At 3/4/08 12:20 PM, JohnnyUtah wrote:

At 3/4/08 12:04 PM, WilliWowza wrote: Loving the new Tank Explosion Tee.

some lucky queers bought em at comicon last july, im glad they've been set loose upon the world what

I'm one of those queers who got one at comic-con.

At 3/3/08 06:11 PM, ShortMonkey wrote: MindChamber In Jail

I'm not sure if this is true, but I'm asking everyone who has met him: Is this Jose Ortiz?

I have it in good confidence that it is Mindchamber. I mean, the guy in the article's name is Jose Ortiz, and he's in Pennsylvania, and he's the right age. How many stars have to align for you to believe THE TRUTH!?

What do YOU think it can do?

At 3/1/08 01:13 PM, ConAir wrote: Off-topic flash idea. Does anyone sorta understand what I'm trying to say?

Sounds a lot like using folders to me.

At 2/29/08 12:25 PM, jmtb02 wrote: You know how in January you were all making these new goals for 2008? Who is keeping up with their objectives for the year?

I'm still playing my guitar!

With your Mom (don't forget who made your sig and loves smb2 ::)))

At 2/28/08 11:13 PM, NegativeONE wrote: Wow, page 4. Did you guys get jobs or something?

Your MOM has a job!

At 2/26/08 11:16 PM, Luis wrote: ^^^ YOU TWO NEED TO GET BACK TO WORK. IM BOUT TO BAN BOTH OF YALL.

Yes massa.

Who runs zellomesh? I tried uploading and all kinds of stuff is going wrong.

At 2/26/08 08:53 PM, DrkFox wrote: I've been working on this engine for a while, when i decided to put all the code in the main timeline. For some reason the code doesn't work. There are no errors, but i think it might be a logic problem.
I'd really appreciate if someone could help me on this.

Flash 8 file

Your problem is all your code is set up based on being inside the clip you're affecting:

ie: this._rotation

when it was inside your guy referred to your guy. Now that it's on the main timeline it's referring to your whole _root clip and will rotate it instead of the guy!

I took out your "on load" wrapper and just let those vars get set in line and it started running ok, but as soon as he hit the terrain things went wonky.

You'll need to actually understand what your code is referencing before you'll be able to trouble shoot it.

At 2/25/08 09:30 PM, BitchWeed wrote: Uh, just tween the objects around, dude. Keep things grouped in Graphics or Movieclips and just tween the whole shebang.

No, it's most easy done with the v-cam or the reanimator cam, google those terms, they're pre-made "cameras" in flash that you can just tween around on your stage and it will look like a camera moving, scale the camera up and it will zoom out, shrink it, and it will zoom in, it works really well for animation.

At 2/26/08 12:00 AM, willobeen wrote: I made a demo of what I meant http://spamtheweb.com/ul/upload/250208/7 5201_ssssss.php

the dot is the mouse and the dude in the middle is the enemy.

Ok, that's easy:

if (_xmouse>mydude._x)
{
  mydude._xscale=-100;
}
else
{
  mydude._xscale=100;
}

At 2/25/08 09:39 PM, gsquare567 wrote: stop();
loaderInterval = setInterval(whileLoading, 10);
var percent:Number;

function whileLoading()
{
percent = Math.round(getBytesLoaded() / getBytesTotal()) * 100;
_root.percentText.text = percent + "%";
trace("wrote " + _root.percentText.text);
if(percent >= 100)
{ // stop interval and goto menu frame
clearInterval(loaderInterval);
gotoAndStop("menu");
}
}

why doesnt anything appear when i do the test run (ctrl+enter twice)? just blank background...

Umm, this is just tracking the variables for loading, you have to have a text box on root called with instance name "percentText" to display the data.

At 2/25/08 11:31 PM, willobeen wrote: I'm working on a small application that you might call a game, and I need help with a simple problem. I want to have the enemies head rotate to wherever the mouse moves, but after you go out of there vision, they they flip around so they can "see" the mouse.

I'm not 100% sure what you mean by "going out of their vision" but here's how you have something rotate to something else:

var distx=obj1._x-obj2._x;
var disty=obj1._y-obj2._y;

radians=Math.atan2(disty,distx); //use a built in trigonometry function to get the angle in radians

obj2._rotation=radians * 180 / Math.PI; //convert the radians to degrees

At 2/25/08 10:13 PM, tkdhkdmaster wrote: I have just been wondering about to simple things to a make a character move for games.

