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	<title>Zach Archer Blog</title>
	<link>http://blog.zacharcher.com</link>
	<description>This blog is GO!</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Fri, 09 Jul 2010 23:02:45 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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		<title>Brakebills, Twang, Stuff!</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Oh em gee. So much to report. First, do you know Lev Grossman? He's an incredibly talented author who recently toured Portland. If you haven't read his book The Magicians, then stop whatever you're doing and procure a copy immediately. Without trying to spoil anything, the major college in the book is named the Brakebills [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://blog.zacharcher.com/2010/06/26/brakebills-twang-stuff/</link>
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		<title>Aquatic Sound Generator in Flash</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Here's something from the vaults. Aquasound was built with these requirements in mind: Generate sounds that aquatic animals might make Sounds can be "combined" somehow Sounds can emote This was never used in production. I wonder if I could turn this into something? Like a paid iPhone app? ;) Double-click the envelopes to add/remove control [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://blog.zacharcher.com/2010/06/16/aquatic-sound-generator/</link>
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		<title>Reconstructing Images With Text</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I was inspired by Roger Alsing's supposed "genetic" image compression. It begs for further experimentation! Here's my second batch of image reconstruction using Times New Roman characters. The algorithm is a brute-force affair: New characters are colored &#38; positioned randomly. Any characters that make the canvas look more like the original image are saved. And [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://blog.zacharcher.com/2010/02/18/reconstructing-images-with-text/</link>
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		<title>Here Comes the Metal Mouth</title>
		<description><![CDATA[My first iPhone app has been submitted to the app store for review! Metal Mouth is a text-to-speech synthesizer that mimics the talking devices of the 80's (Speak &#038; Spell, "Wizard needs food, badly", etc.) The functionality is similar to my Synthetic Speech In Flash demo, but with many new features (male &#038; female voices, [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://blog.zacharcher.com/2010/01/03/here-comes-the-metal-mouth/</link>
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		<title>Strange Attractors in Flash</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Have you seen (or played) the demo for Polynomial, the space shooter? Quick! Watch the video: I spent a couple hours generating strange attractors in Flash, just a simple 2D version for now. Click to play: Click the black region to generate new polynomial coefficients and redraw. You will have to click many times to [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://blog.zacharcher.com/2009/12/12/strange-attractors-in-flash/</link>
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		<title>Hateful Bits T-Shirt</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I designed a T-shirt! These are printed and sold through Zazzle. I can't wait to get mine: Hateful Bits (version 2) by zkarcher "I HATE YOU WITH ALL 4 OF MY BITS. GRRRRRRRRRRRR" &#160; More&#160;&#187;]]></description>
		<link>http://blog.zacharcher.com/2009/09/09/hateful-bits-t-shirt/</link>
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		<title>Flash 3D: A change of heart?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Yesterday, I posted a damning critique of Flash's native 3D. Today I noticed that if you right-click on yesterday's SWF and show the redraw regions, you can see that it's redrawing the contents of the entire stage, even though I put the scene in a scrollRect. Is it seriously rendering a scene that's thousands of [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://blog.zacharcher.com/2009/09/04/flash-3d-a-change-of-heart/</link>
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		<title>Flash 3D makes me sad</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I've been dabbling with Flash 10's native 3D support. Try my engine: Click to set the focus. Use the arrow keys to move. Touch blocks to illuminate. I'm disappointed with two things: 1). How much time is required to create a 3D engine, even a grid-based one like mine. I've been wrestling this project for [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://blog.zacharcher.com/2009/09/03/flash-3d-makes-me-sad/</link>
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		<title>Synthetic Speech in Flash</title>
		<description><![CDATA[EDIT: I made an iPhone version, "Metal Mouth", with lots of features. Here it is on YouTube and the iTunes Store! Recently, I learned about Linear Predictive Coding ("LPC"). This technique is used in classic arcade games (such as Gauntlet) and the Speak &#38; Spell to synthesize speech. Here's my first attempt at LPC speech [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://blog.zacharcher.com/2009/08/27/synthetic-speech-in-flash/</link>
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		<title>Toaster Bro alpha: 10 days later</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Did I mention my new game, "Toaster Bro"? Play Toaster Bro alpha version 1! (You will need Flash Player 10.) Ten days have elapsed since I shared this version with friends (who are unwittingly being used as play testers). It's time for a "wrap-up" meeting, because I want to examine what went wrong/right, and instead [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://blog.zacharcher.com/2009/03/20/toaster-bro-alpha-10-days-later/</link>
