book, and they ran. That was when I started understanding programming. A few weeks later, my father sold the computer, so I was without a computer for a long while.

When I started working in an advertising company as a HTML coder, there was a team of ASP programmers around me. I found that a lot more interesting than HTML, so I crossed over, and started making tools for generating HTML for some really big sites. By the time Flash was introduced in the company, it was version five.

Flashmech.net: How was the transition working with the backend to working with Flash?

Mark: My introduction started with playing little animations on the timeline and reading books on how to make games in Flash. In my company where I worked however, most of my Flash projects were mainly connecting Flash with the backend.

The more I worked with Flash, the more comfortable I got with the workflow. Designs are done in Illustrator, and then got imported to Flash where the animation work begins. This will be followed by coding, like playing the right animation at the right time, checking for collisions, and stuff like that.

Flashmech.net: So when did you get into Papervision3D?

Mark: I was always interested with 3D ever since I saw a very primitive 3D animation when I was kid, which I thought was just amazing. I grew up thinking I was going to become a 3D modeler but that didn’t happen. I tried a few times but never got at it. You know how it is when you’re really good at something, in my case it was programming, and you have to learn a new skill and sometimes it takes too long, so you always fall back on what you are good at? It got to a point when I was afraid I was never going to learn coding 3D, and then when I found Papervision3D, that was my chance.

My reaction was “Wow! What is this? Why didn’t I know it existed? I have to know it!” That was when I started playing around, experimenting, and we finally started making projects with it.

Flashmech.net: We understand that you made VectorVision, so maybe you would like to share more about that?

Mark: VectorVision started out as a small add-on library to Papervision3D which enables it to render vectors. It was especially important for the text because everybody knows that text doesn’t look good when it is displayed as bitmap. At that time when I was working on it, I found this SVG import library which made it very easy to plug these two together.

VectorVision was inspired by FIVe3D; it shares the font format that FIVe3D uses. It started when we were doing a teaser for a website. It was just a small interactive 3D scene with the text, “Coming soon.” The text however, doesn’t look good in Papervision3D. The first option we had was to use FIVe3D together with Papervision3D, but it would be a lot of work to sync the perspectives, projections, and there would no way I could sort the z correctly.

I could either spend a lot of time figuring out how to merge a Papervision3D scene with a FIVe3D scene, or I could basically add FIVe3D functionalities to Papervision3D. And I did it in approximately an evening. Of course the only thing it could do was “Coming soon.” Apart from that, it was completely useless.

I spent the next few weeks to make it into a reusable library that could work with different fonts, before finally releasing it as an open source project.

Flashmech.net: Wow, that’s really cool! How was the experience of working with Papervision3D like?

Mark: What’s great for me in working with Papervision3D is that there are some really great programmers who worked on the library before me. It is really well written, and as a coder, you can learn a lot from just working with Papervision3D, going through the code, and trying to understand how it works.

I think my VectorVision is a great example. I was able to add a vector renderer that works seamlessly with the rest, without changing a single class in Papervision3D. It was a complete add-on. That’s not my achievement; it’s basically the engine’s architecture is so well written, that it is possible to add a completely new functionality that the team themselves did not expect people to add, all without changing the core.

Flashmech.net: That’s making me excited to read the codes already! Now I know of designers who are fascinated with the 3D space, but have no good resources on where to start. How would one actually go about it?

Mark: Well I think the main problem for designers is ActionScript itself. My opinion is that if you know ActionScript, it is really easy to get into Papervision3D.

There is a big misunderstanding. There are some great tools for editing ActionScript, basically my favourite is FDT, and the misunderstanding is that FDT is something for programming experts. Designers try to edit code with the Flash IDE, and to be honest, I could not program shit if I was to work with Flash IDE.

If you’re a designer, and you want to learn ActionScript, you basically need to take a crash course on FDT. With the right tools, ActionScript 3 is not any more complex than ActionScript 1, something that not so many designers are afraid of. If Flash IDE had similar functions to edit code like FDT, then it would never have been a problem.

