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Its not real just an illusion of software to get investors to invest.Quote:
Originally posted by JMulhern
heh.. i have never heard that one beforeQuote:
Originally posted by johnie
vaporware.
Its like saying I have this software that changes a .28 dpi monitor into a .22 dpi 3D Plasma flat screen monitor,but I need 3M to develope it.
You get the money and gee what happen,I can't develope it.I win..you lose.
sorta like that movie boiler room?! its such an awesome movie.. the guy sells fake stocks though.. its real good
Except in this case it may be Hoaxware as the site was only looking for investors for 2 days...
Like I said give it a week if the site is still gone then it is probably not true- although what they were proposing is not impossible- The componets exist.
Ming- GPL C Library with Flash 5 Actions designed to run on a server- GPLED
SWF Source SDK C++ under an Open Source Liscense- Makes SWF programing possible without VC++.
GTK- Open Source Gpled package for making Graphic apps.
Ecma- Compilers- These are a dime a dozen and most are GPLED.
Open Office- The entire thing is GPLED- the star draw module supports just about every Vector format and Raster format known to man and has a 3-D Engine.
Lame- Encoder- GPLED is intergrated into Swish and Insane Flash Animator.
This thing could very easily be put together from packages that exist right now- so it is possible that it is not vaporware.
what if, openlgx is actually real? beyond the fact that we (or whoever will be willing to get it) will get a new flash creation tool, just what will happen to all of those that spoke so negative about the openlgx.org happenings?
-anybody willing to bet like... eat your hat, take pictures of it, post it on the web (??)
sorta weird though... I have not heard/see anything from them on their, codelogix.com, flashmagazine.com, or (m-something, I forgot, it's late...) the other sites about a possible outage. Not even a temp page.
vaporware? I dunno. I am patient... willing to see what happens...
Well, it's seems like the guy is for real.... and that flashguru (www.flashguru.co.uk) got the beta....
Man, this is getting interesting...
Quote:
Originally posted by floptikal
Well, it's seems like the guy is for real.... and that flashguru (www.flashguru.co.uk) got the beta....
Man, this is getting interesting...
Well, they say they got an Alpha (... it's a beta, it's an alpha it's .....) on CD and they still have to test it.
Interstingly enough, the guy had registered a lot of web sites (codelogix, organicpixel etc) last May that now all point to motionculture.com run by a relative.
openlgx.org site just disappearead, maybe Macromedia decided to cut power supply....(yearrright...)
Cheers,
Lele
OK. Let's get the terms straighten out:Quote:
Originally posted by Leviathan
Quote:
Originally posted by floptikal
Well, it's seems like the guy is for real.... and that flashguru (www.flashguru.co.uk) got the beta....
Man, this is getting interesting...
Well, they say they got an Alpha (... it's a beta, it's an alpha it's .....)
Windows is in alpha(http://webopedia.internet.com/TERM/A/alpha_version.html), and linux is en beta(http://webopedia.internet.com/TERM/b/beta_test.html).
But it's true. I haven't talked to anyone that have tested it....
None of them is ready to provide the bones for a prime time Flash replacement. Both are a thin layer above the SWF structure and lots of things are missing. One for all, you can create simple shapes (Circle, rectangles) but not overlapping polygons with different fills (they would need an ad hoc developed polygon cutting algorithm as in Flash, and I can assure you it takes more efforts than writing the rest of the library). None of them provides animation capabilities beyond simple X, Y positioning (no path animation, no tweening, no automatic morphing, no easing in-out)Quote:
Originally posted by johnie
Except in this case it may be Hoaxware as the site was only looking for investors for 2 days...
Like I said give it a week if the site is still gone then it is probably not true- although what they were proposing is not impossible- The componets exist.
Ming- GPL C Library with Flash 5 Actions designed to run on a server- GPLED
SWF Source SDK C++ under an Open Source Liscense- Makes SWF programing possible without VC++.
this provide the capaibilties of creating platform independt interfaces, but doesn't provide an interface itself. I mean, you still have to create the interface by using this toolkit and it takes quite a long time and huge efforts to provide an interface for a graphic editor like the Flash one. It is a lot more than dropping some buttons on a VisualBasic form.Quote:
GTK- Open Source Gpled package for making Graphic apps.
Again, this is only a compiler, but you still have to write the program....Quote:
Ecma- Compilers- These are a dime a dozen and most are GPLED.
