The Simple Flash Comic Engine is a free Flash-based system that will allow anyone, no matter how little programming knowledge they have, to create Flash-based comics. Creating comics with this engine is as simple as creating frames in the timeline to act as pages. No additional programming is required, the engine deals with all navigation methods and includes a preloader.

Another reason for the engine is to provide an expected means of navigating through the pages. As of now, most Flash comics are self-designed and navigating through them changes between each one. This engine maximizes accessibility by providing click-able navigation buttons, many sets of keyboard shortcuts, and mouse scroll-wheel support*.
Supported keyboard shortcuts: Left & right arrow keys, Page Up & Page Down, Space & Backspace, - & +, A & D, and Enter & Del/. on the number pad.

While Simple Flash Comic Engine is free to download, use, and modify, you do not have the rights to sell the engine in any form. You cannot charge anyone to "provide" them with the engine. I don't care what you do with the end result. You can sell comics that use this engine, you just cannot sell the engine itself.

Regarding credits and the "Powered By" links: while I would prefer that they remain, they are not mandatory and you can remove them if you so desire. The intent for them is to promote the engine so that others who wish to create comics using Flash can easily find the engine.

Contents of zip file:
simple-flash-comic-engine_mx.fla - AS2-based FLA for Flash MX through Flash 8
simple-flash-comic-engine_cs3.fla - AS3-based FLA for Flash CS3 and up

*scroll wheel support depends on the version of the Flash authoring program that you are using. While the code is included in the Flash MX version, scroll wheel support didn't come around until Flash MX 2004. If you are using the AS2-based MX file in a later Flash IDE, you will want to set the Publish Settings to export to Flash Player 7 or above to ensure that the scroll wheel navigates properly.

A short animated skip cycle to get used to using a tablet again.

This is a random walk cycle I made a while ago.

This is the explosion sample from when I was working on the graphics for Shattered Colony: The Survivors.

Those Soviet scientists are at it again!

Another piece from Drawing for Animation. For the midterm, we were to take the vinyl toy design we created, and add another element to it. Our class chose "soviet."

We had a "vinyl toy" project for the Drawing for Animation class that I took last semester. We were to pick a theme for a vinyl toy and design one over the week. The theme we chose was "disturbed circus."

So here is my disturbed circus vinyl toy design (right to left), Ursaw Major and Ursaw Minor.

This was the final project for the Drawing for Animation class I took this semester. We were supposed to use the character derived from a fashion photograph from the previous project, give them a non-human sidekick, pit them in a fight with an ice-monster, and tune it for an audience of 12-to-14-year-olds. Therefore, the result is the Happy Scooter Guy and his hyrax-sidekick are fleeing from the villainous Ice Cream Man, who requires a bio-suit made out of a refrigerator to survive in his current environment.

Unfortunately, since I seem to be permanently locked out of my laptop thanks to some kind of BIOS "feature" Toshiba felt was necessary, this is the only project from that class that I can currently post. The others, including the one with an explanation to the origin of the Happy Scooter Guy, will have to wait until next year to be posted.

So with that, I think this is it for this year.

The final project in the Intro to 3D class I took this semester was to create a bug and place it in a scene, using Maya.

Well, it seems I'm 13 days late for Halloween.

Anyways, this is the final render for the first project in the Intro to 3D class I'm in. We had to make a LEGO man and give him some personality.

After 3 months of work in my free time, I am finally able to open up the 5th iteration of the BoogaTech websites and CMExpress system. The redesign appears only minor on the surface, but the control panel has been reworked from the ground-up, "pages" have been merged with "content items" for more flexibility (however, old external links to this site might 404) and everything works on a completely new template system that compiles files coded in a simplified template language into sets of PHP functions that should allow the site to load faster. The comment system has yet to be reworked and is missing for now, though it's not like anyone was using it before.

Right now it looks best in Google Chrome, and Firefox shows it mostly right. I don't know about Internet Explorer at the moment, but I wouldn't be surprised if it looks messed up.

In other news, school is back in. I wouldn't expect any major updates on my projects until mid-December, since as of the beginning of the semester, I am working on one of the senior animations at BYU. They plan to have it finished for post-production by Thanksgiving, and completed in time for the student Emmy's.

Update 10/22/2010: The comment system is back in, with added support of Gravatar avatars. I also modified the security image a little bit to make it more readable. The reply-notification-by-email feature doesn't work for now since I need to program CMExpress to handle multiple PHP email methods sooner than expected, as WebFaction doesn't support the one I've been using.

I drew this on the train back home right before Christmas last year. The train arrives in town at around 11PM, and it's usually pretty empty during the entire trip to California. It's also not one of the easiest of places to draw in.

Some logo designs for my portfolio.

So the Flash game that I was hired to do graphics for back in 2008 and 2009 has finally been released under the name "Shattered Colony: The Survivors!"

This is a sort of progress list of things that need to be done before I can work on releasing "Bridges of the Mertynn." The items will be color-coded as to their completion, and this list will be updated regularly.

