Chris Martin's blog

My Frist Pixel Bender Filter

chris — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 16:20:45 +0000

I have been playing with pixel bender and I made my own filter. Its not very complicated but I think its an interesting effect here’s a flash preview here’s the code for the filter


 
kernel superalpha
<   namespace : "superalpha";
    vendor : "chris-martin.co.cc";
    version : 1;
    description : "sets alpha of a pixle depending on how bright the pixle is"; >
{
   parameter float intensity;
 
   input image4 Imagez;
 
   output pixel4 dst;
 
   void evaluatePixel()
   {
        float4 p = sampleNearest(Imagez, outCoord());
        float4 c;
        float avg;
        avg = (p.r+p.g+p.b)/3.0;
 
        if( avg <= intensity)
        {
        p.a=0.0;
        }
        dst = p;
 
   }
}

It simply tests the current pixels brightness against the “intensity” parameter and if it less than or equal to the “intensity” parameter it sets the alpha of the current pixel to 0 (transparent).

Flash Panel Google spell checker

chris — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 20:51:06 +0000

After making my other spellcheck panel for flash I decided that there was much that could be improved upon by using the unofficial google toolbar spellcheck API (you can read more about this here). the problem with this API being unofficial is that when I try to run it in a browser it will throw a security error so no preview this time but I did take a screen shot as you can see. The panel is in the CS4 color but should work in CS3 too. It is possible to use this API online but you need to call it via some other sever side language and have socket support from your host you can read more about this here. So here is the mxp file enjoy.

Choppy video streaming on Vista

chris — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 15:27:04 +0000

This is really a post about two bugs in vista the suggested cure for one causes the other (for me any way). The first error is the very slow large file operations like moving copying and deleting of large files you can read more about this here. One of the suggested cures for this is to turn off “Remote Differential Compression” I did this in an effort to fix the problem I never really found out if that cured the issue as I don’t move large files around that often (and I’m unlikely to find out now as I will most likely leave “Remote Differential Compression” on now). Disabling this caused all streaming video to be choppy unless it had buffered a lot of the video in advance. The bug seemed worse when in full-screen mode. I’m not sure if this is hardware specific or not but my video card is ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 I’m almost 100% sure that its not to do with slow Internet connection which is what it might be confused with at first glance. As you might have already guessed this choppy video problem can be fixed by re/enabling “Remote Differential Compression” but if that was the fix for your slow file operations bug then I guess guess you will just have to choose slow file operations or choppy streaming video.

Flash Panel Yahoo spell checker

chris — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 20:58:59 +0000

I’m dyslexic and and often I need a spell checker inside the Flash IDE so inspired by Lee Brimelow’s flash panel’s and his tutorial I made this little flash panel it uses the yahoo spell check API to check your spellings.Post a comment if you get any errors. Here is the mxp file. Here is a preview:


    
      
      
      
      
        The Flash plugin is required to view this object.
      
      
      
    
 

PS: I think the help button will only work inside the Flash IDE.

Here we go first post. wordpress warning/error “include(admin-footer.php)”

chris — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 22:25:04 +0000

Here we go first post!, might as well make it about wordpress. Installing it was easy I just fallowed the instructions and used filezilla to upload everything but when I went to the admin page and logged in I kept getting this warning/error “include(admin-footer.php) failed to open stream: No such file” so a quick google search turned up nothing really so I had a look for the file “admin-footer.php” on my sever and could not find it. I’m not sure why filezilla did not upload it but i uploaded the individual file my self in to the “/wp-admin” folder and hey presto no more warning/error. Hope this helps some other wordpress newbie like me.