Maybe you should take a look at it.... it is one of most unstructured piece of uncommented code I have ever seen (some comments are in german). It would take about a month just to get it compiled.Quote:
Open Office- The entire thing is GPLED- the star draw module supports just about every Vector format and Raster format known to man and has a 3-D Engine.
Sorry, Johnie, what do you mean with 'very easily'? Did you had a look at the code of those programs above? None of them is designed to be a component (possible exception are the Lame encoder and the GTK toolkit), everything has to be so heavily modified to be integrated that this could take potentially years to get something to work. And what about the other tons of features they promised?Quote:
Lame- Encoder- GPLED is intergrated into Swish and Insane Flash Animator.
This thing could very easily be put together from packages that exist right now- so it is possible that it is not vaporware.
Cheers,
Lev
What happened to their website ? I cant get on to it...no mather how many times I try !
Have we fallen into the trap of memetics. Here is a quote from their web. "Memes are contagious ideas, all competing for a share of our mind in a kind of Darwinian selection. As memes evolve, they become better and better at distracting and diverting us from whatever we'd really like to be doing with our lives. They are a kind of Drug of the Mind. Confused? Blame it on memes.
I have been following meme's for years,as they explain a lot in life. Here is the URL of one site, http://www.memecentral.com/
Leviathan,
I suppose I should say I can see how it is pluasible that a tool is based off of those componets-
I never meant to Imply that it would be very easy to code but that the code exisits and one could, if determined enough, create it very pluasibly from those componets.... I just said it was possible.
- Ming and the SWF Source SDK has everything- Its just not documented. Several third party apps have included the features you are claiming are not possible.Quote:
None of them is ready to provide the bones for a prime time Flash replacement. Both are a thin layer above the SWF structure and lots of things are missing. One for all, you can create simple shapes (Circle, rectangles) but not overlapping polygons with different fills (they would need an ad hoc developed polygon cutting algorithm as in Flash, and I can assure you it takes more efforts than writing the rest of the library). None of them provides animation capabilities beyond simple X, Y positioning (no path animation, no tweening, no automatic morphing, no easing in-out)
Overlaping Polygons and different fills are already supported in third party apps. Insane Flash Animator, Swish 2, Morph Ink, and Swish 2 support it.
Kool Moves and Morph Ink support Automatic Morphing. Swish 2, KoolMoves, Morph Ink, and Insane Flash Animator supports Easing In and Out.
The Open Office Code is very Undocumented but it is being developed- it is possible. Star Office 6 is based off the new code developed by the open source community.
- I agree with you some of the stuff they were claiming is hard to beleive but all in all it is possible. Having a new plug-in is not that uncommen. Morph Ink for one has develeoped its own plug-in that supports a smaller file size than Flash. Also Sharp developed the EVA (Extended Vector Animation) format in 1997 that if it was ever released into English would Give the Flash Player a Run for the Money since the EVA (Extended Vector Animation) files tend to run 21 to 1- EVA vs Flash. A 400 KB EVA animation can run about 10 minutes where as a 1 Meg animation in flash if optimized is only 1 minute. The problem is that Sharp is very very protective of its code. The Only way to get EVA Animator 2 is by purchasing a New Japanese Language Sharp Computer unless you want EVA Kids (Sells for the equivilant of $30) which again you need the Japanese version of Windows to Run. For some reason Microsoft felt it nescary to build a seperate API for the different localizations. Although You English users cannot Install EVA corectly on thier machines it most certainly does exist http://www.sharp.co.jp/sc/excite/evademo/evahome.htm
I have heard people who have claimed to recieved Betas of this program but have not seen it myself- only mock ups. If FlashGuru claims to have a beta then I have no reason not to believe him espicaily since the developer is speaking at FK conference in LA, FF 2001 at one time did have this posted on the schedule, and Flash Mag reported it. There are three confirmed reputable sources that such a program exisits. I am inclined to believe that something exists but not what they are promising.
Johnie,
I think we are going in a dead path by making speculation about the OpenLgx, I'll sit and wait to see what happen.
However you make certain affirmation that requires clarification. Flash SWF format is not a philosophy, it is something that you know or not, maybe you scratched the surface, but there is a lot more to know before giving certain statements:
Maybe I didn't expressed myself correctly, but from what you are talking about, overlapping polygons are completely different things. Don't judge the things you see on screen and assumes what happen, generally in software it is true that "if you can't make it, fake it".Quote:
Originally posted by johnie
- Ming and the SWF Source SDK has everything- Its just not documented. Several third party apps have included the features you are claiming are not possible.
