I've played around with Circle Split some more. Now you can add an image url parameter to the swf. This will make the swf use that image as the source of the colors, rather than random ones. The best thing to do is to see it in action:

HERE!

Any arbitrary image URL can be used, but only sites that have a permissive crossdomain.xml will work. Flickr and Imgur work, so upload your pics there!

I've also uploaded the source. The files you need are here:

• CircleSplit.as
• Circle.as
• CircleNode.as

The code is pretty self explanatory and well commented, but shoot me any questions you may have. To get this up and running, put these class files in a directory named "ae" in your as3 classpath. Use CircleSplit as the document class. I just created an empty FLA, 1024x1024, 30 fps, and a black background. This code is public domain, so feel free to use and modify!

After seeing this flash doohickey and playing with it for a while, I noticed that it slows to a crawl and becomes unresponsive simply due to the sheer complexity of it all. I immediately saw some ways to optimize what it is doing, as it uses a rather simple approach as to what it's doing.

After a couple hours of hacking, I came up with this:

http://www.aeflash.com/misc/circlesplit2.swf

Graphics were cached to a single bitmap, and lighter-weight sprites were used instead of buttons. It still was a bit slow once you got deep into it. This was simply due to the thousands of mouse event listeners flash player had to keep track of. AFter a few more hours I have this:

http://www.aeflash.com/misc/circlesplit.swf

It uses a tree structure and a divide-and-conquer algorithm to delegate mouse events to the correct circle. Instead of having a O(n) search every mouse move, it now has a O(log(n)) search. It's very responsive, even with thousands of circles. I'll post the source later.

Have fun playing. And yes, it is possible to win...

Check out the newly christened "Gallery" page on the right -- I have some images of a small graphics experiment. "Noise Cube" is a cube filled with randomly generated triangles or tetrahedrons. Theoretically, as you add more tetrahedrons, the space will become filled and more cube-like. It was written in python using opengl and pygtkglext. I'll post the source soon.

Has it really been two and a half years since I updated this site? And has it really been 5 years since I was actively animating? I guess it has. So much has happened in those years. Let's see, I have....

• Learned how to be a skilled programmer and software engineer
• Made lots of new friends and learned a lot about life, the universe, everything.
• Graduated with Honors with a degree in Computer Science
• Met an awesome girl who has amazingly decided to stick with me.
• Found a job creating websites and working with Flash and ActionScript
• Moved to San Francisco
• Joined the working world and become self-sufficient

As I've said before, I'm no longer the bored teenager with way too much time on his hands, and what I do want to do with my free time has changed.

Recently, I've been spending my time playing ridiculous amounts of Team Fortress 2. You can look me up, I go by the name [RH]Earl, and play on this server all the time. I also made a map for the game last year, which was really interesting.

So what is in store for aeflash?

First of all, I want to update this outdated excuse for blogging software with a more modern equivalent. I'll keep the current design, I'm still quite fond of it, but I'll actually code it in the right way. If anything, this site will become more of a conventional blog where I can post my own thoughts and findings.

I've learned so much about programming and actionscript, and even flash automation, but I haven't had time to play around with them. If I do put new work up, it will involve at least one of those things. I've been wanting to do some computational artwork (like Jared Tarbell) for a while now.

I also do plan to put up an old animation that was never finished and never will be, even though a lot of work went in to it. It will happen eventually!

I hope to kick some of this stuff off within the next month or so. I don't know who still comes to this site, but whoever you are, I'm tired of letting you down. :P Don't be afraid to leave a comment!

Well, it's been nearly a year since I released DIFFERENT 3, and to be honest, I've barely touched Flash in that time. I haven't had much free time, with the university and work, and I'd rather spend my free time doing other things. I am no longer an idle teenager sitting at home with notheing better to do that muck around with Flash. So I guess I am officially putting my animations on hiatus.

There are still things I want to release. At some time in the future I want to finish EVOLVRON2. I've put too much work into the content for it not to be released. Plus, I wrote the code for that game 3 years ago; I could really make it awesome, now that I have some actual real programming experience. There also are a couple snippets of a failed collaboration I want to put up. It's just a matter of me creating a wrapper for them (and maybe finishing up a couple scenes...).

But aside from that, I guess I am losing the desire to create. I look back on some of my old violent stick animations, and am almost embarassed. I guess I've grown out of it. Also, I've kind of fallen out with the old community, and many of the people I knew have moved on to other things. But all is not lost; I do see myself making more animations in the future, but they probably will be more artistic/experimental films. (Think DIFFERENT/Untitled 3 style, those are the ones I really like.)

Also, do not worry about AEFLASH going down. With just a simple ad on each page, the site pays for itself. (I earn about 10 cents a day after hosting costs, actually...yay...) AEFLASH will always be here as an online portfolio of my old work, if nothing else. I might post some more random stuff this blog, if I feel like it.

So, see you later for now. Drop me a comment or something. I'll try to see it between the viagra/casino/mortgage spam bots....