Caffeine Induced Ramblings - Jasper Potts's Blog » JavaFX

New blog launched for JavaFX :: FX Experience

Jasper Potts — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 11:16:01 +0000

Back in the summer while Richard Bair and I were at JavaOne we decided that we should launch a new blog together for all our JavaFX related content. We created fxexperience.com and have started posting lots of interesting blogs there on JavaFX so I hope you will all start following us there. Our aim is to one day make it a invaluable resource for everything JavaFX.

JavaFX Keynote @ Devoxx 2008

Jasper Potts — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 14:46:20 +0000

The video,slides and demos are now available for the JavaFX Keynote we gave at Devoxx 2008.

You can view the full size version HERE.

Java Posse Interview about JavaFX

Jasper Potts — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 14:41:33 +0000

During Devoxx 2008 Richard, Josh, Martin had a interview with the Java Posse. The recording of it is now available online:

You can view the full size version HERE.

Devoxx 2008: JavaFX 1.0 SDK Talk

Jasper Potts — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 14:22:27 +0000

Parleys.com has posted the first of our JavaFX talks from Devoxx 2008. You can watch it here or as a bigger version on Parleys.com. This talk is the 1 hour version covering the JavaFX Language, Scene Graph and Animation presented by Richard Bair and Martin Brehovsky, I bailed on helping present this one as I had been up most of the night working on “Devoxx Themed Swish Demo”. Its well worth watching and should take you from knowing nothing about JavaFX to being able to build a cool little application. Even if you are already using JavaFX you may learn some handy new snippets. This is the one hour version of the talk that I gave the slides and demo for in Introduction to JavaFX Talks – Devoxx 2008 – IJTC 2009.

I know its Flash sorry, they are working on a JavaFX version so hope to be able to have that here soon

Devoxx/Parleys.com Intro Video in JavaFX

Jasper Potts — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 16:18:44 +0000

Following on from the success of the JavaFX Devoxx animations Stephan Janssen asked if I could do a similar video to replace last years intro video that is played before the start of each of the recorded sessions. I decided this was another chance to see how JavaFX copes with animation. This time I needed a 10-15second clip of PAL video 768×576 25fps. In this blog I will explain how I created this animation and take you though recreating it step by step. I started out creating the graphics in Photoshop based on the ones I had from the Devoxx theme for Swish with all the parts that I am going to need to animate as separate layers. All the layers I want to access from JavaFX are named with the “jfx:” prefix and simple camel case names so they will be exposed to JavaFX code and come though as neat variable names.

Complete Graphics

You can download the final graphics photoshop file here, once you have this you will need Photoshop CS3 or CS4 and the JavaFX Production Suite (download here). If you don’t have Photoshop you can download a trial version to experiment with or use any design tool that will export SVG and the Production Suite convertor. Alternatively you could just save each layer as a PNG and hand code a scene graph with ImageViews for each layer. Once you have production suite installed in Photoshop you can go to “File” -> “Automate” -> ‘Save for JavaFX…” then save the graphics as “graphics.fxz” in the package directory in the source directory of a new Netbeans JavaFX project. You can then right click on the saved “fxz” file in Netbeans and choose “Generate UI Stub…” that will create a JavaFX “.fx” source file that is a scene graph Node class that you can use in your application. It will have variables for direct access to each of the layers you named in Photoshop with the “jfx:” prefix. Before you can compile the project with the newly generated stub you need to go to project properties and add the “JavaFX FXD 1.0″ library to the project. Now all the code you need in Main to create a JavaFX application to display our graphics is this:

var graphics:graphicsUI;
 
Stage {
    title: "Devoxx Video Intro"
    scene: Scene {
        // PAL Video Sized
        width: 768 height: 576
        content: graphics = graphicsUI{}
        fill: Color.BLACK
    }
}

So run that and check it out, cool hey! So now its time to start animating it, lets start with the background. The background is made up of 3 layers so we can animate them.