Overlaping Polygons and different fills are already supported in third party apps. Insane Flash Animator, Swish 2, Morph Ink, and Swish 2 support it.
Kool Moves and Morph Ink support Automatic Morphing. Swish 2, KoolMoves, Morph Ink, and Insane Flash Animator supports Easing In and Out.
Let's explain this: did you ever noticed that in the Flash environment (and ONLY in Flash) you don't draw directly symbols but you firstly draw shapes, select them and turn them into symbols, movies etc? This happen because of the unique way the vector rasterizing engine in the Flash player works. If you draw a yellow filled rectangle with a red outlining pen and then draw an green filled oval with a blue outlining pen (see picture at http://www.barefootsoft.com/samples/pic1.jpg ), then select the oval with arrow tool and move it away, you will see that Flash display the yellow rectangle minus the part where the oval was overlapping (see picture at http://www.barefootsoft.com/samples/pic2.jpg ). Even if is not immediately understandable, Flash perfomed a boolean operation between the rectangle and the oval, subtracting from the background shape (the rectangle) the foreground one (the oval). NONE of the SWF sdks released until now, nor ANY of the applications you mention that output Flash can perform this operation. With the SDKs if you try to create symbols with overlapping polygons you will obtain a strange result (see picture at http://www.barefootsoft.com/samples/pic3.jpg ). So how can Swish, KoolMoves etc display those apparently 'overlapping' polygons? Simple, they position them in separate layers and the interface let the user believe they are a unique symbol or group, but at time of generating the output they will perform the trick. Don't take my words for the absolute thruth, see it for yourself: create few shapes on KoolMoves, group them and save the file, use swfdump and you will see that they really are separate entities and displayed on separate layers. Your question could be: why do you care so much about polygon cutting if the end result looks the same? The answer it's easy: not implementing a polygon cutting system simply make the playback of the genetared movie a lot sloppier than it should be, as the player has to rasterize every single layer before displaying the final frame (more layers more processing power required), so to finally count the apples, if your symbol is composed of three shapes, it will take three times to display compared to the same symbol generated from the Flash environment. Also, the file will be three times bigger, as every shapes has to be positioned singularly special effects (alpha etc) comprised not to mention drawing instrction that are unneeded because they are hidden by the above portion. Talking about the remaining features you mention, none of them are included on the SDKs that means the author had to write them. I know both SDKs very well (I didn't read just the docs, I actually explored the code) and I don't think that Jesse or the author of Ming (sorry forgot the name) will be upset if I affirm that they are a thin layer above the SWF binary structure, suitable to generate simple structured movies. If OpenLGX is based around any of this code it will take another 9/10 of the total code to be written before getting any result. Why do you think that Swish 2 has been on beta for over 6 months? Because the guys involved are wasting their time? Or because writing a software of that complexity just requires a long time and huge efforts? If the OpenLGX three guys have been able to do in 90 days a lot more than what the Swish team (composed of over 10 people) has done in more than year, I strongly suggest David Michie to fire off his team and employ that brilliant OpenLGX one....
Cheers,
Lev
Actually I know what you are talking about and the reason why its not in the specs is because its not there.
There is a lot of Hocus Pocus Going on with Flash and The Flash Spec. Flash itself re-uses a lot of things to do what it seems to be doing and then puts a fancy name on it. Example: FS Commnds are nothing more than Get URL commands as is the Load Movie Action (It uses Get URL 2) and XML is handled just like any other variable using Get and Set variable.
You've said that you ported the player- If your ported player shows those things then you also know that this is the case.
The SWF Source SDK and Ming allow you to use the High and Low Level API- What you are claiming is that the SDKS only use the High Level API which is not the case. Ming 0.2.0 is the first stab at a full Flash 5 Low level API.
What the polygon cutter has to do with the specs? Macromedia doesn't mention that you have to perform a boolean operation between the shapes, but they say that FillStyle 0 and FillStyle 1 must be employed when two or more shapes touch each other or overlap and none of the SDK automatically takes into account this situation. Even if they mentioned the polygon operation, it would be a non trivial operation to perform in software, as all polygon cutting algorithms known until now, work only with straight segments, so possibly Macromedia has made a mathematical breaktrou by expanding these standard algorithms to take quadric curves into account. If you knew really what I was talking about, then you shouldn't have mentioned the KoolMoves, Swish 2 etc comparison.Quote:
Originally posted by johnie
Actually I know what you are talking about and the reason why its not in the specs is because its not there.
