Andrew Larking's Blog: Archive

Jan 2nd

Merry Christmas

I’ll be signing off until after the Christmas season, so wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. See you next year.

Dec 24th

Damn.

Have been told we have to go landscape for this, so instead of coding I’ve been re-thinking the entire layout.

Dec 13th

Dec 12th

Dec 9th

Dec 8th

3 tags

Navigation swipe thing.

Hello. So I made the thing I posted a sketch of yesterday. I’d post a picture but it’s boring to look at, the motion and interaction make it fun. Anyway, I think it’s a winner but I have a horrible feeling people will find it too new-school. So I’m going to create a simple app that uses it and I’ll publish it here, so I can get feedback. Cheers.

Dec 7th

1 note

3 tags

Dec 6th

3 tags

Watch

Quick video, not that great quality wise, of the PreviewPane class running.

Dec 5th

2 notes

3 tags

Dec 5th

1 note

Dec 1st

Hello. I'm back.

…soon

Nov 10th

Oct 31st

1 note

Back end re-write.

Well, I finally got around to the re-build of my game’s back end. I’ve decided I need to target both retina and non-retina devices, but I wont be supporting anything below OS4. The reason for this is simple, I want to add features in the next version which rely upon it, and my next app absolutely needs it so I wanted to get a head start. After making my proof of concept I decided...

Sep 7th

Aug 30th

Watch

Not much to show, I’m working on converting all the proof of concept code into re-useable classes. But here is a video showing off my custom parallax system which I’m using instead of the Cocos2D Parallax node. The main reason I’m not using the Cocos2D system is the complexity I found in having physics bodies updating with the scenery. Hopefully you’ll start to see some...

Aug 18th

3 tags

Missing images.

Hello. Just to say, currently I store my images on my Microsoft Live account, but this has been causing some problems with this tumblr blog. I’ll be keeping all my images on my online space soon, in the meantime please try to ignore all the missing stuff. New game video will be up soon, have one more piece of code to finish first.

Aug 8th

Watch

Today has been another day of frustration, trying to get vector lengths down to sensible, workable numbers. While I’m struggling with that though I’m also taking a bit of time to rebuild a basic level with all the core components working which I’ll use as my base code for the final game. This video shows some of the features, I’m sure you can appreciate this is beta code...

Aug 6th

5 tags

Project X Pt.II - Lander Command

It’s all go, apart from when I suffer yet another power cut. It’s like living in a ghetto, I’m tempted to run a cable from the street lamp which seems to always have power. Project X is almost complete, at least in terms of core code. Physics, parallax, controls, UI states, menu systems and scene switching is all built. Next up is to swivel the screen to suit the current...

Aug 3rd

Useful links.

Hello. Here are some links I found useful when getting started with coding games for the iPhone. Enjoy. Cocos2D Forum Objective-C Primer 71 Squared Chipmunk Physics Spacemanager

Jul 24th

Project X Pt.I

Where to start? 10 months away from Cocoa and I forget everything. I thought about watching the iTunesU stuff again, but video tutorials longer than 10 minutes make me forget what I already knew and force me into a deep vegetative state. I prefer reading complex things and making notes on the pages. I have purchased ‘Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X, Third Edition’ by Aaron Hillegass...

Jul 24th

Hello iPad

The iPad is here. Well, it’s been here for a while I know. Apple are currently selling an iPad every three seconds, that’s a lot of people playing with a lot of new toys, and downloading an awful lot of apps. The time to be a developer on the iRange has never been better, especially with the more recent release of the iPhone 4 and iOS 4. It’s because of this I’ve...

Jul 24th

Goodbye to Flash

Hello. After working heavily with AS3 for a fair while now, and getting very comfortable coding in it, I’ve jacked it in. HTML5 and Objective-C are my new tools of choice. Flash will be around for a long time yet, but honestly I cannot see a reason to stay with it. HTML5 will be where I sit with regards to web coding, and obviously Objective-C for iPhone/Pod/Pad development. Goodbye...

Jun 13th

New site goes up - ish.

www.larkingandbarker.co.uk/wp - a blog I’ll be contributing to. I’ll still be keeping my tumblr though. I’m currently working on a new AS3 / Adobe AIR framework for archiving digital media. This is going to be a long project with many phases, and probably no completion date. The decision to use AIR was simple, I can build for the desktop, push out new upgrades, and use a...

Apr 7th

Mar 27th

1 note

Feb 3rd

Even more Applescript.

I promise this will be the last of this for a while, but it seems people want to know more and more about it. The latest task I’ve had is to control projectors over a network without using any special software. This called for scripted mouse moves and mouse clicks, which is a common Applescript request on various forums. I came up with the following, which makes use of ‘Extra...

Oct 6th

More Applescript

I’ve been getting quite a few e-mails from people asking how to auto launch and full screen a SWF file on start up, instead on a Quicktime movie. Here’s my Applescript code to make it work: tell application “Flash Player” activate open alias “Macintosh HD:location:to:your:file.swf” tell application “System Events” keystroke “f”...

Oct 2nd

FLARManager

Hello. I don’t normally like to post code updates without a screen shot or a link to the file, but sadly my hosting ability is down for a day or two whilst I migrate it. I’ve been working with the good old FLARToolkit and FLARManager, and my research showed that quite a few people are having issues getting FLARManager to work. Why would you want to use FLARManager? It allows you to...

Sep 27th

Applescript Code Number 2

Hello. Following on from my previous post, I thought I’d share this also. It seems to be a common question on Applescript forums, how to quit an app without save. Here’s how to shut down TextEdit then shut down the machine, all without saving anything. Of course you can replace TextEdit with an app of your choosing: tell application “TextEdit” —tell our...

Sep 4th

Applescript Code

Hello. I thought I’d share this as I couldn’t find how to do this anywhere online. It’s a little Applescript which sets Quicktime to load on boot, play a file of your choice full screen and loop forever. Quite handy if you use Mac Minis as A/V players. The code: tell application “QuickTime Player” activate open alias “Macintosh HD:Users:%username%:%path...

Aug 28th

Hand Modelling Time Lapse →

Aug 13th