As for Papervision3D, there’s a book now on the subject. I’ve read a few chapters and I think it contains very good information about how Papervision3D works. It is roughly how we envisioned people working with it, and describes in detail the practical approach to using Papervision3D.

Flashmech.net: Good point. I don’t think I can code well with Flash IDE either. [laughs] Any advice for people who want to learn Papervision3D?

Mark: Let me think about it… It’s easier than you think. The biggest step is learning ActionScript 3. Once you know that, adding a cube into a Papervision3D scene is just as easy as adding a new sprite to your display list.

Flashmech.net: Great advice that I can quote from now! Thank you for your time Mark, and big thanks for the great insight!

Be sure to check out Mark and his partner’s award winning website!

André Michelle’s first visit to Singapore was for The Actionscript Conference (TAC) 2009, so naturally we would not miss the chance to interview the man who started the Adobe, MAKE SOME NOISE campaign.

Flashmech.net: Hi André! Thanks for your time for doing this. Can you share with us how did you first start out learning Flash?

André: I started using computers when I was working for a company modeling 3D exhibition booths in 3D Studio Max. It was then when they came up with an idea to create CD-Rom applications, and I told them that the only software capable was Macromedia Director. So we bought Director, and I got to go for a four day Director training course. But after the first day, I went home, opened Flash and coded all night. That was eleven years ago and since then, I haven’t stop. [both laugh]

Flashmech.net: Since you only started using computers back at the 3D modeling job, that means to say that you got no programming background at all?

André: Yup I had no programming background at all. It was all self-taught. That’s something I can be proud of.

Flashmech.net: How was the learning curve to you? Had it been tough initially?

André: Flash 4 was more of playing around. There were lots of stuff with the timeline, and finding workarounds because there was no real programming language. In fact, I wasn’t aware programming languages existed. With Flash 5, it was like, “Oh ok, now I get the idea of objects and methods, and doing some structure,” and then it grew continuously till now.

Flashmech.net: [laughs] I think I learnt the same way as well. So when did you start delving into sound with ActionScript?

André: It was when AS3 was released, and there was a Loader class with a method called loadBytes. That suggested to me that I could embed a sound object in my own swf file, and load it inside a running application with ByteArray. I tried it and it worked. And then things went very quickly from creating the first synthesizer, to the point when Hobnox approached me and said they wanted such an application as well.

Flashmech.net: Really cool to see how all these got snowballed. I would guess that it is also your passion that drives you to create all these music and sound related projects right?

André: Well I come from music. Even though I never considered myself as a good musician, I still love music. I can listen and search for new music all day; I can never get enough from music. There is only one way to get living with it and that is to create tools to make music for my own. The audio tools are just one first step, a proof of concept, that it is possible to make music with Flash. What we actually want to do is to create weird plug-ins to make weird music! [both laugh] That’s more fun actually.

In the first place we have to do something serious, so it’s half and half.

Flashmech.net: What kept you going when you encounter difficulties finding solutions to your problems?

André: Well there’s no single day that I feel that I cannot do anything right. That is why I think I have yet to reach a stagnant point at my job. There is not a point that I think I cannot go further, or that I have learnt everything I can. There are always more things to learn, and there is nothing that you cannot learn; everything is possible when you just spend a lot of time on it.

Flashmech.net: Cool! Will that be your advice for people who are starting out with ActionScript?

André: Yeah, don’t cut off the learning. Before I joined Hobnox, I always had to earn money by doing clients’ works. There was no problem however, to spend two or three hours per day for research, and this knowledge always comes back to your work. In turn you are able to do clients’ works quicker than before, and thereby leaving yourself more time for your own research.

Flashmech.net: Excellent advice André! Thanks for your time!

After the interview, I checked out the latest work that André was up to, and I must tell you, it has been a while since I last played with something so cool! Check out the Tone Matrix! Be sure to keep up with Andre’s musings.

During The Actionscript Conference (TAC) 2009, Flashmech.net managed to catch up with Peter Elst to talk in depth about how he began his career as a Flash Developer, what are the conferences that he likes, and a small little surprise that this conference left him.

