Adobe Flash Player 10 Adobe Max Keynote Demos
Project
I was tasked with producing a set of demos that showcased Flash Player 10’s new creative features in a way that was visually interesting, while being on the edge of achievable and aspirational to the developers seeing the demos.
Challenge
My goal was to drive the “oohs” and “ahhs” for the platform segment at the 2009 Adobe Max conference keynote. I needed to develop something eye-catching that showed work that could not previously be done in Flash Player, while also making the project appear to be within the abilities of most developers in attendance.
Solution
Flickr3D: Flash Player 10 added the first level of native 3D capabilities to Flash Player. While not the full 3D environment that exists today, this was the ability to rotate flat planes in 3D space. I took inspiration from the artist Dale Chihuly and how he hangs his drawings in grids to create a colorful image search that lays out the results in a cylindrical gallery.
Double clicking on an image will load the detail view which transitions in with another Flash Player 10 feature, custom shaders. I developed a shader to simulate some of the forms of Chihuly’s art glass.
Cloth Demo: Flash Player 10 added new capabilities to its drawing API that allowed for perspective correct rendering of triangles. Since that isn’t a straightforward thing to describe in a brief presentation, I showed an example using an existing physics engine that is popular with our customers, but covered the rendered element with an image, video and even rendered shaders. To drive home the message about drawing triangles, once the users see the impact of the visuals, I can turn on the lines so they can understand what is happening under the hood.