I started learning 3D math so I could program my own videogames. I started learning more about Javascript so I can share those games with the intercats. Even when I go to sleep at night, I'm thinking of new ways to combine the things that I've just learned with the things that I already knew to reach deeper understandings of those things, so I'm learning even as I sleep. I am so glad that I never get bored of learning!

Am I overdue of a huge update post on what I've been buisying myself with for the last 6 months? You bet I am! What have I been doing with my free time for the most part? LEARNING AND LEARNING AND LEARNING!!! How much more awesome do I perceive myself now compared to myself earlier in the year? At least three times more awesome! Here's a list of everything that I've learned or created since March. Most of the following were built specifically to experiment and learn a single concept, or a small ist of related concepts, so I'll explain what each one helped me accomplish and understand. Some of this is just experimentation with a visual concept. There's a lot, so get ready!

March 7th - 9th 2011

On March 7th through 9th, I was attending the web technology conference FITC Amsterdam 2011 for a few days of training and presentations on the (then) current state of HTML5 and Canvas rendering. Yes there was training(which I would choose over a typical vacation any day), but a large part of the appeal of this conference for me was a list of presenters that I was excited to see present and have the opportunity to meet.

I attended the all day Creative JS traning session presented by Seb Lee Delisle and learned some of the basics of how to start working with HTML5's Canvas tag, and got a glimpse at what kinds of maths are used in displaying animated vector graphics. The concept of a Vec2 was something entirely new to me, and it opened my mind to a whole series of new thought processes that I'm still exploring. A good part of the session involved actually playing with Vec2's in the miniature astroids game that Seb had us working with through the course. At the end of that day, I was mildly frustrated the Creative JS course had been only a single day long for the FITC event, when some of the previous students of the course were allowed a whole 3 days to learn the material. Regardless, the lessons that were covered(although briefly) were extremely mind-expanding for me, and served most importantly to shatter any of the hesitations that I previously held for learning about Vector Math(and math in general), and got me started playing with Canvas tag on my own.

I also had a few minutes to meet and talk with Ben Radatz, one of the founders of my all-time favorite motion graphics firm, MK12. He gave me his business card, MADE OF LASER CUT METAL! You don't get much more hardcore than that. I suspect that not many of the other people attending the conference even knew who he was, but meeting him there was one of the highlights of my trip.

Who else did I meet and get to spend some time talking with? McBess! McBess is an artist who's works I had been introduced to last year by another artist friend of mine, Trent Call. Talk about cool cats - this frenchman was about as frank and friendly as they come. It was awesome to be able to ask him questions about how he was able to work his way up from an artist with aspirations to a guy whos works are starting to become rather well known. He even asked me to give him a ring if I was in London so we could meet up again and talk - an offer I was more than happy to take advantage of later in the year.

I WROTE ALL OF THE BELOW DEMOS FOR CHROME - FIREFOX MAY HAVE PROBLEMS WITH THEM!

March 19th

This was the day that I posted my first HTML5 Canvas toy. What did this toy do? Randomly throw down pairs of lines and arcs, allowing the user to change a few of the variables in the script. Honestly, this one isn't very visually impressive, but it was a huge leap in the learning processes that I've been forcing myself through this year. Below is a screenshot of a few of the presets that were created for it, and if you click the image, you can play with the toy yourself.

In this first toy, I decided that I would try my hand at a concept that had been bouncing around in my head for a while: The ability to use Javascript to store UI generated and controlled parameters in the URL(after the # character), and read/apply values back into the script if the user were to click on a link containing different values. This allows users to both save their creations by simply bookmarking them, as well as share those same creations with their friends and social media services.