Ackmi Dress Up for Android on the Market!!

July 19th, 2011 by Chris Moeller
Android, Game Development, Personal Projects | No Comments »

Sorry about the lack of updates and additional tutorials lately. I have been busy trying to finish my first android game with my fiance.

I have been learning how to program using the libgdx game framework, and it makes the whole process of programming an openGL based game much smoother.

It’s a game used to create your own avatar, somewhat like a virtual barbie dress up game, so aimed more at girls. It is really more of a “toy” than a game as of right now, but we do have plans for adding goals, rewards and feedback to convert the customization system into a game with many hours of re-playability.

I will be posting tutorials on how to use it to create your own android games in the next few posts.

In the mean time, check out the android app, let me know what you think and provide feedback!

Our company website:
http://www.ackmi.com

The link on the app store:
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.ackmi.amazing_dress_up&feature=search_result

Packt Publishing 30% of open source ebooks

July 13th, 2011 by Chris Moeller
Reviews | No Comments »

I’ve been getting a lot of my technical books from Packt Publishing, as they seem to have a ton of tech books, and e-book copies of everything, so I don’t have to wait to read them.

If you’ve been interested in any of their open source based software books, they are going to be on sale for 30% off on e-books (and 20% on printed copies) starting July 4th.

Some that I will be looking at in the next few weeks will be ‘PHP jQuery Cookbook’, ‘PHP 5 Social Networking’, ‘Inkscape 0.48 Essentials for Web Designers’ (vector based graphics program, and ‘Blender 2.5 Lighting and Rendering’, although they have quite a few more books offered for the discount as well.

Apparently they have also donated over $300k to open sourced projects this year as well, which is pretty cool that they are helping to support the open source community.

I’ve got lots of good reading to do!

You can see the books discounted here: http://www.packtpub.com/article/packts-best-selling-open-source-books-offer/

CakePHP 1.3 Application Development Cookbook Review

July 3rd, 2011 by Chris Moeller
PHP, Reviews, Web Development | No Comments »

I have been developing web sites and web applications for several years now, but have been wanting to try out a PHP development framework to take care of not having to program lower level functionality, which would also let me develop applications in much less time.

CakePHP is a php, rapid development framework, and the tutorials on the site walk you through creating a basic blog application in relatively little time.
The CakePHP 1.3 Application Development Cookbook, like all “Cookbooks”, gives you many code snippets to create commonly needed systems, which are used to create complex applications.

Read the rest of the article…

Quick Post on Learning Photoshop– from a College Humor Rap Video!

June 4th, 2011 by Chris Moeller
Random | No Comments »

I just came across this on Hulu, but thought some other Photoshop users would find it funny (as well as slightly useful if you understand what they are saying.

Very clever– I’d like to start doing some tutorials in this fashion!

http://www.hulu.com/watch/245172/collegehumor-sketches-photoshop-tutorial-rap#s-p1-sr-i0

How to Make a Computer From Parts– Part 1: Parts of a Computer and How Much Money You Will Save

June 1st, 2011 by Chris Moeller
Hardware | No Comments »

This purpose of this article series is to teach you how to build your own computer from parts.

This article will show you parts needed to put together a computer, as well as comparing it to buying a computer from a manufacturer.

I believe every person should be able to make their own computer, and after reading this article series, you should have no problem building your own.

Read the rest of the article…

Using Box2d to Create a Side Scrolling Game — Part 2: Adding Keyboard Input and An Enemy

June 1st, 2011 by Chris Moeller
ActionScript 3, Box2d, Flash, Game Development | 2 Comments »

This article will show you how to add user input to control the “hero” object created in the previous article.

Additionally, we will add an enemy that will wander back and forth, stop and reverse direction at the ends of the screen, and will bounce up the hero when jumped onto.

Read the rest of the article…

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Review

May 17th, 2011 by Chris Moeller
Games, Reviews | 3 Comments »

I’ve been waiting for The Witcher 2 since it was announced.

I loved the first game (mainly because of the involved story, and fantasy universe), so I was able to pick it up today from Fry’s electronics.

One nice surprise was that even though it retails for $50, and the sticker was $50, Fry’s had the game for $34!
Read the rest of the article…

Review of Flash Game Development by Example (Author: Emanuele Feronato)

May 11th, 2011 by Chris Moeller
ActionScript 3, Flash, Game Development, Reviews | 1 Comment »

When I found out the author of the largest Flash game development blog had written a book, I was very eager to pick it up and try it out.
(his announcement on his blog HERE)

Emanuele’s blog has been around for many years, and he has great information from starting out in actionscript and beginning game programming, all the way up to developing complete games, using 3d and physics engines.

Read the rest of the article…

Using Box2d to Create a Side Scrolling Game — Part 1: Intro and Setting Up Box2d

May 4th, 2011 by Chris Moeller
ActionScript 3, Box2d, Game Development, Games | 1 Comment »

The purpose of these articles will be to make a basic side scrolling type game using Box2d to handle collision detection.

This article will show you how to set up a project with box2d, and start creating objects to be used in a side scrolling type game (such as Super Mario Brothers).

Read the rest of the article…

Asus EP121 Tablet Review (Cintiq Alternative)

April 23rd, 2011 by Chris Moeller
Art, Game Development, Reviews | 2 Comments »

What is the Asus EP121?

The Asus EEE EP121 tablet/slate is a great multi-purpose device.

For artists, it has a 12″ wacom screen that has 256 levels of pressure sensitivity.

For people looking for a tablet or new laptop, it is a lightweight, relatively high resolution full windows device, with bluetooth hardware keyboard, that accepts up to 10 finger multitouch. Use it as a tablet, use it as a laptop, the power to do both!

For hardware buffs, it has a 1280x800 touch(capacitive) and pen sensitive (electromagnetic) input screen, with potentially a 64GB SSD (solid state hard drive), 4GB DDR3 ram, 802.11n/g/b wireless, 4.5hr battery, stereo sound, 2x usb 2.0, 1 mini HDMI port, and a 2MP camera.

An in depth review of my experience using it as an art tablet and a laptop+ conventional tablet follows.

Read the rest of the article…

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