Where are you from?
Boulder, Colorado. I spent a few years living and working in other places, but there's nothing like Boulder. I moved here when I was six and I appreciate it more and more every day.

What are your pastimes and interests?
We have such an awesome group at Electric Rain and we're all passionate about what we do. It has really become an important and exciting piece of my life.
Outside of work I'm a total sports freak.

What's your favorite saying or cliché?
It seemed like a good idea at the time.

What's your favorite movie?
I love movies, but for some reason they just don't stick with me. I can't really say that I have a favorite but if I had to pick one it would be Happy Gilmore. It's a stupid movie but it cracks me up every time I see it.

What's your favorite cocktail?
Red Bull and Vodka

When did you first get involved with flash?
Mike Soucie, the president of Electric Rain and a long-time friend of mine, was showing me this top-secret product they were working on called Swift 3D. He showed me a couple of Flash sites that blew me away and showed me how Swift 3D would eliminate the long hours spent hand-tracing raster images to create 3D for Flash.

After joining Team Erain, I went up to Seattle for my first tradeshow and was immediately confronted by a 12 year old kid from Canada that owned Swift 3D. I knew Swift 3D pretty well at the time, but was clueless about everything else he was telling me about. It was at that point in time that I vowed never to be shown up by a 12 year old again, so I started learning Flash.

As it turns out, the kid was Keith Peiris. He's a little Canadian Flash superstar and could still make me look like a Flash idiot. Oh well…he has to be about 14 by now.

What has been the market response to Swift 3D?
It has really been great. The Macintosh side of the Flash community beat us up when we first showed the Windows only version of Swift 3D at Flashforward2000 in San Francisco. We made a commitment at that show to support the MAC folks before we even knew what it would take. Fortunately, the MAC users held up their end of the deal when we released the MAC version of Swift 3D in October last year. It was a big success.

Do most of your customers prefer to design in Swift3D or other applications and use your plug-ins?
Our intention for Swift 3D was to create a program that every Flash user could easily use. You don't need a background in 3D and the learning curve for Swift 3D is minimal. Most of our customers have never used a high-end 3D program. However, the program was really pushed to the limit because of the lack of tools out there that were able to do what Swift 3D does. Its ability to rebuild 3DS scenes prompted a lot of high-end 3D designers to buy it for the sole purpose of converting their 3D work to vectors. This group prompted us to create the plug-ins.

The 3ds max and LightWave plug-ins will be shipping in mid-June. The Softimage XSI plug-in will probably ship in July. They give those advanced 3D designers a direct path for exporting to Flash. The new plug-ins utilize our second generation RAViX II technology and I really think people are going to be surprised at how good these tools are.

Are you planning to expand Swift3D into a fully fledge 3D package?
We'll definitely be making it more robust with each version, but we want to continue to keep it affordable and easy to use. Version 2 is being created from a wish list created by our customers, so I think everyone is really going to like it.

How do Swift3D and Vecta3D compare?
I met the president of Ideaworks (creators of Vecta 3D) last year in London when we were sponsoring Flashforward2000 and have run into him a few times since then. He's a great guy that totally cracks me up every time I talk to him.

As far as comparisons go, they are both great products. This is still a frequently posted topic in the 3D section of Flashkit, so if anyone's looking for third party opinions that's a good place to start.

Do you fear the time when the major 3D software companies add flash support?
A big surprise, cause we´ll present our latest underground project. From the dimension of work it could be a production for the cinema, also it looks like beeing one :) We´ll present the work behind, previews of upcoming stuff and tricks about flash-games programming lateron.

Are you developing any new products?
Yes. I'd love to tell you about them but it's a secret. We also have a program that was almost finished when we dropped it to develop Swift 3D. It's a pretty cool program that I would love to finish. It's geared more towards the video market than Flash.

What advice would you give to budding flashers?
First off, let me preface this with the fact that I'm not anyone that should be giving advice. But one thing that has been bugging me a little is this idea about deconstructing Web sites and telling people they're awful because they don't meet a useability standard or criteria created by some so-called expert.

I'm sure we have all heard scathing movie reviews about movies that we loved. So, do we adhere to the 'expert's' standards about what makes a good movie? Heck no, we call them idiots and tell our friends to go see it. Okay, I'll step down now.

What can FK01 attendees expect from you?
We always try to do something fun that people will remember. I'll probably be on my own for this show, but I'll come up with something. I'll also be giving some hands-on training and showing Swift 3D Version 2 and all of the plug-ins.

Any closing words?
Yeah…FLASHKIT RULES!

If you would like further information on speaking opportunities please contact: Mark Fennell(webmaster@flashkit.com). We have conferences planned in LA, Sydney, and Europe and Asia as well, so let us know your interest!