1. If you want to have the character have different animations to be played at separate times (eg. jumping punching) how would you get the certain one to play at a certain time.

2. If you have the character jump, do you have to use actionscript and time the landings with animation and action script, or do you just have it play the animation when you jump and use minimal actionscript(like gravity and stuff)

Yeah this was kinda confusing, i really need help though, so if theres anything i can explain better please tell me.

It's wise to do as much as possible with actionscript, and trigger the correct animations at the right times based on what's happening.

The way you set up a sprite, simply, is to have sets of animation within a movie clip with frame labels, then at the correct moment you tell your clip (let's call it "hero") to go to and play the correct anim:

ie:

if (something)
{
hero.gotoAndPlay("jump");
}

At 2/25/08 01:50 PM, icuemma wrote: i need to make a portal make it play (go to the next level).
can somebody explain the code to me..i know i need a hitTest but I'm not really familiar with them yet

The hitTest function tests 2 specified movieclips to see if they're touching. It returns either "true" if they are, and "false" if they're not. It requires that both clips have instance names. You can set a clip's instance name to whatever you want in its "properties" panel. (you could name them "george" and "bob" if you wanted)

You can then use an "if" statement to tell your movie to gotoAndPlay what you want if the hittest evaluates to "true."

So your code might look like this:

if (george.hitTest(bob))
{
   gotoAndPlay(100);
}

At 2/25/08 11:36 AM, jmtb02 wrote: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRQF3Ndqe dE

What is up with Dan Paladin in this IGF video?

Awesome.

At 2/24/08 09:27 PM, Tivaelydoc wrote: I need suggestions on what I should do. I'm not sure what would be easier, putting all the MC's into one giant MC or putting them in an array, which I'm still having trouble figuring out. I used the help in Flash as much as I could and my book and the internet tutorials (see SWF), but I can't figure out the rest. I'm not asking for exact AS, but anything that'll help me learn what to do. What I am trying to do then, is have a button that goes back and forth between MC's and on press of the original MC it duplicates and drags and it has the "focus", not sure what the terminology in flash for that is, so that the keyboard buttons apply, but they only modify that selected duplicated MC.

Save and Load I'll figure out later. Can someone help?

FLA:
http://tivaelydoc.110mb.com/shimmy2.fla

Ah, this is where flash scripting starts to get really fun, you'll want to learn about arrays definitely rather than trying to manage this with a giant MC. The good news is, once you master this, you'll really be able to start cranking out more advanced and interactive games.

The way I'd do it is like so:

1. Set a variable called "sel" to stand for the movieclip that's selected.

2. In an onEnterFrame event, set the controls based on the "sel" variable.

ie:

if (Key.isDown(Key.up))
{
  _root.sel._y-=5;
}

3. Run a function that mass applies an "onPress" to all the movieclips you care about (this is where an array would be useful, or else name the movieclips sequentially ie: clip0, clip1, clip2) let's assume you're not gonna name them sequentially:

ie:

var myclips=new Array("bill","ted","sandimas","water","slide");

for (i=0;i<myclips.length;i++)
{
   t=this[myclips[i]];
  t.onPress=function()
  {
     _root.sel=this;
  }
}

So basically, with this code, when you click on one of the clips in your array, is will become "sel" and then the onEnterFrame will let you move "sel" with the arrows.

At 2/24/08 09:41 PM, vivii wrote: hello,

I just want to directly point out that im a noob to flash. the only thing I would like to accomplish with flash is how to make a really sleek, decent dressup game for my personal website. I have made dressup games in the past (just posted one of my old ones actually), but I would like to learn more.

Somewhere along the lines of using successful tabbed button with click and drag, snapping the clothing on the doll, zoom in and out, moving the movieclips and base so that its centered, and finally giving it a little storyline with a score at the end, or a chance for the user to save their created doll and background.

I researched a few things that I could find on the internet, but I get confused on some. I was wondering if anyone would be willing to help me out with the things that I am lost on. Im a noob, but not a total Im super new noob.. but im not very great with coding either. im just better at art than i am with coding.

it would be nice to know, and thanks in advance. help is much appreciated, I'll credit you in my dressup games for the support and guidance.

Sorry man, most people with the skill to do this stuff won't be willing to take on an "apprentice." Probably the best way to proceed is to go ahead and start your project, then, when you run into a wall, post a very specific question here. That way you can learn on your own, but still utlilize the talent of the forum when you're really stuck.

