Flashmech

Planning to start a thread of useful posts gathered from the community. Would probably try to do this as often as I can. Anyway, here’s some interesting stuff I found recently.

• Five3D for AS 3.0 (via Tink)
  Very interesting AS3 vector-based 3D Engine. The website’s design looks refreshing as well. Would probably spend more time to develop some examples using this.




• SQLite in Adobe AIR session video (via Peter Elst)
  • Slides available here.

  Excites me a huge lot! I’ve wanted to do something with databases in AIR and this is the perfect introduction for me.
  
  

• 3D Interactive Video on a sphere! (via Ted Patrick)
  Couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw this. Showed it to my colleagues and they were swept off their feet as well. Amazing stuff with lots of possibilities.




• AIRTube Source Code Now Available (via Lee Brimelow)
  AIRTube was developed in Flash and wrapped with AIR, that lets you download youtube videos. Its source code is now made available.




• RegExr Desktop Released: Regular Expression Tool in AIR (via Grant Skinner)
  • Online version available here.

  Very useful tool to learn Regular Expressions. I’m a noob in this area, so this tool is definitely going to help. BIG TIME!




• Examples from my 360|Flex session - Using Open Source Community Projects (via Doug McCune)
  Love Doug’s examples! Really showcase the power of Flex with all the love from Open Source projects. Comes with source codes.




• Flash Player Socket Connections Now Require a Policy File (via Colin Moock)
  Some new security things to note with the new Flash Player 9.0.124.0 update.

Probably the last places I would have thought of stumbling onto great links to tutorials will be amazon.com, but who would have expected?

Jeff Kamerer, an engineer on the Flash Authoring team, had written an extensive article on Adobe’s Developer Center, which focuses on how to make your own AS3 components with the Flash CS3 framework.

Though it’s still work in progress, it already contains detailed information.
Contents at a glance:

1. Set up the layers and frames in your component movie clip symbol
2. Implement Live Preview for your component
3. Dispatch events
4. Support styles and easily editable skins
5. Manage drawing with the invalidation model
6. Manage focus
7. Handle keyboard input
8. Create a compiled clip shim for your ActionScript definitions
9. Deploy your component to the Components panel

(Via amazon.com >> Robert Penners Programming Macromedia Flash)

(Or Ropert Penner’s blog >> Creating AS3 Components in Flash: The Lost Chronicles - A Kamerer Adventure)

Something exciting is going on now at WebDesignerWall.com. Simply enter a comment in "Free MCTE Component Giveaways", and you’ll receive a free copy of MCTE V3 (value $50)! Atop of that, if you’re one of three lucky commenters, you will be receiving the MCTE Collection Plus (value $200)!

jumpeyecomponents.com had really did a great job on these components, which provides a diverse selection of awesomely cool effects available for you to choose, and best of it all? No coding is required. See samples here.

Acceptance of comment entries will cease on May 4, 2008 (at 12am), so don’t wait! Hurry over and leave your comment now!

Objective

• Learn a simple way to detect location differences.
• Make something move using that difference.

Files Required

• Tutorial Files

Let’s Get Started!

In its entirety, this is a very basic tutorial. However, I’ve planned for great things through the use of this technique, so getting through the basics is necessary.

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private function __onEnterFrame ( e:Event ):void
{
	// Reposition the mc's y to the middle of stage
	mc.y = stage.stageHeight / 2;
	//
	// Find the stage's centre point
	var midPt:uint = stage.stageWidth / 2;
	//
	// Find the difference between the mouseX and midPt
	var diff:int = mouseX - midPt;
	//
	// To convert it to percentage
	var perc:Number = diff / midPt;
	//
	// Finally moving it base on the percentage
	mc.x += perc * maxSpeed;
}

The inline comments are actually pretty self-explanatory, so there’s no point in me repeating them all over again.

What I wish to highlight is that in line 10, diff may be either a positive or negative integer, depending on where the mouseX is. This is the key which determines which direction the square mc should be moving towards.

Final Note

If you like, you can alter this class variable, maxSpeed, to change the maximum movement speed of the square:

private var maxSpeed:uint = 10;

While writing my previous tutorial, I noticed this rendering bug with PV3D when my movieclip, which is to be used as a MovieAssetMaterial, uses a static textfield in it.

I have no idea exactly what causes it, but to workaround, you have to break apart the textfield into shapes.

The above solution is however, only valid if the text is meant for graphical purposes only. If you really have to use a textfield, use a dynamic textfield and embed the fonts. I’ve tried and it works this way as well.