To give back to the web-development community, we are proud to sponsor Flash and the City. The brainchild of our web-dev leader Elad Elrom, this four-day, out-of-the-box conference will bring the Flash community from around the world together in New York City and redefine the way we share and marry artistic creativity with technological ingenuity.

To get an inside scoop on Flash and the City, we probed Elad with some questions:

1.  How did you come up with the idea of a Flash and the City conference?
Over the last few years I noticed that there haven’t been any large conferences in New York City. I have spoken to numerous people, from community leaders to Adobe’s evangelists. For the last couple of years, Adobe MAX has been in California, and there has been a real void for many professionals in New York City who would like to have a conference that allows them to be part of the Flash community. Additionally, I have noticed that in general many of the conferences are geared toward learning but do not have enough networking events. Flash and the City’s goal is to redefine the way we think about conferences as well as to unite A-list speakers with professionals in New York and other attendees from around the world.

2.  What are you most excited to hear next week?
Announcements during the keynote from our sponsors such as Litl and Adobe. Also some of the presentations that will be shown for the very first time during the conference.

I am excited about the venue as well. Instead of using a traditional hotel, we will be hosting the conference in an artist’s theater called 3LD (3-Legged Dog). 3LD is a technology center located in downtown Manhattan and is a thriving catalyst in the New York art scene. By hosting the conference in 3LD we will be supporting the artists.

3.  What are the top three things you want FATC attendees to leave with?
Networking
Attendees will have access to the City Track. The City Track is a completely new conference format, and the extracurricular activities will include a New York cruise and dinner, the rock/grunge band 22nd Century, and tours around New York City. I believe networking is one of the most important aspects of a conference; so networking with peers from the Flash community can only help our attendees’ careers.

Knowledge
Flash and the City is similar to other conferences in that attendees will get great value in terms of learning. They will receive two tracks for three days, and they can register for a workshop being held the day before the conference. In fact, attendees will have a chance to hear presentations from 50 speakers. These speakers are mind-blowing presenters that have made significant impacts on technology.

Inspiration
Attending the conference will gain attendees some insight of what’s being developed, what’s hot, what the trends are as well as the technologies that are worth learning.

4.  What is the new noise/buzz you hope will be created by the Flash community during FATC?
I think that now more than ever the Flash community needs to be united and show that Flash isn’t dead at all, and in reality we are creating exciting and amazing applications on many devices. FATC will show just that and allow the Flash community to have fun talking about technology and seeing what everyone is up to these days.

5.  How can people follow the conference?
Website: FlashAndTheCity.com
Blog: Blog.FlashAndTheCity.com
Twitter Account:  @flashandthecity
Twitter Hashtag:  #FATC

Highlights from the conference will also be posted here on the Sigma blog.  Stay tuned!

http://www.sigmagroup.com/ftp/jschorn/preview/soundscape/The result seemed quite flexible and easy to implement. So I thought perhaps other Flash developers might find it useful. Here’s how it works.

I came up to two AS3 classes: SoundCell and Soundscape.  A SoundCell is a circular representation of a sound in space.  As you move closer to the center of the sound from any direction, it becomes louder.  Move to the left of the sound, and it pans to your right.  Move to the right, and it pans to your left.  Move past the radius of the sound and it shuts off.  The SoundCell also has a graphical representation that you can turn on or off so you can position cells. The Soundscape is an object that holds various SoundCells. It includes methods for adding cells, playing cells, and destroying them. Cells can overlap each other—creating some really nice blended sound effects.

Using the classes is easy and below is the step-by-step guide.

1.  Import the Soundscape class.

• import com.sigma.sound.Soundscape;

2.  Create a new instance of the Soundscape class and add it to the display list.

• var mySoundscape:Soundscape = new Soundscape();
• addChild(mySoundscape);

3.  Add the cells you want using the addSoundCell() method. This method takes 6 parameters (filePath:String, xCoordinate:Number, yCoordinate:Number, radius:Number, visible:Boolean, color:Number).

• mySoundscape.addSoundCell(”audio/city.mp3″, 450, 200, 500, true, 0×990000);

4.  When you’ve added all of your SoundCells, then call the start() method to initiate the Soundscape, and the Soundscape takes care of the rest.

• mySoundscape.start();

5.  When you are done with your Soundscape you can destroy it with a call to the destroyCells() method.

• mySoundscape.destroyCells();

I’ve posted the source here.  Feel free to use it and modify it to your heart’s content!