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		<title>8-bit NTSC artifacts using Pixel Bender</title>
		<description><![CDATA[By request, here's a quick 'n dirty test harness, and sample code, for NTSC artifacts in the style of the 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System (NES): Click the animation to change scale &#38; scroll speed. Source code &#38; .fla: nes_ntsc.zip The .pbk code is not optimized yet. The code is fairly explicit, I tried to explain [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://blog.zacharcher.com/2009/03/15/8-bit-ntsc-artifacts-using-pixel-bender/</link>
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		<title>Tweetcoding: Round 1 Winners</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Hooray, I'm a runner-up in the first Tweetcoding contest. My entry "Ghost Marquee" placed in the top 4. The code extracts certain bits from a string of jibberish, 6 bits at a time; when arranged on a grid, the bits form a message. Also I had 2 notable mentions with Sea Sphere and 3D Sketch. [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://blog.zacharcher.com/2009/03/13/tweetcoding-round-1-winners/</link>
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		<title>Tweetcoding!</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The challenge was steep: Build something interesting in Flash, using 140 characters or less. Check out the rules, and the results. Oh man, I was hooked. I admit, I'm suspicious of Twitter's usefulness in the grand scheme of things. You're allowed 140 characters, eh? You can only communicate the big picture; blipverts. Twitter is addictive [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://blog.zacharcher.com/2009/03/02/tweetcoding/</link>
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		<title>Synth review: The Head-Exploding FS1R</title>
		<description><![CDATA[In 1998, the Yamaha Corporation unleashed a product that was convoluted and bizarre like no other: The FS1R Synthesizer. Like the era-defining DX7, the FS1R is an FM Synthesizer, but it boasts a massive 8 operators per voice, compared to 6 in the DX. And the FS1R sports a new toy, Formant Synthesis, capable of [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://blog.zacharcher.com/2009/01/05/synth-review-the-head-exploding-fs1r/</link>
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		<title>Fractal Transform, made with Pixel Bender</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I made a Pixel Bender filter that performs Julia Set transformations on images. It looks great when it animates, the colors morph and twist like mathematical slime. Try it (Flash Player 10 required): JuliaTile.swf Source code: julia_tile_src.zip. Pixel Bender code is in src/shader/. The default image is Seattle's Space Needle. You can upload custom images. [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://blog.zacharcher.com/2008/12/29/fractal-transform-in-pixel-bender/</link>
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		<title>NES Pixel Art</title>
		<description><![CDATA[My tile engine is getting a facelift, I'm scrapping the Atari 2600 palette, and switching to the glorious 56 colors of the Nintendo Entertainment System. Eventually I want to add NTSC artifacts using Pixel Bender. For now, I have to produce a small miracle of art assets, and use the tiny palette effectively. I never [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://blog.zacharcher.com/2008/11/04/nes-pixel-art/</link>
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		<title>Braindead Monkeys album #6</title>
		<description><![CDATA[You dag-blasted crazy apes!!! The Braindead Monkeys: Space Donut After a 4-year hiatus, Space Donut arrives! It's their strongest album to date. Lots of head-nodding jams, and lots of smiles. Recommended tracks: #3: Parody of a popular 80's cartoon #4: TERRORISM! "The United States is currently at war with everything..." #7: Nintendo (NES) + marching [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://blog.zacharcher.com/2008/10/31/braindead-monkeys-album-6/</link>
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		<title>A Replacement for Spotlight</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Spotlight has a glut of nice features, but it still doesn't satisfy me. I have nearly 2 million files on my hard drive. Depending on what I'm working on (and my caffeine-to-blood ratio), hundreds of files may be updated every minute. Then Spotlight tries to index the drive at inopportune moments, then Ableton Live can't [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://blog.zacharcher.com/2008/10/06/a-replacement-for-spotlight/</link>
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		<title>Trainwreckin&#8217;</title>
		<description><![CDATA[OpenMoko is a flavor of Linux for cell phones. It's also a UI nightmare for end users. Witness these videos: OpenMoko Train Wreck from Dave Fayram on Vimeo. More OpenMoko Train Wrecking (Now with Qt!) from Dave Fayram on Vimeo. There's a ton of literature describing best development practices out there. But I think case [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://blog.zacharcher.com/2008/07/19/trainwreckin/</link>
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		<title>Tile engine is go!</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Homemade tile engine! Click to play. Move: Arrow keys, or WASD Shoot: Mouse button, or IJKL Make sure you grab a weapon in room #2, so you can shoot the orcs. Currently, there are 9 rooms for romping. Not one pixel of the art should be considered "final". Most sprites &#38; tiles have a ColorMatrixFilter [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://blog.zacharcher.com/2008/07/12/tile-engine-is-go/</link>
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