At 2/24/08 10:13 PM, MilkMan268 wrote: I'm making a quiz right now and I have the counter all set up, but I don't know how to script it so there 5 different text endings you could get because I'm a little new to action script 2 ...also I looked around and could find anything about this on the forums so I thought I just ask.

The way I would do it is to make your 5 different endings right in a row, with a stop(); action at the end of each. Then put a "frame label" on the begining of each ending, something like, "ending1", "ending2", "ending3" etc.

Then in your quiz, whenever you want to point the player to an ending you can use this code:

gotoAndPlay("ending1");

OR

gotoAndPlay("ending2");

etc.

At 2/25/08 12:13 AM, Grind29 wrote: Ok so get this, i have two layers on the first scene, which is the main menu. The first layer is the background, second layer is the sun. For some reason when I inserted another scene the 1st scene skips to the second scene whenever I watch the swf. How do I keep the first scene looping without the second scene interfering?

When flash compiles a .swf it ignores "scenes" and just joins them all end-to-end like they're one timeline. If you want the 1st scene to loop on itself, then you'll need to use actionscript to send it back to its beginning when it gets to the end of the 1st scene.

To do this, click on a blank keyframe at the end of your first scene and put:

gotoAndPlay(1);

At 2/25/08 12:00 AM, Deathcon7 wrote: So I'm trying to program some richochet effects into my game. What I can't seem to wrap my head around is the reflection. I thought it was going to be as simple as inverting either the x or y velocities on contact but the slope of the surface is taken into account as well as it affects the inbound/outbound angles. The illustration below is an example of what I mean. I'm trying to figure out at what angle the blue line would shoot away. Assume that all energy transfers and all that. I'm not trying to make a painfully accurate simulation, I'm only trying to create a rebound effect.

Check out this thread where Glaiel and Delta discuss "normal detection" engines for doing what you're talking about. I've tested both sets of code and they work great.

http://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/5059 59

At 2/23/08 10:56 AM, Meebs wrote: Swf to Mov

Erg...I use flash 8 but the real time export in flash cs3 is so appealing. I'm not considering buying cs3, but does anyone know any good swf to mov converters?

Preferably free...

A plugin would be nice...

The only method I know of is by going through .avi 1st. I use swf2avi, and it captures nested movieclip anims and everything maintaining the same experience as when you run your swf. Then you can use premiere or blazemedia pro or some other video editor to make a .mov from the .avi.

At 2/22/08 11:12 PM, Kuoke wrote: Either get the vCam or the ReanimatorCam.
With both, all you do is put it on a layer above everything else, and then stretch it - Everything within the camera movieclip will be displayed as a whole.

Those cameras work really well, but if you're super lazy or can't figure them out, put your movie all in one clip, then on the main timeline you can scale/stretch it up (looks like zooming in) or scale/stretch it down (looks like zooming out)

One thing I forgot:

You should probably create a new movieclip within your invbar when updating it so that any existing clips are completely erased every time you update it (that way you won't have stale items floating around in there)

At 2/23/08 01:56 AM, FatKidWitAJetPak wrote: So I am making a room escape game, but I have NO IDEA how to make the items be able to go into an inventory or anything. Any ideas?

Thanks.

Ah, these kinds of problems are GREAT for using your problem solving skills, having someone do the thinking for you kind of ruins the fun, but oh well, maybe you'll try to come up with the solution to your next problem by exerting your creative abilities:

1. Have all your items exported for actionscript (this will let you pull them from your library with actionscript whenever you need them)
2. Make an array named "inventory" (or something similar) - var inventory=new Array();
3. Make a function called "addInvItem" and "removeInvItem" both with a param specifying what the name of the item is you want to remove
4. Make a graphical inventory bar with instance name "invbar."
5. Make a function called "updateInvBar" that updates the bar graphics based on the inventory array data. It might look like this:

function updateInvBar()
{
  for (i=0;i<inventory.length;i++)
  {
     t=invbar.attachMovie(inventory[i],"item"+i,i);
     t._x=t._width*i;
  }
}

6. The "addInvItem" function could look something like this:

function addInvItem(item)
{
  inventory.push(item);
  updateInvBar();
}

6. Your "removeInvItem" function might look like this:

function removeInvItem(item)
{
  for (n=0;n<inventory.length;n++)
  {
     if (inventory[n]==item)
     {
        inventory.splice(n,1);
     }
  }
  updateInvBar();
}

I haven't checked this code, but the concepts are sound, you manipulate the data in the array based on whether you're using an item, or gaining an item, then you build the graphics based on the array data.

Good.

