Tyler MadisonCreative Developer

I got the Weasel yesterday delivered to my front door in a pretty small box. I was plesently surprised to find that the fuselage and the wings go together very easily; all they need is a little tape down the seams and some masking tape to hold them together, no 3M 77 spray on this baby!

I decided to make mine a one piece (wing, body and tail all taped together) so it was quite easy to skip onto covering. Here’s where it got a little time consuming…I had previously built a Combat Wing 48″ XR and it was pretty easy to just cover with color tape, however I found that it was quite messy and the finish wasn’t top notch. So I decided to use UltraKote to do the job. I think this is where 3-4 hours came in to play where i painstakingly tried to be careful with the foam and heat temperature to make it stick and shrink enough, but not to melt or warp the foam. My only experience with iron on covering was building balsa wood gliders back in the day, so I was pretty cautious, which ended up paying off because I got some pretty nice looking results that really standout while on the ground and in the air.

All in all it was a very simple build. Servos just pushing into place, battery fit perfect, control horns and clevises hooked up nicely. The one thing that I was undecided about was that there was very little to no room for error when placing the elevon control horns because the pushrods are already pre-cut and cannot really be adjusted more than a 1/8 of an inch or so.

Onto flying, so after my successful one late evening build with some nice coloring and decent covering job I was ready to fly the next morning. The winds were 12-17mph North West at Mussel Rock. Wasn’t sure if this was exactly ideal for my first flight but what the heck, no guts no glory! So I let her rip. First thing I noticed right away is that it took off like a bat out of hell straight up into the wind. Fearing a stall I nosed her down till she steadily was on the rise and continued to get altitude, enough where I felt comfortable enough to test out the turning radius etc. To caveat all this I went ahead and set the throws to the Expert pilot recommendations which is about 5/16 inch of throw up and down. This may have had something to do with my surprise at how quick and nimble this little guy was.

From there on after trimming it a little and adding some expo to my elevator flying was quite fun, just keep in mind that this thing has some serious speed and likes to be constantly moving. If you’re a beginner which I pretty much consider myself in the slope soaring arena, you might want to make sure that you have your throws taken back a little maybe to 1/8 or something like that, or turn down the percentages on your transmitter. All in all it was quite fun, no crashes or anything , my hands actually got too cold is the reason I finally brought it back in, which I hand caught by the way, lifted the hatch cover up, flipped the switch, and threw it back in my trunk for next time.

I will say that I will be making some small tweaks to compensate for not EXACTLY EXACTLY following the elevon template as I mentioned earlier there is very little room for error if none at all due to the push rods being precut to the exact size based on the plans. Obviously if I could redo that section or order new ones I would have triple checked the distances and come up with a better plan for drilling the holes and placing the control horns. Great plane, fun, fast, and is always moving.

Tyler -Pacifica Ca.

I always knew that you could narrow your search with Gmail’s search modifiers like, from: , to: and has:attachment…But here is a list of all of them, and there is many more than I thought. I find that in:anywhere , filename: and groups () are among the most useful. Here is the link to the official help documentation. Happy Searching! http://bit.ly/9Id51b

There are lots of reasons for the upgrade to the URLRequest object from AS2’s getURL method. The major reason is that the URLRequest contains all of the HTTP information for a specific url request, content headers , get or post methods  , content type etc. BUT the downside is that it takes a little more effort and importing to get the same functionality as the AS2 standard getURL method. So I’ve include a simple global getURL class that you just need to import wherever it is used, then you can just call “getURL” as it worked in AS2, but now for AS3. The function takes two parameters; The first is the URL that you want to direct to, the second and optional parameter is the window method(“_blank” , “_self” , “_parent” ) which defaults to “_blank”.

The simplest implementation would be:

import getURL;
getURL("http://www.google.com");

Download getURL class here!

ENJOY!

* This is really only useful when you just need to launch a single url without special data being sent, as there is no access to the URLRequest object specifically.

