Blipvert Construction - Further Details
Many of the current blipverts being showcased on this site were built with a Python program called SwapGraphics. It finds graphic elements in the source banner ads and moves some of them into a new blipvert.
Main Steps in Blipvert Construction:
- Build a store of XML data collected from Flash banner ads found by scanning the web
- Categorize found material and store other metadata from the original SWFs
- Create a new XML document that represents a banner ad shell with no content
- SwapGraphics or another process will use the stored XML and modify it to create new material to place in the blipvert
- Convert the finished XML blipvert into a SWF and place on the ad server
An Example: SwapGraphics
There are a number of methods and ideas that we are working on to build new blipverts. All of these ideas modify existing XML and combine two or more XML sources in the hopes of creating final SWFs with interesting effects.
One of the first simple Python scripts created to mix new ads is SwapGraphics. Here is how it builds new blipverts:
- Initialize a new empty blipvert XML file
- Select a random XML file from the store that will server as a cloning template
- Create a pool of graphic elements (such as DefineBitsJPEG2 and others)
- Iterate over the cloning template copying each node into the new blipvert XML while replacing all graphics nodes with material from the graphics pool
- While replacing nodes re-link object IDs in the graphics nodes as the cloning and replacement nodes won't match
- Write out the new blipvert XML to a file and create a SWF with swfmill
SwapGraphic Process
The In-laws: A Series of Ads Create by SwapGraphics
The following are a selection of blipverts that were created from a run of SwapGraphics using the same cloning file and about eight other XML files for graphics nodes. You can see that all resulting blipverts maintain the title Hooray, the in-laws are back in town! as well as the box underneth it. Since these aren't defined as a graphic node in the original banner ad the system won't attempt to replace them. Instead the other graphic material does get replaced or eliminated with various designs resulting.
In-laws Version 1
In-laws Version 2
In-laws Version 3
In-laws Version 4
In-laws Version 5
Future Blipverts
There are many other ideas that are being tested for building more blipverts, including:
- Copying and duplicating elements multiple times into a blipvert
- Changing attributes that affect size, placement, etc.
- Changing other elements such as DefineShapes, PlaceObjects and other parts of the SWF file.
Information and Software Resources
Some of the tools used and some good sources SWF information: