A blog about tech news,
programming and cool stuff
programming and cool stuff
Welcome to my website!
This is the sixth version of my website since 2000. This time I've decided to design it more blog-like and to present my different hobbies. Of course the music stuff wasn't left apart. From Actionscript tuts to design discussions, you will certainly find something interesting in the pages. And of course don't hesitate to leave a comment. Have fun ! MatD
How to export from Blender to Unity 3D with textures tutorial
Jan 3rd
Believe me or not Unity 3D will be the next hype in the indie game industry and once you have discovered this tool and exported your 3D scenes to your iPhone, Android or even Flash (thanks to the new Molehill support) you will understand why. But that’s not the point of our discussion 
There is a topic that comes very often in forums concerning the export/import of textures in Unity 3D: how to export 3D objects or geometry made with Blender (up to 2.5) in Unity with textures? Yes with textures… The problem is that the workflow is not very clear and often textures are missing what is pretty annoying because once imported in Unity 3D you will need to assign them manually over the Material options… it’s a real pain but fortunately there is a nice solution… More >
New BMW prototype / development mule “Erlkönig” spotted in Munich
Dec 29th
Last time I went to Munich I’ve seen this pretty fancy painted car: two BMW cars covered with white curly patterns . Of course it was – like German say an “Erlkönig” - (“development mule” in English). In fact I’ve seen two of these and here are the pics. I don’t have any idea which new BMW model it should replace or should be, but it would be interesting if someone could give me a small hint
My guess is that this car is in pre-final version and should come out very soon, perhaps in Q2 2012. The pics after the break More >
Design: Stock check 2012
Dec 22nd
The stock of rare earths and precious metals are getting lower each day, due to over-consumption and new extraction techniques: our iPads, cars and mobile phones are all containing such metals. At a first glance it’s not obvious that the stocks are pretty low and that in a few years, some important components will be missing. In order to depict this very serious situation, I’ve decided to design a shema that will show how long each metal reserve will last. This poster was initially designed for the Information Is Beautiful Award. Full poster after the break ! More >
How to resize the Flash Player from Flash with fscommand and C#
Sep 25th
How do you resize the Flash Player or to be more precise the width of window showing your animation? Whereas with AIR this is done with few lines, the Flash Player will not allow you to resize its window. The first idea when trying to solve this issue was to write something like : stage.width = 1024; . Yes, this could work but this value can’t be overwritten and the Flash Player won’t be resized. But how to realize this, let’s say if you have several screen resolution to target and want to automatically resize the Flash Player? Here is my solution
Book Tip: The Visual Miscellaneum by David McCandless
Sep 24th
Do you like infographics? Do you like nice designs? Do you like numbers and statistics about everything possible correlated to the most curious facts? Then the book “The Visual Miscellaneum: A Colorful Guide to the World’s Most Consequential Trivia (Amazon Link) “ by David McCandless is for you. This book is a real must read, to be more precise a book to look in and admire the creatively visuals (pie charts, cutting edge graphs, charts, and illustrations) drawn by the author. More >
David Guetta – Renault Twizy ad in Where Them Girls At ft. Nicki Minaj, Flo Rida music video
Sep 5th
Last time I’ve watched MTV I was surprised to see this superb non-subliminal ad for the upcoming Renault Twizy in David Guetta’s Where Them Girls At music video:
Renault Twizy featured David Guetta's new clip
The car is running –ok,ok, dancing – to the rhythm of David’s beats. Not sure if the advertisement placed on the top of the building is translated in other countries or even censored/blurred when aired? More >
Convert FLV to MP3 with FFMpeg
Sep 5th
This is perhaps one of the most frequently asked questions on the web: you’ve downloaded a nice FLV (let me guess, from YouTube ) and you want to convert it into a MP3 to be able to play it on your iPhone or mobile phone. How to realize this? Yes, there are tons of FLV to MP3 converters and media converters on the web. But seriously, why do we need something so sophisticated whereas a simple command line will do the whole work for us? More >
[Weblife]: Forza Motorsport 4 – Hockenheim Making Of
Aug 18th
Have you ever asked yourself, how game circuits are realized? The crew of Turn 10 shows us some details about the development of the upcoming Forza Motorsport 4 racing simulation. The following video shows how the track of Hockenheim was measured with GPS and how the track is then modeled into 3D. I’ve found it very interesting especially due to the fact that the real and virtual images can’t be really determined on the first sight. Let’s hope that the new Forza Motorsport 4 game will be as excellent as the previews in this video… More >
Top 5 must-have apps for creating and composing music on the iPad
Aug 14th
Do you want to compose some music, but don’t really know where and how to start? Here is a small selection of free and paid iPad apps that will help you to increase your musical creativity. Even the Gorillaz have produced a complete album only by using iPad and iPhone music apps, so now it’s your turn! More >
Using min3D for Android – Q&A session: Common texture issues and Blender import
Aug 12th
The previous post concerning min3D raised a lot of interesting questions and comments (thanks to all the visitors for their contribution!) concerning the usage of textures, the export of OBJ and the addition of features such as rotation listeners in min3D. I’ve decided to wrap up all of the comments and emails I’ve received concerning min3D. I hope you can find a solution for your problem, and don’t forget to post a comment if you can’t find the solution for your problem. I will edit and update this page with your input and your question, so don’t hesitate! More >
Bag Raiders – Music Review
Aug 6th
This group has made a very cool album for this summer, and their hit Way Back Home was already features in a Vodafone commercial. No, I’m not talking about a new auto tuned pop group re-featured à la David Guetta. I’m talking about Bag Raiders a very eclectic band coming directly from Australia. Their music Way Back Home started to be aired in Germany in April by Vodafone and now in complete Europe. More >
How to compile with AIR 2.7 with Flash CS 5 for iOS development with ADT Helper
Jul 24th
There is a lot of hype around the huge performance jump of AIR 2.7 towards AIR 2.5 when publishing for iOS and of course everybody wants to test it. Most of you have read how to overlay the inbuilt Flash CS 5.5 (AIR SDK 2.6) to AIR 2.7 (http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/908/cpsid_90810.html) but what should be done when you are still using Flash CS 5 with the old IPA compiler? Here is the solution to discover the full power of AIR 2.7 on your iPad… More >
Panini Album FIFA Women’s World Cup 2011
Jul 10th
Here are some photos of my Panini album for the Women’s Football World Cup in Germany. Have you noticed that there is no weight indication in the player’s description frame? That’s the main difference between the men’s Panini album. It was the first time that Panini created an album for the Women’s Football World Cup.
Hier ein paar Bilder von meinem ersten Panini Album der Frauen WM 2011 in Deutschland. Einziger Unterschied zu dem (Männer) Panini Fußball Album: Sie werden keine Angaben zum Gewicht sehen Ansonsten bleibt der Spaß gleich: sammeln, kleben und tauschen. Hoffen wir mal, dass Panini auch wieder für die Frauen EM 2013 ein solches Album rausbringen wird. More >
Tutorial: Load a 3D OBJ model with min3D for Android
Jun 23rd
When you want to visualize 3D content on Android phones you have several solutions and frameworks. While using Actionscript with Away3D (with GPU activated in AIR) might be the quickest solution to display low polygon models, what should you do when you want to integrate a more complex 3D view in an existing Android Java app? In this case you will probably think that you must use the complex Open GL libs of Android. But there is a more convenient solution: using the min3D framework to rapidly render OBJ, MD2 and 3DS models.
Here is a short tutorial on how to use and render a 3D object ( in this case a human face) using min3D for Android. More >
Moby – Destroyed reviewed
Jun 15th
Moby has released a new album called Destroyed. This album is a kind of back to the roots one. If you discovered Moby with 18 and Play you won’t be too much surprised to hear that this new album is a mix of pop and electro sounds. In the cd leaflet Moby explained that he wrote the tracks during nights while watching the empty cities. Moby also rediscovered the power of using choirs and powerful gospel singer to emphasize his tracks. Here are my first impressions concerning selected tracks. More >
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