I’ve been going back and forth between frameworks, utilities, and tool kits for a while now, adding to, adapting or re-writing many common things that I thought I could make better / more useful. Then I found CASA lib. This library covers some of the most common and tedious aspects of being a Flash developer that are out there. Preloading assets, multiple assets, preloading video , and the granular detail that goes into those things. You don’t have to worry about managing the URLLoaders for XML loading or the NetStream objects’ events. You basically as one info commercial host famously once said, “Just set it and forget it, it’s that easy”. But its true, there are a host (no pun intended) or utilities in here that will not only make your production time faster, will put your mind at ease that you don’t have to come up with a custom system every time you run into the same problems. Okay I am done boasting, just really excited to announce that I’ve added into a scaffold ed framework: TweenLite, PureMVC, CASA lib and SWFAddress for all of my new projects! What else could you ask for , someone to do the work for you? Well in short, these fine folks pretty much have…now you just get to do the fun part!

Check out CASA lib!

I have been utilizing AS3 for a little over 3 years and have always wanted to have the same control over preloading assets in my main .FLA , as I did with AS2. The main difference is that with Flash CS4 and AS3 , you can truly export your classes on a desired frame without having to dump all of the linked library assets on the stage prior to instantiating any of those exported assets with actionscript. This also allows you to keep the “Document Class” or main application class the entry point for the application.

Here’s the trick:

1. 1. Go to File > Publish Settings > Click on the Flash tab. Under the player version next where it says script type , click on the “Settings” button. Where it says “Export classes in frame” type anything BUT 1 (2 is my standard). Click the ok buttons to exit out of those dialogs.
2. Create a new MovieClip symbol in the library.
3. In the Symbol Properties Dialog where it says “Linkage” click the checkbox that says “Export for ActionScript” , make sure the name of the symbol is the name of the class that you are using as your main application class or “Document Class”.
4. Now all you have to do is instantiate a ExportTroller object and pass it the main movieclip reference (this) , the name of your main application class , the frame  number you targeted for exporting your classes on in step 1, and optionally an update method to monitor download progress of the .SWF. (JUST LIKE in AS2!).
5. publish the movie and you can see if you bring up the bandwidth profiler that the bulk of the .swf bytes has been deffered until your export frame! So you can do anything you want in the first frame to show progress, and get the user to start viewing your swf right away instead of waiting until the whole .swf has completely downloaded before they see anything,

If you followed the steps above correctly this is the only code you should need in your whole .FLA to get this to work!

//import the trolling class
import info.tylermadison.ExportTroller;

//the optional but recommended update method to show download progress
function updateMethod(prct:Number):void{
iLoader.width = prct * stage.stageWidth;
}

Download the source and demo Here!

PureMVC is a pretty flexible framework that I have used in a couple projects now, you should check it out. The separation between the three tiers of the application tied together by the “Facade” is a great approach. The framework has its own notification system that works in conjunction with the builtin Flash event dispatcher system. A quick breakdown of the following terminology.

PureMVC Conceptual Diagram

# facade – creates an API that is simplier to use and understand than communicates with much more complex components of the system i.e. the facade handles communication between the Model , View , and Controller tiers. It is also the place to map out you system wide notifications and commands.

#Mediator – facilitates communication between concrete view components and events within the rest of  the framework. Basically means that the mediator is responsible for listening to regular “Flash” events from the view component and interpreting how to notify the rest of the system.

#Command – Handles notifications from the system and contains all of the logic for acting upon a given/mapped system notification. The command can retrieve references to other parts of the system and notify and call methods upon them. This is basically where the main application logic lies.

#Proxy – a proxy maintains a reference to a model object that contains some type of data for your application, whether its a calculation, data structure , or XML handling. This is where the data and brains for the application is housed.

More info on PureMVC availiable here!

I am currently developing a microsite flash experience in AS3 for the new Madden Football game for EA Sports. I ‘ve been working with art director Andy Slopsema and senior designer / animator Armand Tam at Freestyle Interactive. It’s pretty much the dream team to work with because these guys are great at what they do, so it makes my life easier. The site goes live 7/2, so stay tuned for a direct link, and a behind the scenes look at the development process, once it is live.