Project Snow Fight

Another internal case-study project of Pyco Flash team to research multiplayer game with Red5. This is a 2D top-view real-time shooting game whose gameplay is similar to CS2D – you control your character moving round with WASD keys and aim and shoot with your mouse. The game showcases real-time synchronization among clients in a precision and fast-pace environment. The team have learnt a lot from the book ActionScript for Multiplayer Games and Virtual Worlds and apply what we learnt successfully to this game.

I designed and proposed the game concept and detailed requirements. I also joint to develop the character control and foundation of client-server synchronization.

My roles: system designer, technical supporter

Tech notes:

• Pyco Flash Framework – based on PureMVC


• Red5


• TweenMax


• Realtime multiplayer synchronization

Click here to try the game. (Because this is a multi-player game, make sure you invite your friends to join).

 

Project Pop Rox

This part-time project is about making a role playing game with a turn-base battle system. The story and events of the game can be easily scripted via an XML file. I have joined created the basic structure and workflow of the game based on PureMVC framework; created the scriptable story teller. This is a medium project with 4 developers.

My role: Team leader, Flash developer

Tech notes:

• PureMVC framework
• GTween engine
• AddictingGames’ sponsor teaser

Case Study Isometric Multi-player Virtual World

This is my team’s case study to demonstrate our capability to build a MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game). The site features 2.5D isometric scene and realtime multiplayer virtual world utilizing SmartFox server.

My role: key researcher, team leader

Tech notes:

• Flash Player 9 / Actionscript 3
• AS3IsoLib Isometric engine
• Red5 server (in first phase)
• SmartFox multiplayer server (Java backend)

Project ASB Minisites

This is an all-flash minisite for a key flying performer team from Air Show Buzz community. This site is to deliver videos, photos and other information related to the team in a centralized and convenient way. The site features PureMVC framework in the front-end flash site and PHP as backend services. The site was designed in a way that new contents and panels can be added/removed dynamically, and theme color can be changed via XML-based site config. (In fact, with the same swfs, it has been cloned into a few other minisites.)

My role: Technical leader

Tech notes:

• Flash 9 / Actionscript 3
• PureMVC framework
• Flash CS3 & Flex SDK workflow
• Clearspring sharing service
• Google Map API for Flash

Project Smile Shutter

 

This is a another key campaign site (2009) for Sony Ericsson to show off their latest mobile phones with smile capture technology (C510, C903). Apart from Flex and Cairngorm framework, this site features SOAP service communication and complicated back office management to handle a big photo gallery and users database. The site is also localized into over 30 languages.

My role: Flex technical leader; Flex developer

Tech notes:

• Flex 3 / Actionscript 3
• Cairngorm MVC micro-architecture framework
• Loaded CSS (dynamic font & styles)
• Custom effects
• XML-based localization
• SOAP services
• Large scale photo gallery (.NET backend)

Happy Vietnamese New Year 2010

It been a while I haven't done any animation/e-card for my dear friends. This year, I want to make something different to mark my mature in the Flash carear after 2 years. Here it is (click on the thumb to open the flash movie:

HAPPY VIETNAMESE NEW YEAR 2010!
WELCOME THE YEAR OF THE TIGER!

The images are loaded from my FaceBook friends list.

You can find the source code of this app here.

Update 14-June-2010: Profile picture URLs were fetched once via FaceBook API tester and stored in an embedded XML. They may be outdated over time.

How to prepare a 3D portfolio for an interview

Some wise and valuable words from Andy Catterick: link

Some examples of Andy's beautiful work:

Project - Shiho

Campaign microsite for Sony Ericsson C905 – code name Shiho. This site features Cairngorm MVC framework and a flexible localization mechanism. Every text in the site is configurable via XML. The embedded fonts with specific character sets are selectively loaded for different languages. (For e.g: basic Latin for English, French; Cyrillic for Bulgarian, Russian…) Non-embedded languages like Chinese are also possible. Animations which demonstrate the phone features are made with Flash IDE and loaded into the Flex-based application progressively to optimize bandwidth.



My role: Team leader (during localization phase), Flash developer



Tech notes:

• Flex 3 / Actionscript 3


• Cairngorm MVC micro-architecture framework


• Loaded CSS (dynamic font & styles)


• Flex’ custom effect


• Flash + Flex combination


• XML-based localization

  

Project - Female Form Factor

A campaign microsite for the Sony Ericsson mobile phone - T303. The site includes 4 stylish studios in which you will try out the new phone with its featured features: camera (capture a photo from the room and display it in a frame), music player (listen to some pieces of music that are chosen to match with the room's mood) and Internet access (buy some items and put them in the room). There is also a quiz to help user choosing the matching room for them. This site was finished in 8/2008.

The site is integrated as iframe in www.sonyericsson.com under T303 phone page. However, you can google the phrase 'Female Form Factor' to receive this direct link.

My role: Team leader, Flash developer

Technical notes:

• Flash 8 / Actionscript 2
• Object Oriented
• Displacement Map Filter: used to make the camera viewport look wider
• Dynamic font embedding: load the font set specific to a localized language. Since there's no dynamic font registering in Flash 8, a special technique was used involving dynamic shared library.
• .NET service.

Project - Offset The Evil

Like its name, this flash site is to offset the evil from those played the bloody game Condemned 2. The site includes 3 simple fun games (one of them was removed for the reason I don't know) which are totally unrelated to Comdemned 2 and some other activities related to the game. This site was finished in 4/2008. By the time of this post, the site is still live at: http://www.offsettheevil.com/

The 3 games were developed by my team and I was in charge of the Lolipop Parade.

My role was: Flash Developer

Technology notes:

• Object Oriented
• Flash Player 8 / ActionScript 2
• Tweener

Project Spa Water Coach

(2008) The main purpose of this website is to deliver a desktop application which calculates user’s water needs and reminds them to drink enough a day. The project comprised of 2 parts: a full Flash website to let user input necessary data for the calculation of needed water consumption; a desktop widget (made with Adobe AIR) to run regularly on user’s desktop to keep track and remind them to drink water.

My role: team leader, AIR developer

Tech notes:

• Flash 9 / Actionscript 3
• Adobe AIR
• Tweener tweening library