At 2/23/08 01:09 AM, louis8799 wrote:

At 2/23/08 01:06 AM, CaptinChu wrote: Is it flash/actionscript data? Otherwise, I think you'll get a better answer in the programming forum.

I want to record a player's mouse movement so I save player's _xmouse and _ymouse in an array and wwould like to post them to server via php so that another player can download it and replay it.

You can use the loadVariables() function to pass data INTO a php script which you can set up to save the vars into a db.

Here's an example of doing something similar, but to send an email using php:

http://www.kirupa.com/developer/actionsc ript/flash_php_email.htm

You can use the loadVars() function to read data INTO flash from a php script, the hard part then is parsing the incoming data into something you can easily read in flash. Check out the following tutorial for help:

http://www.kirupa.com/developer/mx2004/e xternal_array.htm

At 2/22/08 04:14 PM, xXxAlecxXx wrote: what should the size be for a sprite movie 550 by 400 or what

It can be whatever you want. One thing to think about is, a lot of sprite movies "double" their sprites so they're more visible on the screen because keeping them at their actual pixel size makes them almost un-readable on most monitors nowadays.

But as long as you're consistent with either doubling or keeping sprites at actual size, your movie can be any dimension, it just means you'll be able to fit more sprites on the screen at once if it's larger.

At 2/22/08 04:36 PM, Pumahawk wrote: Say I have a .flv file in my flash and it is hosted on the internet (not embedded in the clip). When I make a normal loader for the flash video it will think it will only go by the flash and not the .flv and it will get to 100% early. Is there a way to find the percent loaded for the .flv file that is remotely hosted?

Flash has all sorts of cool functions specific to handling embedded .flv files. First off, make sure your flv instance has a name in its "properties" panel (I'll assume you're going to name it "myflv").

I'll also assume that you're creating a net connection and net stream object by doing something along these lines:

var nc:NetConnection = new NetConnection();
nc.connect(null);
var ns:NetStream = new NetStream(nc);
myflv.attachVideo(ns);

Now, you can check the number of bytes loaded and bytes total by using the following:

this.onEnterFrame=function()
{
trace("Bytes Total: "+ns.bytesTotal);
trace("Bytes Total: "+ns.bytesLoaded);
}

At 2/22/08 04:58 PM, kalmana wrote: Im creating a basic "dont let this touch the mouse" type game, the enemy used to be a circle, but its eventually going to become a missile of some kind.

this is what i currently have:
http://media.putfile.com/Enemy-change

This is the code for the enemy (sorry, i dont know how to do the code text thing)

ENM.onEnterFrame = function()
{
var totalXDistance = _root.BOB._x - this._x; // the horizontal difference between the 2 symbols.
var totalYDistance = _root.BOB._y - this._y; // the vertical difference
var totalDistance = Math.abs(totalXDistance) + Math.abs(totalYDistance); // the 2 above combined
var xPercent = totalXDistance / totalDistance; // horizontal percentage used to distribute speed
var yPercent = totalYDistance / totalDistance; // same, but for vertical
this._x += this.speed * xPercent; // adding a horizontal distributed speed to the enemy
this._y += this.speed * yPercent; // same but for vertical

if(this.hitTest(_root.BOB))
{ // check and see if they collided)
delete ENM.onEnterFrame
clearInterval(countID);
ENM.speed = 0
restart._x = 259.4
restart._y = 242.4
}

}

Your character is called BOB...how can i made the point of the triangle follow bob?

Without getting into the specifics of the code, what you need to do is use Trigonometry to calculate the angle between your guy and the missile. This is most easily done by using the "atan2" function in flash.

atan2 requires 2 inputs, a y-distance as the 1st parameter and an x-distance as the 2nd. It then returns the angle (in radians, not degrees) of the triangle with "opposite side" equal to the y-distance value and "adjacent" side equal to the x-distance value.

From there you need to look up how to convert a radian angle to degrees since movieclips in flash use "degrees" for their rotation.

So, you can use the x and y distance variables you have in your code currently, but from there you need to pass them into the atan2 function to get the angle you need.

Look up "atan2" in flash help for examples.

At 2/22/08 04:22 PM, Lolzer wrote: How to make like a bomb or something in a quiz on a question? I really want to know! Please if you know please tell me :) Thx again!

var tim=500;
this.onEnterFrame=function()
{
if (tim>0)
{
tim--;
}
else
{
trace("time up!");
}
}

//make a dynamic text box with the "var" value set to "tim" and watch it count down!