Saturday mornings with a one and a half year old and a nearly four year old can be 'fun'. Before you are even half awake the phrase “can we watch a wee episode?” or “do you have the iPad?” will have set the tone. The lure of the Octonauts is strong.
Not being keen to produce four eyed little gogglebox addicts – we limit TV access. So I have to be creative in how we satisfy the Octonauts addiction. We make octocompasses, papercraft GUP-As and I could draw a GUP-B being attacked by an axe wielding octopus in my sleep.
None of this was working on Saturday.
So, as with web development, when your usual approach isn't working you reach into your tool belt and get out the … JAVASCRIPT.
After the keynote from @seb_ly at DIBI this year I've been itching to have a play with particle emitters and different images to create animated particles with different frames.
A quick “git clone https://github.com/sebleedelisle/JavaScript-PixelPounding-demos.git” followed by a Google image search for Octonauts and we're into some interactive javascript funtime.
Then a half hour over breakfast with the wee lad shouting “add a giant sea squid”, “make them faster”, “make them more explodey”, “nooooo – not the GUP-B – noooooooooo.
Live Reload and MASSIVE font in the editor made it good fun – I'd say 'pick a number to go here' and we'd wonder at how the GUP-A suddenly appeared 10 times the size. Every change led to bouts of huge laughter and the announcement that javascript was “crazy”.
Magic fun.
Next weekend – a 3D kelp forest background.
Steven Milne 