Moody orange base background

Clouds layer

Bar - grey is transparent

The clouds layer is semi transparent and we are going to animate it slowly scrolling past to add mood it sits above the moody orange background and under the black bar. The graphics for it were created to match at the ends so it can be looped without you seeing the join. I created it by using the render clouds effect in photoshop, the result I duplicated and flipped about the middle so that both ends were the same and then hand blended the join. That way I knew it would repeat without a seam. In JavaFX I am going to make a second ImageView with the clouds as I need enough to scroll completely past the visible region then jump back and start again. Here is the code for this:

// Make copy of clouds image view so we have enough to scroll past
var cloudsGroup:Group = graphics.clouds_group as Group;
var clouds1:ImageView = graphics.clouds as ImageView;
clouds1.x = 0;
var clouds2:ImageView = ImageView {
    image: clouds1.image
    translateX: bind clouds1.image.width
}
insert clouds2 into cloudsGroup.content;
 
// == Animate clouds ===========================================================
TranslateTransition {
    node: cloudsGroup
    fromX: 0
    toX: -clouds1.image.width
    duration: 10s
    autoReverse: false
    repeatCount: Timeline.INDEFINITE
    interpolate: Interpolator.LINEAR
}.play();

Once I have created and positioned the second could imageview I create a TranslateTransition to animate the clouds scrolling past and start it playing. Next is the 3 spotlights:

Lights - 3 separate transparent layers

The spotlights will animate rotating around the center of their top. To rotate around a point other than the center of a node we will have to use a Transform and Timeline as the RotateTransition only works around the center of the node.

// == Animate lights ===========================================================
var light1:ImageView = graphics.light1 as ImageView;
var light2:ImageView = graphics.light2 as ImageView;
var light3:ImageView = graphics.light3 as ImageView;
var light1angle = -20;
var light2angle = -20;
var light3angle = -20;
light1.transforms = Rotate { pivotX: light1.x + (light1.layoutBounds.width / 2) angle: bind light1angle };
light2.transforms = Rotate { pivotX: light2.x + (light2.layoutBounds.width / 2) angle: bind light2angle };
light3.transforms = Rotate { pivotX: light3.x + (light3.layoutBounds.width / 2) angle: bind light3angle };
 
var light1Timeline:Timeline = Timeline {
    keyFrames: [
         at (0s) {light1angle => -20 tween Interpolator.EASEBOTH}
         at (3s) {light1angle => 20 tween Interpolator.EASEBOTH}
     ]
    repeatCount: Timeline.INDEFINITE
    autoReverse: true
};
var light2Timeline:Timeline = Timeline {
    keyFrames: [
         at (0s) {light2angle => -20 tween Interpolator.EASEBOTH}
         at (3.5s) {light2angle => 20 tween Interpolator.EASEBOTH}
     ]
    repeatCount: Timeline.INDEFINITE
    autoReverse: true
};
var light3Timeline:Timeline = Timeline {
    keyFrames: [
         at (0s) {light3angle => -25 tween Interpolator.EASEBOTH}
         at (2.5s) {light3angle => 20 tween Interpolator.EASEBOTH}
     ]
    repeatCount: Timeline.INDEFINITE
    autoReverse: true
};

The first part of the code create 3 variables “light1angle”,”light2angle” and ”light3angle” then setup Rotate Tranforms on the 3 light nodes whose angle is bound to these variables. We then create 3 timelines to animate the panning of the spotlights. Note: I have not started the animations here as I will do that in the final master timeline but you can add quick “light1Timeline.play();” style lines to test it out so far. Next is the speaker chap(dude for americans):

Speak Chap - 2 layers head and body

The first animation for the speaker chap is to rotate his head back and forward. This is simple as in photoshop I manipulated the center point of the layer by adding a pixel at the right point to get the center where I needed it. Because of that we can just use a simple RotateTransition:

// == Chap Head Rotation ================================================================
var headRotation:RotateTransition = RotateTransition {
    fromAngle: -5
    toAngle: 5
    autoReverse: true
    duration: 1s
    interpolate: Interpolator.EASEBOTH
    repeatCount: Timeline.INDEFINITE
    node: graphics.head
};

Again I have not started this transition as it will be started at the right point in the master timeline. Next I will setup a clip on the group containing the chap’s head and body and link it to a variable that controls the beam position. This is so I can BEAM him in for a bit of fun.

Beam layer

The “scanLocation” variable can be from 0.0 fully invisible to 1.0 fully visible. We will animate this later to beam the chap in.

