Archive for the 'brighton' Category

Introducing UnityBrighton

Published on October 30, 2009 in 3d, brighton, programming, unity, unity3d and unitybrighton. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , .

I’ve been watching Unity for several years now (thanks to James from Futurlab), but the fact that it was Mac-only was an instant turn-off. Earlier this year they released a PC version, which piqued my interest again, but I was unable to devote enough of my time to the free trial to actually learn anything. However,  as of October 28, 2009, they’ve scrapped the Indie version of Unity and released a free version!

This is great news for anyone who’s been interested in creating content in Unity. Not only is the plugin just over 3MB, but it’s an almost seamless install in all the browsers I’ve tried it in.

What’s so great about Unity? Excellent 3D support, and you can use either JavaScript or C# for development, which makes transition from programming Flash games quite attractive.

Check out the island demo over on lab.iestyn.net

Unity demo

So, this leads me to UnityBrighton.com. Back in March I registered the domain, but did nothing with it. I’m guessing there will be renewed interest in Unity, so I’ve finally got round to setting it up. For now it’s a basic Wordpress blog and a Google groups mailing list. If you’re interested in Unity, please join and say hello!

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Bad experience with Cancom Brighton

Published on September 18, 2009 in apple, bad, brighton, cancom, experience, mac, mbp, mike and sale of goods act. 3 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

Update: I’m pleased to say this situation has been resolved amicably. I’m currently tied up with the Flash on the Beach 2009 conference, and will post more information on this situation when it’s over. The end result is I’m happy with the resolution, and would not hesitate to both recommend and use Cancom in the future.

A quick heads up for any Mac users in Brighton.

I bought my MBP on the 13th August 2009 from Cancom Brighton, on Queens Road.
I’ve had never-ending problems with it, as people following me on Twitter will be well aware of ;)

Today I had a Genius bar appointment at the Apple store. The guy there was incredibly helpful, and agreed that there was either a problem with bad sectors on the HDD, or possibly the logic board. The manager was consulted, and I was offered a refund. Hooray! When I produced the receipt, and pointed out it was Cancom, they were unable to help.

So off to Cancom I go. The staff there are really nice, and very helpful. They offer to book my machine in for repair, however, I’d really like a MBP that works, and I’d rather not waste any more time waiting around, especially with the Flash on the Beach conference next week. So I ask for a refund or replacement, as I’m entitled to. The person I’m dealing with calls the manager – Mike – out.

I explain to Mike that under the Sale of Goods Act I’m entitled to a refund or replacement, which I’m requesting. He says that’s against company policy, and I’ll need to bring it up with a director of Cancom, Brandon Weightman. He says that Brandon is aware of the Sale of Goods Act. I point out that Apple had offered me refund, but it’s still against company policy.

Again I explain to Mike that I’m entitled to a refund or replacement under the Sale of Goods Act, but he replies that it’s against company policy. Is company policy more important than the Sale of Goods Act? He says that I’ll need to take it up with the Director.

At this point I decide that I’ll book it in for repair anyway, as I might end up punching Mike if I talk to him any longer. I then leave to go and read through the Sale of Goods Act.

So – anyone here know what I should be doing next? The last thing I want to do is end up taking it back for repairs again and again, which may be the case if it’s a logic board fault.

I’d even be happy to have a refund and spend a bit more on a better spec MBP..

Right, whinge over!

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Develop – The aftermath

Published on July 17, 2009 in brighton, conference, develop and gaming. 1 Comment Tags: , , , .

Simon Parkin has a great write-up of the Develop conference on his blog.

This really intrigues me:

Charles Cecil, creator of Broken Sword, told me that the atmosphere surrounding Flash and iPhone developers right now reminds him of the mid-1980s, where the new avenues and platforms open to developers were yet to settle and there was a sense that anything might be possible

I didn’t know this either:

I learned a few things I didn’t know before, such as the revelation that Half-Life 2’s artists wrote three supporting pieces of fiction for every location on the game, one describing what happened there two days ago, one two weeks ago and another two years in the past. “This historical record (which ran longer than the entire story for the game) gave every location in the game a sense of place, history and verisimilitude,” said Viktor Antonov, the game’s art director, “something far more nuanced and rich than simply slapping some graffiti on a wall.”

Next year I have to go to Develop. It’s right on the doorstep!