Cheers,
Lev
When flash released the SDK they only gave bare bare bones info- they never realesed the code to flash. Live Motion however does have a simular function (add and subtract Shape) and I want to see the Swish 2 file you parsed :D BTW.
Regardles it is now the 15'th of July and it looks as if there will be no OpenLGX program. The fact that this group did such a bad bad thing if this is a hoax does not negate the need for a Unix/Linux Flash tools. I'm personally giving them till about the 21'st and then writing them off as a Hoax.
...uhm... I can't of course! Swish 2 beta doesn't save, but you can see it anyway on screen, as it uses Flash Player code to display the drawing canvas. Create a filled rectangle, then an oval that partially overlap the rectangle (choose two different colors and make sure both have a pen color selected). Now select both shapes and from the Modify menu choose Grouping -> Group as Shape, you will see that the border of the rectangle is drawn above the oval one, while its filling is correctly displayed behind it. I'm not saying that is impossible to perform that cutting, just that is very difficult.Quote:
Originally posted by johnie
When flash released the SDK they only gave bare bare bones info- they never realesed the code to flash. Live Motion however does have a simular function (add and subtract Shape) and I want to see the Swish 2 file you parsed :D BTW.
I can wait even months, time wasn't the problem, bull**** it is. I came across a company some months ago, called Kimmuli, the supposed to be boss had a similar attidute of these guys,'we know everything', 'we benefit the entire community', until they started to steal other people works, rebadge them and making other not so nice stuff. I've learnt that you have to see things working (even if not fully) before commiting to something, otherwise even your credibility will be at a risk.Quote:
Regardles it is now the 15'th of July and it looks as if there will be no OpenLGX program. The fact that this group did such a bad bad thing if this is a hoax does not negate the need for a Unix/Linux Flash tools. I'm personally giving them till about the 21'st and then writing them off as a Hoax.
Cheers,
Lev
FROM BRANDEN HALL (FIG LEAF) TO FLASHCODERS LIST:
I also missed the presentation, however I had a number of discussions with
good friends of mine who did attend both the presentation and the Q&A
session. Unfortunately, unlike was promised nothing was actually shown and
the whole presentation was apparently just a re-hash of everything that has
been promised on the web site. This, quite naturally, was a great
disappointment since the mantra has been "Just wait till FF! Just wait till
FF!"...
Before I found out about all of this I was cautiously optimistic, I mean I
know what I really good, dedicated coder can do given time. However, a
number of things have occurred that have made me quite a bit more cynical:
- the mud-slinging with MM
- the lack of content at the presentation
- the fact that supposedly a lot of people have seen the beta working, yet
despite the fact that I *know* tons of Flash and Linux folks no one that I
know has seen it work...
- the fact that their web servers mysteriously die every time a beta is to
be released
- the fact that the CD given out at FF which "contains" the beta is just a
downloader which tries to go to the net to get the app. Interestingly
enough, the installer isn't there and the downloader errors every time.
Now, here's the thing, I really hope that OpenLGX works... I really do. But
so far all I have seen is smoke, mirrors and excuses. I know what they are
trying to do, and it will take *time* lots of time. I'm more than willing to
give them as much time as they need. But, when it all comes down to it,
they keep promising a product and not delivering. So, I'm sorry but until
proven to me by actually using the thing I'm considering OpenLGX vaporware.
--
// Branden J. Hall
// Senior Interactive Developer/Instructor
// Flashcoders List Founder/Administrator
// Fig Leaf Software - Washington D.C.
[Edited by AGENT 02 on 07-16-2001 at 10:07 AM]
i just checked there site, and theres a message now saying that it's going to be back up and running again later today, here's hoping everyone, fingers crossed.
more power to you open lgx.
but by judging by the message, they are pissed. wonder what's up?
Quote:
Originally posted by godzilla_is_here
i just checked there site, and theres a message now saying that it's going to be back up and running again later today, here's hoping everyone, fingers crossed.
more power to you open lgx.
The solution to the openlgx situation seems simple to me. It is to release the source code to this open source project. My feeling is that, even if the prog cannot do all that is claimed, a lot of people would be willing to contribute to make it so. Without the prog or the source people will move on and feel a little dissapointed too.
Just my 2 cents.
KJ