I finally got the videos working!

It's so simple. All I have to do is use Wisdom-soft's AutoScreenRecorder with the Microsoft Video 1 Codec, and at the same time record audio with Audacity into WAV format. Then convert the video into ffdshow format, the audio into mp3, combine them, and edit the final video for mess-ups and such.

It took two months to find that out because my laptop can't actually see videos in Microsoft Video 1 format, it just shows up as a blank video. So I thought there was a problem with the recording programs. Then I tried converting it to Divx, and it worked fine. Silly me!

I've learned a good deal about encoding/decoding video since I've been trying to make these videos. A month ago I wouldn't have a clue what I'm talking about. A good part about it taking so long is that I've learned some nice ways to make high quality videos with small file sizes. Most people couldn't dream of a high quality 20 minute video being 16mb.

So anyway, Video 2: Events.

I'll be in my car for 3+ hours tomorrow waiting for my dog to be groomed, so I'll bring my laptop with me and make another video or two. I'll have another done by tomorrow night for sure.

Edit: Sorry I forgot to update this. Actionscript 3: Functions.
I'm not going to go very strong with this until I get the next video done right. It's about Object-Oriented programming, which often takes a professor weeks to teach. I'm still trying to think of how to teach this in under a half hour, but I'll try Wednesday.

Good news and bad news.

Bad:
After about 10 hours of trying this week, all attempts to make a tutorial have failed. For some reason, after a few minutes, the video quality becomes completely horrible, making everything illegible. And I just can't fix it. I thought about buying a professional recording program, but I decided against it.

Good:
Instead I'm going to make my site a huge text-based encyclopedia of AS3. I was going to just make some tutorials, and then reference Adobe's AS3 encyclopedia to explain things, but then I realized how absolutely horrible that is for beginners. Adobe really doesn't think about the little guy, their references are pretty bad.

The site would have tutorials, and if you don't understand a term, like 'extends' there'll be some way to search the word, and it'll bring up a basic summary of what it does, with examples.

So I'm going to buy my website again, and turn it into a complete reference for all things AS3.

Sorry again for delays, expect it to take at least 2 weeks. Making a website is not easy. I've got a fair idea of what to do though.

And please don't complain. I understand it's taking a long time, but I've spent a lot of time trying to do this, and I get no benefit from it. So please have patience.

I'll probably be testing a lot of things on the front page, so if you want to see the progress, just go to the site.

Sorry to anyone waiting for Flash tutorial videos. I've just recently moved back to polyphasic sleep again, and things have been pretty busy for the past few days. I'm still a little groggy from adapting to sleeping, so I haven't been in the mood to do anything productive for a while too. I tried to start a video this morning, but I had to go to school.

My dad said he'll be away Monday and Tuesday, so I'll have plenty of time then without worrying about waking him up.

I planned on getting 2+ new videos done today, but out of all the days he could have picked, my dad picked today as his day off.

So now it'll wait until Wednesday, unless maybe tomorrow my dad gets up early. See my dad works during the day, and when he gets home at night he blares the surround sound up and watches movies and TV until bed (I hope I have more to do than watch things when I'm that old). So since I get home after 6 when I have school (M-Th) it's too noisy to make anything at night. Wednesday I go to school at 1pm, so I can make it in the morning, and Friday I have only one class that I'm too lazy to go to, so I take the day off.

I have a HUGE amount of time off at school (like 5+ hours a day) but I can't just start talking to the screen without everyone glaring at me and distracting me. It'd be fine in some outside places, but it's always windy.

I'm still looking for a solution. There's a sound-proof room in the school library I might try. It'll be kind of weird since it's built for watching movies and stuff, but I need to do something or I'll only put out 3 or 4 tuts a week.

So besides W, F, and sometimes early Saturday morning, I can't do much yet. Sorry. :(
I'll try the sound-proof room Tuesday. I don't know if it's available without pre-register though.

Both parts are on GetSomeKnow. Sound quality's a little poor, but I had a LOT of trouble making it, and I'm not going to fix it.

