The Nordhagen

As some of you might know, I’m in layoff from my job as a flash developer at Allegro Interaktiv. I’ve been thinking hard and well about what I want to spend this period of four months doing. I will be freelancing a little if I can (in agreement with my employer of course), spend time with my family, and also catch up on a few forsaken hobbies.

But this sudden abundance of free time obviously creates a pefect climate for getting up to speed on new Flash libraries and dig deeper into the ones I already know. Like the AS3 core classes. That’s why I’ve given my self a perhaps rediculous challenge; to read the complete ActionScript Language Reference back to back over the next four months. This is clearly perversely nerd-like and all that, but here’s why.

The case for reading it all

Actually I’ve been thinking about it for a few years. You see every time I look up a class or a method in the dictionary, I usually read one or two paragraphs more than I need. Often I learn something new that’s been sitting just below the surface of what I already know. At times the AS3 language reference is not even that badly written and the examples are usually useful. So instead of googling for tutorials about particle engines, Papervision and what not, I decided that before trying to gain something completely new I’d be better off getting to know the old annoying aunt intimately. Well not in that sense… sorry, you know what I mean.

You should too!

I’m not saying you really should join me in this preposterous endeavour, but I am serious in that many tend to overlook what a great resource the AS3 Language Reference really is. So the essence is really that you can learn a lot from what you already have at a single keyboard command (shift-F1 in Flash that is). Look up some random class name that you’ve never used an find out what it’s for. You might be glad you did.

In the mean time, you can follow my progress here at the blog, and if you follow me on Twitter.

Although a bit late for this season, I thought I’d share a small christmasy ActionScript nugget with you. This stuff was developed some time ago, so it’ll happily compile to Flash Player 6 if needs be. The script simply replicates a small, white particle that resembles a snow flake and animates it so that it falls from the sky. It also imitates 3D by altering the size and speed of the flakes and you can put any graphic you want inside the snowFlake movie clip to make it behave like a particle of snow.

I’ve actually had much use for it for various clients and projects. Go ahead and download it here:

Snow Flake FLA

Merry Christmas!