Well my Mix 10k entry has been recently published at the website of the MIX online  :), and you can see it live here: http://2009.visitmix.com/MIXtify/TenKDisplay.aspx?SubmissionID=0138.

 
It comes from some background experiments with parallax, inspired in old age video games and an interesting entry from Jose Fajardo, http://www.cynergysystems.com/blogs/page/josefajardo?entry=what_a_beautiful_thou_distracting in which he introduced a very interesting background effect that I tried to emulate and make it a bit toolable –  a codeplex project for this background system is on its way ;).

Also I wanted not only to create static background items but , why not, live elements that seem to be alive and at different levels, giving some Experience to the users of the website.

As I was developing the Background system of the coming Global INETA Silverlight Challenge, between other components of the same, I used the Inetians image as background so the evolution was clear.
I added a Silverlight user control “Inetian” with a random vector direction with a Max speed, then a control for not going out of the visible area, and some features, some of them were women, some men, they have a lifespan and when they get over 18 if they found some Inetians nearby of opposite sex, they do reproduce 😉 and new Inetians are born…
I also put a cap on how much Inetians could be represented at once, and that is applied to the reproduction moment, so you can see it as a population regulation – sorry for that – but believe me, your screen and cpu will thank you 😉
Also they are rendered in different layers, providing – at least initially –  a cool 3D parallax effect.

There are some interesting things I would have loved to add, but did not have the time or the 10k limit pushed me into not implementing them:

• Make them disperse naturally – everybody needs their vital space.
• Add “Food” elements, with their lifespan and regulate the behaviour of Inetians between “wandering around”, “flirting” and “eating”.
• Add the capability of moving between layers, up and down, depending of the food and flirting needs.
• Add the capability of Dragging and dropping the inetians at the top layer . You can help the community!!! Just put an inetian near food or other inetian of different sex!
• Add them functionality to their eyes… so they will look their “target”, being it the Inetian they have fallen in love with or the food they want to eat…
• Make them aware of the cursor, if there is a cursor near them, make them look at it with fear (or not).
• Adding them animations for changing state, eating, flirting, moving from layers, being dragged, etc..

If you have more ideas, do not hesitate to propose them or contact me 😉

In short I will publish this as a codeplex project and add whoever thinks this “live background” idea is cool and will be happy to have some help with this. 
Also, if you think the idea is original, I’ll be happy to get a comment on http://2009.visitmix.com/MIXtify/TenKDisplay.aspx?SubmissionID=0138 and if you want to vote for my entry, I might end up getting the community prize.

By the way, if won, all the community prize will be given completely to INETA Europe… 😉

Thanks!!
Jose

As it is usually said, better late than never… and I would like to give an enormous thank-you for having been recognized by this award, a thing that honors me deeply.

Thanks so much to all that have supported me, believed in me and, more important, have been my friends – and still are – on this trip that I am doing since some years ago, on the .Net roadway, a trip that will never end and that it is being added new stations each year, where to stop and find new emotions, technologies, passions and friendships; .Net 2.0, .Net3.0, 3.5, WPF, Silverlight, Azure, Windows 7, ….

There is indeed a lot to walk and fortunately on this “tech” train we all are in there is everybody that is reading this right now and a lot more that doesn’t have time to..
Thank you all!!
Jose