Please give comments, thoughts, anything that might possibly be useful for the next one. :)

Also before anyone says anything about it, in future videos I won't say 'we'. I'll say 'I'. I think I sound ridiculous saying 'we' for everything.

Plans drastically changed overnight. This morning I got a grant in the mail for $4000. :D
I still can barely believe it. The timing is perfect.

For those of you that don't know, a grant is money you get for doing well in school. So I have enough money to easily cover next semester, so I cancel what I said about making a game. I'll work on the site first and teach as much as I can as soon as possible.

The first video WILL be out Friday, unless my computer crashes or something. I may be a bit panicky while I tut though, cause there's a whole lot to cover, and YouTube won't allow a video over 10 minutes. I need to basically teach Object-Oriented-Programming in 10 minutes, which usually takes professors weeks. Luckily flash makes it pretty easy to understand.

EDIT: I'm sorry this is taking so long, but this video is being completely ridiculous. It's so stupid, I finally just got the video looking clear, but apparently it decided that "higher video quality" came with "screw the sound over". I might end up having to re-edit the video, which took about an hour. And it wasn't fun either. I'll see if it helps though.

First, thanks for the support. I think GetSomeKnow can be really helpful if done right, and you guys are really helping.

I'll summarize what's going to probably happen over the next few weeks.

Here's the rundown so far:

I'm going to try my damnedest to get a video made by Friday. That means I'll need to plan it out and set up the tutorial with code and all else in about two days. I already have the recording tools I need, and hopefully I'll get the 2 gigs of RAM I ordered by Friday (I have Vista, so 1 gig isn't enough for a good video). I'll edit the video and should have it submitted to YouTube by Friday night.

Hopefully the site will be somewhat enjoyable by then, but it isn't really a priority. The first video comes first. I'm new to PHP and mySQL though (website programming stuff), so it's taking me a while to make it. I don't want to use a template though, I really want to learn PHP cause I think it's a pretty important language to learn (Almost as much as AS3 ;) ).

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First Video

So what's on the first video? I don't know yet. :D But it'll probably be a ship you can move around with the arrow keys. It's really really important to know how to draw something and use it in AS3, but it doesn't work anything like it does in AS1 or AS2.

The first tutorial will only show the very basics, and it probably won't be very good. It's a test video, and the real videos will probably come in 2-3 weeks after. I'll explain why it'll take so long in a bit. But I want to get the real first video done right, so the test one will be out there for critiquing and I'll make the real one later. You'll still learn enough from the test video to get you started on AS3. You'll probably be able to make something move around. It sounds simple, but in AS3 there's a lot of setting up, so you'll still learn a lot.

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After the Test Tutorial

Now this next part might make me sound like a dick, but remember that I have no job, and I have to pay for college (which is about $2000 a semester), the food I eat at college (maybe $400 a semester), and the gas it takes to drive there (about $15/week). I basically need to make about $3000 in about 5 months.

Here's how it's going to work. I need money soon, like in the next few months, or I'll need to get a job. With school and a job, that'll leave me no time to make anything. So after the first tutorial, I'll start making a game. It'll be a really simple, but hopefully very fun game. It'll probably take two weeks to make depending on how much homework I have.

Before I submit it, I'll finish GetSomeKnow.com so that it looks like an actual website, then remake the first tutorial and make at least one more (hopefully two or three) tutorials. Then I'll submit the game with a good sponsor, and (if the sponsor allows it) advertise GetSomeKnow as well. That way anyone playing the game can go to the site and see two or three videos their first visit, and that should interest them enough to return. It'd be a HUGE boost for advertising the site as well as hopefully get me a thousand dollars or more.

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After That

The following could happen:

1) The best case: tons of people come to the site, and I make enough money from advertisements to cover college. More people will come just by spread of word, so I can concentrate completely on making tutorials.
2) Some people come to the site, but I either don't make enough money to cover college or not enough people are aware of the site, so I have to make more games to solve that.

