BendPixels

Ryan — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 15:04:02 +0000

BendPixels is a library by Mrinal Wadhwa which makes it possible to tween Pixel Bender filters using Flex's mx.effects library. I finally got a chance to play with this and it really is pretty cool. You can check out a demo here. It is capable of tweening arbitrary shaders, and has wrappers for several popular effects from Adobe's Pixel Bender Exchange. I am flattered that my very own Zoom Blur effect has been included.

My only criticism is that Flex effects in general tend to have lackluster performance. I frequently use libraries like TweenLite instead. Can TweenLite play nicely with Pixel Bender effects? Of course. I'll do an example of that sometime this week.

Wave Reflection Pixel Bender Filter

Ryan — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 20:30:22 +0000

Wave Reflection creates the effect of moving water over the surface of an image. It differs from other wave and ripple effects in that it can be animated in a loop to create continuous ambient motion, and the ripples are not uniformly distributed across the image - they become more exaggerated towards the bottom. The three parameters are amplitude, frequency, and progress.

amplitude (0-1) - the height of the waves
frequency (0-.54) - how close together the waves are. Higher value = more waves.
progress (0-1) - percentage of the wave sequence. Animate from 0 to 1 to get a smooth wave effect.

This was my first go at a Pixel Bender filter, let me know what you think. I've got a couple more in the works, so check back soon.

Application - Source

*Note: This application requires Flash Player 10

Photo courtesy of stock.xchng

Ryan Phelan » Animation

BendPixels

Wave Reflection Pixel Bender Filter