// == Chap scan ================================================================
var chap:Group = graphics.chap as Group;
var chapX:Number = chap.layoutBounds.minX;
var chapY:Number = chap.layoutBounds.minY;
var chapWidth:Number = chap.layoutBounds.width;
var chapHeight:Number = chap.layoutBounds.height;
var beam:ImageView = graphics.beam as ImageView;
var scanLocation:Number = 0.7 on replace {
    beam.y = chapY+(chapHeight*scanLocation) - (beam.layoutBounds.height/2);
};
chap.clip = Rectangle {
    x: chapX
    translateY: bind chapY-chapHeight+(chapHeight*scanLocation)
    width: chapWidth
    height: chapHeight
};

Next is the title text, this is made in 3 layers:

Base text including small glow

Larger glow for text

Mask for large glow

We will animate the glow mask across the text exposing a small part of the larger glow as we go, this will give the effect of a glow sweeping across the text. In the code for this I setup the mask image as a clip on the text glow layer and calculate the start and end positions for the animation.

// == Glow Mask ================================================================
var glow:ImageView = graphics.glow as ImageView;
var glowMaskGraphics:ImageView = graphics.glowMask as ImageView;
glowMaskGraphics.visible = false;
var glowX:Number = glow.layoutBounds.minX;
var glowWidth:Number = glow.layoutBounds.width;
var glowMaskWidth:Number = glowMaskGraphics.layoutBounds.width;
var glowMaskStart:Number = glowX - glowMaskWidth;
var glowMaskEnd:Number = glowX + glowWidth + glowMaskWidth;
var glowMaskPosition:Number = glowMaskStart;
var glowMask:ImageView = ImageView {
    image: glowMaskGraphics.image
    x: bind glowMaskPosition
    y: glowMaskGraphics.y
};
glow.clip = glowMask;

We have a music recording from Devoxx of the beatboxer Roxorloops that we are going to use for the sound track for this intro so next we need to setup the media ready to be played.

// == Setup Music ==============================================================
 
var music:MediaPlayer = MediaPlayer {
    media: Media { source: "http://jasperpotts.com/blogfiles/devox-intro-video/IntroBeat.mp3" }
    autoPlay: true
}
music.stop();

That is all the setup done for the little animations, now we need to get started on the master timeline which is going to control the sequence of all the animations. First create a bunch of constants for all the times of the key points in the animation. This is handy as I can play with the timing to get it feeling right and in sync with the sound without having to dig too deeply into the code.

// == Main Animation Times =====================================================
def FRAME:Duration = 1s/60;
 
def START:Duration = 5s;
def FIRST_LIGHT:Duration = START + 0.2s;
def SECOND_LIGHT:Duration = FIRST_LIGHT + 3s;
def THIRD_LIGHT:Duration = SECOND_LIGHT + 1s;
def START_SHOW_CHAP:Duration = THIRD_LIGHT + 1s;
def END_SHOW_CHAP:Duration = START_SHOW_CHAP + 1s;
def START_SHOW_TEXT:Duration = END_SHOW_CHAP + 1s;
def END_SHOW_TEXT:Duration = START_SHOW_TEXT + 1s;
def START_GLOW_SCAN:Duration = END_SHOW_TEXT + 0.5s;
def END_GLOW_SCAN:Duration = START_GLOW_SCAN + 5s;
def START_HIDE:Duration = END_GLOW_SCAN + 0.5s;
def END_HIDE:Duration = START_HIDE + 1.5s;

Then the final part is the main timeline that fades layers in and out and starts the smaller animations at the right points. This is the last of the code and you have the completed application.

// == Main Animation ===========================================================
Timeline {
    keyFrames: [
        KeyFrame {
            time: 0s
            values: [
                beam.visible => false
                graphics.bar.visible => false
                graphics.chap.visible => false
                graphics.background.opacity => 0
                graphics.flames.opacity => 0
                graphics.light1.opacity => 0
                graphics.light2.opacity => 0
                graphics.light3.opacity => 0
                graphics.text.opacity => 0
            ]
            action: function() { light1Timeline.play(); }
        }
        KeyFrame { // start second light a little later as we don't want them in sync
            time: 1s
            action: function() { light2Timeline.play(); }
        }
        KeyFrame { // start music
            time: START - 0.1s
            action: function() {
                music.currentTime = 0s;
                music.play();
            }
        }
        KeyFrame { // start after couple seconds in as a chance to stablize after launch
            time: START
            values: [
                graphics.background.opacity => 0
                graphics.flames.opacity => 0
                graphics.light1.opacity => 0
                graphics.light2.opacity => 0
                graphics.light3.opacity => 0
                graphics.bar.visible => true
            ]
            action: function() { light3Timeline.play(); }
        }
        KeyFrame {
            time: FIRST_LIGHT
            values: [
                graphics.light3.opacity => 0.6 tween Interpolator.LINEAR
 