Flashmech.net: Hi Peter! Thanks for this opportunity to have this interview with you. Ever since I know you, you have been quite a prominent figure in the Flash world. So how did you first start out as a Flash developer?

Peter: It was probably in 1998 when I started playing around with motion graphics. I was mainly designing when I discovered Flash back then. I got an apprenticeship in a company where I got to do all the bad jobs basically, doing the banners and such. It got up to a point when Macromedia introduced a project called the Macromedia Generator, and that was able to do dynamic banners, and so I work from that.

When Flash MX came out, I started doing some components work which I really like. Some people found it and they asked me to write a chapter in a book, so I did that. I got a lot of emails coming asking about the work that I did, and they asked for help, so I went freelance.

Flashmech.net: How long have you been freelancing?

Peter: I did it for 2 years first, and I did some other work, before switching back in 2004. That would make a total of about 7-8 years.

Flashmech.net: Considering the amount of experience you have as a freelancer, any advice to give to have a successful freelance business?

Peter: You just have to be passionate about what you do, like what you do, and just go for it whatever it takes. You don’t necessarily have to think about the money that comes in; just do what you’re good at and what you like to do. Usually the money comes in and even if it doesn’t, you’ve done something nice anyway.

Flashmech.net: What advice you would give budding ActionScripters?

Peter: Just experiment. Think about what you like to do and build it, and fail and try again, fail and try again. After a while, you will get very good at what you do. You will also have learnt from all those mistakes, so you won’t make them in the future.

Flashmech.net: How long has it taken for you to move from the stage of making mistakes constantly to being good at it?

Peter: I still make mistakes. [laughs] But there are things like basic modeling of applications that you’ve done before, and so you will not make these mistakes anymore. It usually takes three to four attempts before you get something right. Once you got that, you can build on from that foundation.

Flashmech.net: Have you studied anything with relevance to programming before you embarked on this career?

Peter: Actually most of things that I do results from self studying. I never studied anything with technology. I actually did a Bachelor Degree in South Asia Studies. In my spare time, just find out more about it and experiment. That’s how I did it.

Flashmech.net: The Flash Platform is now such a huge ecosystem. How do you, as a Flash Platform Consultant, keep up with all these changing stuff?

Peter: In the old days when there’s not too much, you could just understand everything. Right now it has grown so big that you have to focus on areas and topics relevant to your work. Generally, as a consultant, you have to be aware of everything a little bit. If clients ask of you, at least you know some of the basics of the technology in that area. Otherwise, you can say that you will look it up.

Mostly now I focus on AIR, because it’s new and I like it. I also focus a little bit on Flex as well. Although the sound things that André Michelle does are very nice, but I don’t really have the time to play with it. It’s a matter of prioritizing. There’s too much to do all at the same time.

Flashmech.net: Since you’ve been to many conferences, any advice on how to improve TAC?

Peter: I like conferences which are very community oriented, without a lot of commercial things. That’s why I like TAC. Flash On The Beach is sort of like this, though it’s more commercial and expensive, as they have more cost to it as well. MAX is more commercial, but 360|Flex in the US is good. I haven’t been there, but I heard a lot of good about it. FITC is a very nice conference but it is also slightly commercial. Another in Australia, webDU, is very good as well with a community mind. Scotch on the Rocks in the UK, which is ColdFusion, Flex and a little of AIR, is also growing very well.

Community conferences are nice because they are community centric, are not expensive, and you get a lot of great names with local people speaking as well. This is what I like most because sometimes you get Adobe throwing thousands at venues and all that and the speakers don’t necessarily get paid. I get annoyed about that sometimes.

Flashmech.net: Thank you for being so frank. [both laugh] Has there been anyone from the conference who has left a deep impression on you?

Peter: Some guys from Thailand came up to me and told me that they flew over specially to see me. I was a little surprised because you don’t think about that but sometimes people really look up to you and they want to see you. We’re just ordinary developers, so it’s always a plus when we’re lucky to go somewhere and people like to see you.

Flashmech.net: Nice! Right that’s all the questions I have for you Peter. Thank you so much for doing this interview!

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