Samuel Wan : News, Information and Resources

Update

I was quiet during the month of June due to the job searching process. With the job search over, I'll be able to finish several projects near and dear to my heart before relocating to Chicago in August. Updates, source code uploads, and more announcements are scheduled for Monday. Thanks for continuing to read this blog, and for contributing your insights and advice.

I've joined a somewhat non-traditional company... it's not a design agency, software company, games studio, entertainment company, or any kind of IT consultancy. Nonetheless, we'll have the opportunity to build collaborative environments and architect a non-linear, interactive multimedia delivery system. We'll work for a unique audience on a challenging scale, with serious usability implications and a sweet, sweet development cycle. Curious? Tune in Monday :)

FINISHED:
OOP Actionscript Book Chapters
Conference session materials
Move all websites to Futurequest.net
Test X10 Wireless Camera with Flash 6 Player

PROJECT LIST:
Reality Cluster
OOP Actionscript Book accompanying website.
Window Bevelling Component
Lego / Lejos / ColdFusion / Flash / X10 Wireless Video
TDL (To Do List) Flash Application
RSS-DataProvider Converter
Flash MX Authoring Panel RSS Reader
Multiple Choice Component
2026 unread posts from Flashcoders... oh man...

See you soon,
-Sam

Grace Hopper Project

A couple of months ago, I had committed to help with a local community outreach program at the University of Michigan's College of Engineering. This program, known as the Grace Hopper Project, is sponsored by the Women in Science and Engineering Program at the University of Michigan, College of Engineering and the School of Information (my alma mater). Participants will be introduced by researchers and engineers to various fields in science and technology. They'll tour facilities and attend classes to learn about subjects ranging from radiation oncology to automotive engineering to virtual CAVE environments, and much more. I'll be busy all of next week teaching the internet/multimedia portion of this program. Hopefully, the Grace Hopper program will help high school students make more informed decisions about studying science and technology as they prepare for college.

Speaking of college and career decisions, I've been struck in recent weeks by the memory of Robert Frost's famous poem.

Test Entry To Demonstrate MT

This is the main entry text.f dsa fsad fsda fas f sda

Out of town for the weekend

In Chicago for my brother's graduation. Out of town until Monday.

Email problems (Updated)

If anyone's tried to email me in the past 24 hours, please be aware that my email configurations at csoft.net are @#$%ed up. I have made arrangements and will have everything back online within the next 24 hours. In the meantime, feel free to reach me at my backup yahoo address. Sorry for any inconvenience.

=====UPDATE======
If you're reading this, then my website has successfully moved to a new space at futurequest.net. In the past, I've had other projects hosted on futurequest with 100% positive experiences, and finally decided to move all my accounts to their servers. By the time my previous ISP responds to my tech-support request tomorrow (or next week), the domain names will already have propagated.

Downloadable source code, articles, comments, conference tutorials, and other files should already be mirrored with identical directory structures in this new account. Please email me if you find any broken links :)

-Sam

Emboss, bevel, pillow emboss

This is for all the designers who love sharp pxiel-style bevels but spend way too much time tweaking rectangular fills in Flash. I'm going to post a new set of small but helpful components for beveling, probably by the end of the week. But first, here's a brief explanation by Ric Ewing about the difference between emboss, bevel, and pillow emboss:

____________Explanation by Ric Ewing:__________
All of these effects visually trick the eye into seeing a surface as being raised or lowered by adding shading. They differ in where that shading is applied and whether the effect seems to raise or lower the area effected.

Bevel: This comes in two flavors, inner and outer. This differs from emboss in that the effect is restricted to either the inner area of the shape being effected or outside the area, depending on whether you've chosen inner or outer bevel. It is distinguished by having a 'hard edge' where the effect meets the boundary of the area effected. Beveling can visually either raise or lower an area.

Emboss: This effect straddles the boundary of the area effected making a smooth visual surface that has a raised or lowered area in it with no hard edge.

Pillow Emboss: This effect makes the boundary of the area effected appear to be raised or lowered while leaving the inner and outer areas at the same visual height. You can simulate this effect by having an inner bevel with the light source at n degrees, and an outer bevel at n+180 degrees. This will make more sense if you look at the JPG.

Embed: This is not a 'standard' effect. Depending on which software package you use you can get different results. The most common version of this effect is something like a drop shadow, but with the shaded area being restricted to the inside area of the shape. This visually looks like a hole has been cut in the outer surface and the inner surface is revealed behind it. Photoshop calls this effect Inner Shadow.

Hope this helps.

-Ric