                graphics.background.opacity => 0.1 tween Interpolator.EASEIN
                graphics.flames.opacity => 0.1 tween Interpolator.EASEIN
            ]
        }
        KeyFrame {
            time: SECOND_LIGHT - 0.2s
            values: graphics.light1.opacity => 0.0
        }
        KeyFrame {
            time: SECOND_LIGHT
            values: [
                graphics.light1.opacity => 0.6 tween Interpolator.LINEAR
 
                graphics.background.opacity => 0.6 tween Interpolator.EASEIN
                graphics.flames.opacity => 0.6 tween Interpolator.EASEIN
            ]
        }
        KeyFrame {
            time: THIRD_LIGHT - 0.2s
            values: graphics.light2.opacity => 0.0
        }
        KeyFrame {
            time: THIRD_LIGHT
            values: [
                graphics.light2.opacity => 0.6 tween Interpolator.LINEAR
 
                graphics.background.opacity => 1.0 tween Interpolator.EASEIN
                graphics.flames.opacity => 1.0 tween Interpolator.EASEIN
            ]
        }
        KeyFrame {
            time: START_SHOW_CHAP - 0.2s
            values: [
                beam.opacity => 0.0
                beam.visible => true
            ]
        }
        KeyFrame {
            time: START_SHOW_CHAP
            values: [
                graphics.chap.visible => true
                beam.opacity => 1.0 tween Interpolator.EASEIN
                scanLocation => 0.0
            ]
        }
        KeyFrame {
            time: END_SHOW_CHAP
            values: [
                beam.visible => false
                scanLocation => 1.0 tween Interpolator.EASEIN
            ]
            action: function() { headRotation.play(); }
        }
        KeyFrame {
            time: START_SHOW_TEXT
            values: [
                graphics.text.opacity => 0.0
            ]
        }
        KeyFrame {
            time: END_SHOW_TEXT
            values: [
                graphics.text.opacity => 1.0
                graphics.glow.visible => true
            ]
        }
        KeyFrame {
            time: START_GLOW_SCAN
            values: [
                glowMaskPosition => glowMaskStart
            ]
        }
        KeyFrame {
            time: END_GLOW_SCAN
            values: [
                glowMaskPosition => glowMaskEnd tween Interpolator.EASEBOTH
            ]
        }
        KeyFrame {
            time: START_HIDE
            values: [
                graphics.opacity => 1.0 tween Interpolator.EASEOUT
            ]
        }
        KeyFrame {
            time: END_HIDE
            values: [
                graphics.opacity => 0.0 tween Interpolator.EASEOUT
            ]
        }
        KeyFrame {
            time: END_HIDE + 3s
            action: function () { FX.exit(); }
        }
    ]
}.play();

So we are finally there, if you have been following along then you can run what you have for the rest of you here is a web start link:

You can also download the Netbeans project complete with FXZ graphics file: Netbeans Project. The first session with the new intro video is already live on Parleys.com watch it here “Inside the SpringSorce Application Platform”. Well I hope you enjoyed my longest blog so far and a cool little application.

Update: Some people have been having problems with a media bug playing the sound, I am passing it on to the Media Team in the mean time here is a webstart link without music:

Devoxx themed Swish Demo

Jasper Potts — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 13:32:54 +0000

During Devoxx 2008 we were preparing demos for the JavaFX Keynote including a demo for JavaFX Production Suite called Swish. Swish is a demo where we take a photoshop file of graphics and an Illustrator file with animation paths and put together a small animation using those resources in JavaFX. Then we can take a new set of graphics and paths and swap them out with the same code and get a completely new look for the animation. You can watch the standard version of the Swish demo on the JavaFX Videos page on the video called “Designer-Developer Workflow”.

The original graphics

The alternative graphics

At Devoxx Danny Coward asked if we could tweak the graphics and add a Devoxx logo or similar. I asked Stephan Janssen if he could send me some of the Devoxx graphics and he sent me the graphics that were being projected behind the speaker and slides on the big screens. As I am a perfectionist and can never do the simple thing I spent some of the day before the keynote creating a complete Devoxx theme for the Swish demo.

Devoxx themed graphics

When I showed the graphics to Stephan Janssen he said half joking (I think!) wouldn’t it be cool if we could replace the graphics behind the slides and speaker with this animation. After some discussions we worked out that if I could create a full HD video loop 1920×1080 then they had the technology to project that on the big cinema screens. So not to be one to let a challenge go by I created a full HD version of the graphics and we ran the JavaFX application on Martin’s MacBook Pro as it was the only machine we had access to with full HD resolution screen. We then screen recorded it and spent the rest of the night creating and encoding a video loop. So while everyone was walking into the room and during the performances by the Beatboxer Roxorloops our video was playing on the big screen.

