The Gravity Master
There are three kinds of people in the world:
1) Those who love to throw George W. Bush around in Pekka’s “Freefall,” the Online Gadgets & Toys selection in PingRay’s Issue 4.
2) Those who want to rescue George W. Bush from the
effects of gravity confronting large circular objects.
3) Those who wish to make clear they couldn’t care less.
In support of the first two groups, we decided to talk
with the “creative programmer” who created the basic “Freefall” piece. He’s a
24-year-old from Finland named Pekka Sandborg. “I've used computers since C64 and Amiga 500,
but not just to play games,” he told us via an email interview. “I used to draw
and make animations with Deluxe Paint, program experiments with AMOS and
compose music with trackers. I've recently begun my career as a professional Flash
developer.”
After some research into animated simulations of physics,
he “realized it'd be very easy and fast to use circles in collision physics,
and it'd look nice too.” Following some early experiments,
he had “the idea to place the bubbles randomly, and create new ones under the
ragdoll while it was falling infinitely.”
His first major released “Freefall” version had a young woman rather than the 43rd
President of the United States.
The George Bush version, as indicated on that page, was a
modification of Pekka’s work by “an unknown Flash guru,” whose identity Pekka
doesn’t know either. “I was expecting this to happen,” he told us. “I hear Flash
files are easily decompilable. What I didn't expect is that 'Freefall' would
grow to be such an Internet phenomenon! Almost everybody seems to enjoy the
Bush-doll, but some find my girl a little too creepy and disturbing ;).”
We asked how one creates the physics of falling in Flash.
Pekka responds: “The ragdoll consists of particles (hip, knee, foot),
constraints that connect particles (thigh, knee) and angular constraints that
restrict an angle between two constraints. Particles are pushed out of bubbles that
they are penetrating. Because of the verlet integration, the particles adjust
their velocities automatically when they are constrained or pushed out of
bubbles.”
A NOTE: The instructions on the page for the George Bush
version say you can speed up or slow down gravity with the up and down arrow
keys. For those of you who may not have been able to make this work, Gravity
Master Pekka informs us that “it’s the left-right arrow keys. As with any Flash
files, you first have to have 'focus' of the Flash movie”—meaning that
you have to click the Flash movie once before using the keys.
On the horizon for the Man Who Led to Bush’s Fall: “A
screensaver version of the freefall with the ability to use your own skin.
It'll use my new, faster and better ragdoll-physics, too."
"Oh, and a blog," he added. "Everyone's got to have a blog."
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