PixelBender Outline is a simple view for Eclipse. It allows you to browse through compiled PixelBender kernel files (pbj). Usually it is quite annoying when working with PixelBender. You always have to debug the shader if you did not write it yourself to know about parameters and stuff. The PixelBender Outline view allows you to navigate through that information in a comfortable way.
PixelBender Outline is working with FDT only. Just grab the JAR file and place it into your Eclipse plugins folder (…/Eclipse/plugins/) to install it. After restarting Eclipse you can open the view using Window->Show View->Other->PixelBender->PixelBender Outline.
The outline is updated everytime you select a *.pbj file in the Flash Explorer.
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Another simple example here. I think it was a little bit hard for me to understand first how to do animations with Pixel Bender based on user input.
The user input is currently only a Math.random() but I think you will get the idea. I always put the output of the shader back into it and get a nice wave effect.
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FITC is approaching and I am glad to announce that I will do more than just the one session about inlining bytecode. I will also talk about Hydra again — it will be the “Chop the Hydra!” session from FITC Amsterdam. I think it is a great opportunity to share the Hydra-love on the other side of the hemisphere.
Another interesting part will be the open discussion “3D in Flash: Now and the Future” which Ralph Hauwert will moderate.
I think it will be an awesome event — hope to see you soon!
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A new year, a new Flashforum Conference. The organizers Sascha and Marc invite you from 2nd to the 5th of June to Cologne. It is my third time at the Flashforum Conference and I think it will be a great event just like the last two years. This time the conference will be also a little bit more workshop-based with two extra days (pre and post conference) full of workshops. I will have one session about Hydra like in Amsterdam and another one about my inline bytecode compiler and optimizer. Be prepared — it will definitly rock.
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I am happy to announce that I will speak at the FITC in Amsterdam. My session is titled “Chop the Hydra!” and guess what it is about?
Probably you noticed that I was working with Hydra a lot in the past. Everyone who worked with BitmapData will love Hydra and I have the honor to introduce you into the world of shaders. And even better: It is not only about Flash since Hydra filters work with AfterEffects too.
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Working with Hydra for some days gave me a better knowledge of how things actually work and I thought it might be worth trying something that is a little bit harder. It is very funny to implement a complex filter on the one hand and keeping it Flash compatible on the other hand. You will see a lot of this in the code.
I really enjoyed writing this one. It helped me again a lot and I think you might learn a lot from the source code as well. By the way I started first with a k of 4 but that was crashing Hydra all the time. Might have looked better but 2 is also ok. Have fun!
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Thanks to Zeh for poiting out that a short if is possible and succeeds in the Hydra compiler with Flash warnings enabled. So you can use them only if your values are constant but the use of this is already fantastic. See this nice “technodots” filter which shoul be 100% Flash compatible if we can trust the compiler. It works because all parameters and function results have been set to variables before doing the if.
I think Adobe showed this filter during the keynote. Could not find sources for it and my internet is at home to crappy in order to watch the video again but it was something like this if I remember correct.
Update: To complete the list of filters they showed during the keynote here is a cheap twirl as well.
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As I told you I will have a closer look on hydra and the results are nice. I was able to build a Spherize, SinePlasma and OldschoolPlasma in about an hour. I think you have to keep in mind that Hydra will work together with Flash. Plasma functions are a good example because you could generate the texture in grayscale using Hydra and then use a paletteMap() in Flash.
I am not so sure about the spherize though. I have one if-statement inside and they are not allowed if you use Flash. Funny new problems will pop up but I have a good feeling and one thing is for sure: the syntax and editor are already better than what we have with AS3/FlexBuilder! Highlightning of matching brackets, no stupid function and no var keywords. Finally! Can I have that with AS3 please?
- Oldschool - Simple oldschool plasma effect. You have to use a color palette with this.
- Ripple filter - Sine distortion for an image.
- Sineplasma - Sine plasma with adjustable levels, frequency and amplitude.
- Spherize filter - Spherical displacement map with adjustable center, radius and refraction strength.
- Structure - Filter with adjustable 3×3 structuring function.
- Warp - I wanted to do an affine transformation until I found out it does not work with the way hydra works. I will try again.
- Gamma correction - Look how simple it is!
- Pixelate - Could not be easier than that.
- Sepia - I hate those ColorMatrixFilter sepia effects. Now this one is fast and has nice quality using Y-transform.
- Quantization - A color quantization filter.
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PixelBender Outline is a simple view for Eclipse. It allows you to browse through compiled PixelBender kernel files (pbj). Usually it is quite annoying when working with PixelBender. You always have to debug the shader if you did not write it yourself to know about parameters and stuff. The PixelBender Outline view allows you to navigate through that information in a comfortable way.