Devoxx animation of big screen

It was a whole pile of fun so maybe next year Stephan can arrange a machine which we can install JavaFX and have animated backgrounds for all the talks. I think we were all impressed that JavaFX could pull off full HD animation, makes me want to write a video titling tool in JavaFX

Introduction to JavaFX Talks – Devoxx 2008 – IJTC 2009

Jasper Potts — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 12:28:15 +0000

Over the last couple months Richard Bair, Martin Brehovsky and I presented talks introducing JavaFX at Devoxx 2008, Sun Paris Tech Day and IJTC 2009 (Irish Java Technologies Conference). There are 2 versions a longer one for Devoxx and a more condensed version for Paris and IJTC. For those of you interested here are the slides and demos:

Slides

Devoxx Slides PDF

IJTC Slides PDF

Demo

During the talks we built up a simple demo with what you learn in each section.

Here are the links so you can webstart the demos for the different sections, I started at Demo 2d as that is the first version with working close button which is always helpful

Here is the Netbeans project and source files for these demos so you can play with them.

Netbeans-Project.zip

Excellent article on JavaFX Layout

Jasper Potts — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 12:19:28 +0000

My colleague Amy Fowler has written a excellent article explaining how layout works and will work in JavaFX. Its great after many months of working on this stuff to see it explained so well. If you have not read it so far and you are interested in JavaFX then what are you doing still reading me waffle, go read it!

Layout Primer for JavaFX1.0 - Amy Fowler

JavaFX Sketching Application

Jasper Potts — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 20:01:00 +0000

A friend forwarded a email to me a couple days ago from a researcher who wanted to record children sketching on a computer using a graphics tablet. So they could play it back later and watch how they did it etc. It sounded like a cool little app and as I was bored while waiting for a plane back from the IJTC conferance I thought I would have a quick go, how hard can it be

So here is what I had after a couple hours:

The biggest challenge I had was to stop adding more and more features as it was so easy. If I do some more then I would like to make it save to my website so I can have a gallery of what people have created that other people can replay, maybe next time I have a flight I will do that.

To start with I just wanted to create a simple canvas that I could scribble on and see how it worked, I was suprised how simple it was. Here is the code:

Stage{
    title: "Sketch"
    scene:
    scene = Scene{
        width: 400
        height: 400
        content: [
            lines
            Rectangle {
                width: bind scene.width
                height: bind scene.height
                fill: Color.TRANSPARENT
                onMousePressed: function (e:MouseEvent) {
                    insert currentPath = Path{
                        elements: MoveTo{ x: e.x y: e.y }
                    } into lines.content;
                }
                onMouseDragged: function (e:MouseEvent) {
                    insert LineTo{ x: e.x y: e.y } into currentPath.elements;
                }
                onMouseReleased: function (e:MouseEvent) {
                    insert LineTo{ x: e.x y: e.y } into currentPath.elements;
                    currentPath = null;
                }
            }
        ]
    }
}

It works pretty well for such a basic way of doing it but is limited by the frequency at which it receives mouse events. Interestingly it works way better with a graphics tablet than a mouse as you seem to get many more events. There are also some Java libraries out there for interfacing with graphics tablets to get pressure and tilt information so we could link that in to vary the stroke width for example. I also thought about algorithms that could convert the series of points into smooth curves. There are loads of cool things that could be done with this but it is amazing how useable the dumb/simple version is.

If you would like the Netbeans project with the source so you can play with it Dowload Here. If you have any extra features you add please send them to me and I will post a new version. If there is much interest then we could create a opensource project for a JavaFX Painting application.

JavaFX Spline Editor

Jasper Potts — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 11:04:56 +0000

When I was creating the prize draw application I needed to work out the Spline interpreter numbers to make the names thud down. I ended up using Romain Guy’s Spline Editor for Swing which makes it nice and easy. So thought it was about time we had a JavaFX version, and it could not be too hard. So a couple hours and a couple hundred bind statements later we have a very cool little Spline Editor that lets you edit the spline and see the effect in real time then copy the code to paste into your JavaFX application.

If you would like to try it for your self click here: you can also download the source Netbeans project.