Friday, May 7, 2010

Video: Upon Further Reflection

Creating a Reflection Container in Flex 4, Part II, the next episode in the gripping and suspenseful series CodeDependent, is now available from Adobe TV.

This show is the sequel to the previous one, in which I showed how to create a simple container for an image and it's reflection ... that didn't look that great. The sequel shows how to get a better, more realistic reflection effect by using blur, masking, and alpha gradients. My favorite part of the technique is something that I completely forgot to mention in the show: the code is soooo much simpler than code I used to write to get this effect prior to Flex 4. Check out this earlier show on a reflection effect using ActionScript and Flex 3 components. Now look at the few lines of code in the Reflexion container to get the same result. Nice, eh?

This show is based on one of the 65+ demo applications that I wrote for Flex 4 Fun, a book about the graphics and animation side of Flex 4. If you want to see more about the book, check out the book site, the page where you can purchase the PrePrint version, or the apps site where all of the demos are hosted.

Here's the video:

Here is the demo application:

And here is the source code.

Here's where you can find CodeDependent on iTunes.

And here's where you can find CodeDependent on YouTube.

Enjoy.

1 comment:

Tink said...

Best way to achieve a reflection IMO is to use Pixel Bender.

WetFloor is a nice example, saves on dev time, and should run much faster.

http://log5f.wordpress.com/2009/06/22/the-reflection-filter/