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Of course this is all only if the site works. It could be a complete disaster, and none of this will happen, but hopefully not. :)

Also a few people have asked if I needed help. I will probably need a lot of help soon, but I want to see how the site does first. It could be a total disaster, so I want to wait another few weeks to see how the site turns out before getting any help. Whether the help will get any money will be determined. I would very much like to pay anyone that helps the site, but I won't be able to unless the site has enough visitors to raise the money.

Hopefully though, I could turn the site into a community site, where anyone can submit their own videos. I'd also like to branch off of just Flash, which is why I didn't call it GetSomeFlashKnow. It'd be like a YouTube of knowledge. It'd also be really really cool if you could get money for submitting videos too, but that's looking too far ahead. I need to get back to work, I'll think about that stuff later.

Expect to see a video besides Rick Roll on my site by Friday night. Thanks again for the support!

I've decided to make tutorials simply because there really aren't any good tutorials out there.

I'm starting on a tutorial engine that'll let me make easy tutorials quickly. It's going by quickly, so it should be done today.

The first will be the basics of AS3. Sorry, but I don't deal with AS2. AS3 is far better, and you'll see why as the tutorials go on. I was originally just going to teach about my physics engine, but hardly anyone knows how to use AS3, so that definitely comes first.

I think for each tutorial you'll build a game. And then for later tutorials you'll make them better as you learn new things.

Ex:
1) Basics of AS3. Make a basic space shooter.
2) Basic physics. Add velocity, acceleration, and friction to the space shooter.
3) Randomness and Particle effects. Add effects to the previous space shooter.
4) Advanced Actionscript Drawing. Draw various shapes and curves.
etc.

Also the files can't be put on Newgrounds, so you could download them from the website.

Comments please.

First, my physics engine is going well. It looks like it'll be several times faster than the previous engine. In the first engine, objects were actually several small objects linked together (a triangle was 3 objects, a square 4, an octogon 8, etc). In this engine, each object is one object, which in theory should be much much much faster.

Second, I bought a website, GetSomeKnow (it's blank right now), but now I'm not so certain it'll be the success I wanted it to be. I'm wanting to teach everyone all the neat Flash programming I've learned over the past few years.

Problem is, I don't really know how many people are interested, and whether it's worth my time.

I'm going to sort of lay out what I'll do in the site.

First, I'm going to explain how to go from AS2 to AS3. I don't really know much about AS2, but I doubt it'll be too complicated.

Second, I'll explain how my entire game engine will work.
Right now there are six parts of the engine:
- Camera (may actually support multiple views at the same time)
- Entity (the physical object that interacts with other objects)
- Visual Element (the drawn part of the object, separate from entity so different visual effects can be
made like ripples or shockwaves)
- Environment (everything in the foreground and background)
- Physics (gravity, collisions, friction, wind)
- Telly (short for Intelligent Entity, or anything with AI)

The separate parts work together, such as a person might be made of 20 or so entities (one for each limb). Physics affects each limb, and the AI will work the limbs together to move. Each limb has its own Visual Element, which can be distorted (like from ripples in water) and various other effects. Each entity is also morphable and detachable (cut off limbs).

Then I guess we'll see where it goes from there.

But like I said, I don't know if I should even bother. I don't know how interested people are, and explaining how this engine will work will take a HUGE amount of time.

PLEASE tell me whether you'd be interested, and any ideas or help you can offer,
like an awesome link to an AS2 to AS3 tutorial, so I don't have to make one ;)
and how I should teach the tutorials (by text, by youtube video, or by flash).

I think if about 20+ people are interested I'll start on it.

I tried to install Linux on my Laptop (which holds all my flash files). It asked if it should make a hard drive partition for me to fit Linux on, so I let it. For some reason, it partitioned over the entire hard drive.

For those that aren't computer whores, that means that the physics engine I'd been working on was completely erased.

HURRAY!

So I spent about a week trying to get the files back, and failed. Two more weeks trying to get Linux to work with Flash, but failed. Luckily my school provides free Windows XP to Computer Science students, so I got Flash back, and I've already started work on the physics engine again! I'll post more in the next blog, because it'll include plans for the new game using the engine.