Programming:

• Menu screen
• Game engine
• "Challenge Mode"
• Level encoder/decoder
• Level editor
• Level editor main menu functions
• User-made-level browser (9/18/09)
• Doors, levers, linkage system
• Tiles, basic and puzzle: 1 - 61 (10/21/09)
• Other puzzle tiles: 62 & 63 (10/3/09)
• Other puzzle tiles: 64 (10/3/09)
• High score/level submission scripts

Tile Sets:

• Tile set 1: tiles - sides - backgrounds (8/15/09)
• Tile set 2: tiles - sides - backgrounds
• Tile set 3: tiles - sides - backgrounds
• Tile set 4: tiles - sides - backgrounds
• Tile set 5: tiles - sides - backgrounds
• Tile set 6: tiles - sides - backgrounds
• Tile set 7: tiles - sides - backgrounds
• Tile set 8: tiles - sides - backgrounds

Player:

• Walk cycle animations (8/15/09)
• Death animation
• Turning animations
• Misc animations

Other Graphics:

• Menu GUI
• Menu background (10/5/09)
• Level editor GUI (10/10/09)
• Game GUI

Levels:

• Tutorial levels
• Chapter 1 levels
• Chapter 1 cutscenes
• Chapter 2 levels
• Chapter 2 cutscenes
• Chapter 3 levels
• Chapter 3 cutscenes
• Chapter 4 levels
• Chapter 4 cutscenes

Music:

• Menu
• Track 1 ?
• Track 2
• Track 3
• Track 4
• Track 5
• Sound effects

Server Side:

• Database updates (9/26/10)
• User groups
• User permissions
• Various category updates (9/26/10)
• Level decoder
• Level preview image generator
• Level/score validator
• Level database website
• CMExpress installation script (9/25/09)
• CMExpress template system rewrite (9/26/10)

Legend:
Started
In progress
Mostly done
Finished

September 6th came and passed. I received an order confirmation from PowWeb totaling a whole $0. Either somebody read the previous post and quietly changed something, or something was changed when I asked for it and nothing within the system reflected that change. I'm guessing the latter, since it still says that my domain is still registered with them, despite the fact it was transferred over a month ago.

I'm actually wondering how much is actually automated there, since I have to contact their tech support to request a transfer code for my domain, and apparently to have domains records removed from my account as well. There's no delete button for domains I registered with them, and domains that are registered elsewhere and pointed to their name servers. I'm still getting visitor statistics update emails from them for a website that doesn't even exist anymore.

As far as where I am now, I've gotten a hosting account with WebFaction. The interface is a bit weird at first, and everything is a bit more technical than other places, but there's a lot more freedom with what you can do, and they give you set storage and bandwidth usage limits rather than the fairytale "unlimited" usage claims that other hosts would like you to believe (it just means that you don't know what your limits actually are). So long story short, WebFaction seems pretty good and I'm thankful this fiasco is over.

The first assignment for the Drawing for Animation class I am taking. The theme was "treecrabs of the lonely forest."

Trying out this new free program called ASCIIPaint.

This whole issue starts somewhere around the end of last year, 2009. I had discovered that I was still being charged by PowWeb for a hosting price from 2005, which had since dropped to almost half the rate since. I contacted support over this, and eventually decided that, due to the general quality of the hosting service dropping since they got bought out a couple years ago, that I would just set the account to change to domain parking once the web host plan expired, this September, so that I wouldn't loose any domains during the move to a better host. So I did. Or at least I thought I did. Imagine my surprise when I logged in during May to find the following on the account renewal page:

2012? What? I haven't even agreed to renew in 2010 yet! I go over to the billing information page to find out that they are, in fact, billing me on September 9, 2010 for another two years of sub-par hosting. So a week is spent waiting to find out with PowWeb support what is going on, finally leading to this resolution:

So they said I would not be charged for another two years, and my website's hosting plan will expire as expected in September. Yes, this is what I want. Fast forward to today, where I log in to check which day it is that my hosting plan with PowWeb ends and I discover this:

They are still charging me, from the future, for two more years of hosting. What was all that from three months ago? Did that not mean anything? Why is my account still set to renew in 2012 without the option to NOT RENEW IN 2010? To top that off, their front page advertises their current hosting plan:

Let's do a little math here: $3.88 per month for 24 months equals $93.12. The "regular" price of $7.77 per month, which hasn't been a payable price for long over a year now ("limited time only" is longer than "unlimited transfer," apparently), is $186.48 for 24 months. I am being charged $203.28. Divide that by 24 and you get $8.47 per month. What is this? The only thing I can think of is that PowWeb, once famously known for having a stable hosting service for no more than $7.77 per month, has gradually devolved into some sort of scam.

Things work again. Apparently when you create a new MySQL database, Powweb doesn't actually create a new user login and what you put in the password field just changes the old one, so everything stopped working because the password for three different databases were changed because I created a new one.

Now that school is out for a bit, I was able to get more work done on 60 Seconds to Deliver. Here's the previous to-do list with progress updates:

• Air attacks - 77%
• Ground attacks
• Enemies - 10%
• Building variety - ?% (More than before)
• Game background
• Introduction cutscene animation
• End sequence and game over screen
• Difficulty levels
• Music

My contract with my current website's host runs out in a few months. I had decided not to renew it and move to a different host, since PowWeb's service has been going down-hill ever since they got bought out by some larger hosting company. Don't be surprised if there's any downtime during the move. Though with how well things have been staying up lately, you probably won't notice anything different until it's moved over to the new host.