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Electronics Workshop with Mitch Altman

Published on July 4, 2009 in brighton, electronics, hacking, mitch altman, robot brighton and the skiff. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , .

RobotBrighton and The Skiff hosted an excellent electronics workshop today with Mitch Altman – the guy who invented the TV-B-Gone and the Brain Machine – who kindy decided to visit us in Brighton during his stay in the UK.

It’s been many years since I’ve done any soldering, and to be fair I was never that good at it, so it was good to have an expert on hand to show how it’s done.

Mitch had a few kits with him for sale, I bought a Mignonette game kit to help me practice my soldering, and a Brain Machine kit that I’ll put together soon. I had a go on one of the pre-built Brain Machines, and they are very strange..

I haz made Yey for making stuff

More photos on Flickr.

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Anish Kapoor’s C-Curve – Brighton

Published on May 10, 2009 in anish, brighton, festival, kapoor and photography. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

An excellent photo by Brighton’s Rob Orchard! I absolutely love this photo. I’ve got to go try something like this myself now :)

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Arduino, Wii, Flash, Servos, Lasers, Papervision..

Published on March 27, 2009 in actionscript, arduino, brighton, electronics, flash and programming. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

Recently I’ve been getting into all things electronic again. Strangely, I was doing this a year ago. 

Creating the Shopper 13 game sparked my enthusiasm, and I’ve been gathering new parts to experiment with:
Servos and header pins Making things talk

In addition to that, I’ve also got a Wii Nunchuck hooked up to my Arduino which I’m currently controlling Flash and Servos via the accelerometer and analog joystick. Oh, and a Laser.. and some Papervision too. When I’ve got something interesting, I’ll post it. Hopefully that’ll be in the next few days :)

Well I have to start building my robot army somewhere..

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More award nominations

Published on November 19, 2008 in actionscript, as3, brighton, flash, game, internet and life. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , , .

A quick update to say that we’re up for some more awards!

First of all, Bow Street Runner is up for a BIMA award on the 27th Novemeber.

Secondly, Bow Street Runner is up for a DIMA award on the 27th November, along with the excellent Transformers auditions we made for Paramount.

It’s absolutely fantastic to see BSR up for more awards. It was a lot of hard work, and I’d like to think that it really has paid off.

If you’ve not played BSR, it’s a free online game for Channel 4 that was launched earlier this year. It could easily take over an hour or more to complete all 5 episodes, so if you fancy a little taster video to see what it’s all about, take a look at the video here.

I’ve blogged about Bow Street Runner a few times.

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Twitter and trusting random sites

Published on November 13, 2008 in brighton and twitter. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Recently I’ve seen a lot of otherwise sensible people trusting random websites with their twitter username and password. In exchange the user gets an number that somehow ranks them on Twitter.

As seen with the twitterrank.com app, there’s also an option to post your score to twitter, thereby getting your friends to go to the site and post theirs, so it can quickly go viral.

Now, if I was evil, it would be a trivial matter to create my own app that stores users login details and assigns a random number to their score. Hey, why not make it a high number too, to make people feel good about themselves? :) Wihin a short amount of time, you’ve got a viral phishing scam where users voluntarily give you thier passwords. A bad guy’s dream.

Sure, you might have a different password for every web app, and immediately change your password after using something lke that.. but I bet the majority of people don’t..

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The origin of design patterns

Published on November 12, 2008 in brighton and flash. 1 Comment Tags: , , .

Richard Willis gave an excellent talk at FlashBrighton last night about the origin of design patterns. I knew that the Gang of Four’s book Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software was based to a degree on A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction, and it was fascinating to find out more about this.

I love the ideas presented in the book, and Rich did an excellent job of making what could have been a geeky session into one that I feel many people could appreciate.

That book is definitely on my shopping list. Good work Rich. 

I should also mention Tom and Chris from Flexible Factory did a good job of clarifying the Event model in AS3 :)

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Bow Street Runner wins Flashforward award!

Published on August 22, 2008 in actionscript, as3, brighton, flash, flashforward, game, internet and programming. 0 Comments Tags: .

HOORAY!

I’m very happy to say that the epic Bow Street Runner game we made for Channel 4 has just won a Flashforward award at Flashforward San Francisco 2008 :)

Thanks to everyone involved!

Edit: This is our second Flashforward award :)

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