HYPE represents an idea of using code to aid animation, illustration, and design that began as a collaborative friendship between myself and Branden Hall almost 10 years ago. I have a background in Communication Design / Illustration and Branden has a background in Computer Science.
We met as speakers at a Flash Forward almost 10 years ago. I was self teaching myself math and programming as I worked on a project called PrayStation. Branden met me with great enthusiasm over what I was trying to create visually but with a terrible disdain over my self taught programming.
Thus began our friendship… Branden in a way became my Sherpa… helping me understand the real fundamentals of mathematics and programming. I helped Branden make things look more polished and designed. In a sense he was making me a better programmer, and I was helping him be a better designer.
Enter ActionScript 3, everything had changed, and I had 9+ years of code I was going to have to port and modified that became the code representations of paints and brushes I have used over the years to create the visuals that I make.
Well it took 1 year of complaining for us to realize that we need to “stop bitching, and start building”. HYPE enables us to port those 9+ years of visual tools into a framework where I can mix and match behaviors that previously never played together.
but HYPE would also rekindle what PrayStation was about… sharing information. We have Open-Sourced HYPE so that other talented Developers would write new classes for the framework and Designers would help us create new compositions and animations for the framework.
HYPE took us a few months back and forth to work on from start to finish, and was tossed out and re-written from scratch 3 times… as we discovered problems and solutions that needed to be implemented. I explained to Branden from day one that even if we were the only two who used HYPE… that is was a success. That HYPE was a success from the pure fact that we had collaborated, and completed something we both believed in.
Our hope is that others will take a look at HYPE and find a way to PLAY. With this open PLAY sharing we could find new ways to create things and help bring back some of that love between DESIGN and CODE.
HYPE out of the box… contains the base framework, structure for creating new classes, and 50 examples… showcasing how we have used HYPE. Version 1.0.0 was launch today October 31, 2009, Happy Halloween. HYPE will continue to grow as we add new classes and examples from our 9+ year repositories.
We will use this blog section to help you have a voice… as we intend to add wishlist posts, and also showcase what some of you have created as a community.
love Joshua Davis and Branden Hall
