The MossyBlog Times Archives 2007 - 2009 : Prototypers

Silverlight: FaconBacon 3D

scbarnes — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 07:54:06 GMT

David L. Campbell via OzSilverlight mailing list (all the kids hang out here) have put forward a concept around taking a facon bacon 3D animation and putting into Silverlight via a workflow I hadn't even began to think of.

Their approach is quite simple really, and I've meet with a lot of customers doing some interesting things with WPF + 3D. I know true 3D applications make use of complex node structures, but if you're going to produce a basic 2D emulated flat world (that smells like 3D) this could also be a nice approach.

"..This tutorial will guide you through the creation of a Silverlight application that will allow a user to rotate an object that you create, a full 360 degrees along both axis. This application is based on the original SilverlightVR animation engine that was created by Jeff Paries (DesignWithSilverlight.com). Jeff assisted with the creation of this application...

http://www.adefwebserver.com/DotNetNukeHELP/Misc/Silverlight/

One of my favourite Silverlight developers (Neville Richards) has also done some interesting things in terms of emulating 3D inside Silverlight.

"...Breeze Designer, which is a a 3D modeler I wote as a graphical modeler and front end to the popular POV-Ray ray tracer and also a long term hobby project of mine, is being extended to be able to handle a number of new technologies including Microsoft’s Silverlight. As part of this I have created a simple 3D spinning logo of the CGI Australia company. I have posted a sample animation at http://www.imagos.fl.net.au/silverlight/cgi/ The logo was originally created in Adobe Illustrator then imported into Breeze Designer where it was animated into a 3D the spinning version..."

http://imagos.wordpress.com/2007/08/27/technorati-listing/

You can also see some other interesting approaches to Silverlight + 3D via [design logic] blog.

I would love for some kits like papervision3d, Sandy etc to be ported to Silverlight. There are some other early 3d works from bubblemark, a 3D engine recently released in early stages called Balder (source at codeplex), pageturns, and more but it is still pretty young.

http://drawk.wordpress.com/2007/07/15/3d-textured-silverlight/

I think what we are seeing even in the early days of Silverlight is some interesting uses of the product even at this early stage of release. It reassures me that as more and more iterations come of the assembly line, that folks of this caliber are behind pushing it further.

Using Web Analytics with Silverlight.

scbarnes — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 07:29:47 GMT

Michael S. Scherotter (Synergist) and resident Silverlight guru, has put his money where his mouth is and created a webinar around "Using Web Analytics with Silverlight".

It's going to be a compelling discussion, as he's essentially showing how one is able to inject existing analytics into Silverlight. I know from experience, that to carry out this style of execution is somewhat difficult inside the Flash runtime, so it will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Yet, knowing Michael's work, don't be surprised if he shocks your beliefs around whether it can't be done as he's by far one of my favorite Silverlight Producers (thankfully he's on our payroll).

http://blogs.msdn.com/synergist/archive/2007/09/28/upcoming-webinar-using-web-analytics-with-silverlight.aspx

Be sure to register and give him feedback.

** UPDATE: Jeff Wilcox resident Test lead for Silverlight emailed me a blog post on how he was able to break the Microsoft Kool-aid guidelines and tap into Google Analytics using a Mac (See, we aren't all blue blooded fanbois, we also know how to party - geekstyle).

"..Microsoft Silverlight 1.1 and the HTML DOM bridge can easily interface with Google Analytics to help you analyze, track, and better understand your web site visitors. Already a common activity for Flash and Flex developers, the concept of tracking within a rich web application may be new to traditional client application developers, and probably not something done with common WPF applications, but it's simple to add and very useful to advertisers.."

So, You can see Jeff's version in the living wild, you can also now see Michael's upcoming Webinar on the "how". I think both have kicked some butt with this, and I'm freakin glad they are on our payroll.

+2 Beers coming both Michael's & Jeff's way when I'm next in the states:

http://blogs.msdn.com/jeffwilcox/archive/2007/10/01/using-google-analytics-with-rich-managed-web-applications-in-silverlight.aspx

Silverlight and Flex working together.

scbarnes — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 18:32:23 GMT

I've talked about this a lot, even produced some demos for presentation on the subject, yet there is one online you can see today.

The guys at Switch On the Code have put together a demo of using Flex Sliders to manipulate a Silverlight ball. They also posted a tutorial on how they were able to make it happen.

I did wonder why they didn't make reference to the ExternalInterface API (i.e. send the data back from Silverlight to Adobe Flex?) Anyway, it's yet another example of how the two runtimes can work with one another easily enough - provided you are open to the idea.

I'd classify these guys "Prototypers"