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Very nice work! Sadly, it's so nice I don't think many here could afford to collaborate with you. Most people here create animations/games without a budget.

You could also tween the colortransform, which is best done with TweenLite (has its own ct tweener). Either way is fine.

Oh very cool I'll look into that. I used Tweenlite a little bit in my first game. Definitely going to be using it a lot in the future.

Thank you.

It's like a a fade: put one above the other with a reduced alpha value.

Ooooh got it. Thank you :)

How you couldn't find a way to turn an image to black and white in As3 is beyond me.

It's not that I couldn't find out how to turn it black and white. It's that I want to incrementally turn a color image to black and white. First image is color and the 10th one (same image) is black and white. Everyone in between gets more and more desaturated until the 10th image is completely black and white.

Thank you for your input. Much appreciated.

In my simple game there are 10 levels. Just collect 5 items in each level and it loads the new one. I wanted each new level to be desaturated than than the previous level until the final level is black and white.

What I was originally going to do was send each level into Photoshop (made them in Flash) and do the desaturation for each of them there. However, I was curious if there existed such a way to do this with code?

Was looking into colorMatrixFilter but I'm not sure if it is capable of this in what time I have spent looking at it. Although, from what I have seen, I feel like for such a short game as mine it would be easier to just go the Photoshop route.

Regardless, I still would like to know/learn for my own benefit.

At 8/8/14 06:04 AM, milchreis wrote: You have to remove the listener for the key down event in its handler, to prevent it from being called again when the key is held down.
Add the listener for the key up event, and do the similar thing there, creating a cycle.

Couldn't he just toggle on/off a boolean to achieve the same effect? Although I imagine just removing/adding the listener is less to code.

That's the common way of doing it, but it has terrible performance. Using math--circle collisions, rectangle collisions, etc--are much better.

I wish there was an easier tutorial for using the methods you suggested. I looked into them and it hurts my brain trying to understand them. I am going to give them another go next week after I finish up my current game.

I recently got into programming (start of this year) so I could start making my own flash games. When I finished it I did research of other places to submit my game - don't get me wrong I love this place, but I wanted to maximize revenue using NG's ads by distributing my game across the net. Man.....after spending days seeing what else lies out there in terms of portals for submitting games/playing games.....If Newgrounds wasn't around I would stop making flash games and move on to some other medium. There is simply no better place on the entire internet to submit your game to. The community we have here is amazing. The creators here are amazing. And most of all - the staff here is AMAZING. I've been a fan since 2005 and I honestly can't imagine life without newgrounds.

What I'm trying to say is....I love you Newgrounds.

NG4Life

At 8/5/14 09:34 AM, sjt wrote: uh sorry for not being clear but i know how to rotate the mc but am confused how to make it feel organic (ex:The charcter starts rotating when he starts falling until he lands)is there some kind of code or algorithm attached to the gravity.

You could also play around with Tweenlite <---google this word to find it.

How do you create an event listener for frame labels. I'm having a hard time searching the net for ways to use frame labels.

I have an animation that plays before the title screen appears. I have a frame label on the last frame called EndLogo.

When it gets to that last frame (the frame label), I was going to addChild the title screen. With my first game I had something similar going on and I just used mc.currentFrame == whatever the last frame # was. This time around I figured it would be a little more organized if I used frame labels.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

For future reference dude, do as milchreis said and post all of your code. If it is a lot (which I don't think was the case this time) then just post what is relevant. You can do this by using the code tags that you will see on the left side of the screen when you go to make a post/reply. It's last ones on the list.

Just place your code between the start and ending code tags and your code will read like this:

game = new Game(blueBall)
public function Game(blueBall:MovieClip){
_blueBall = blueBall;
_blueBall.gotoAndPlay("scene2");
}

As you can see having your code formatted this way makes it way easier for us to read and thus makes it easier for us to help you. Most people new to the forums don't use the tags/ don't know about them. Just be sure to post your current code next time you have a question. There are some really terrific programmers here than can help you if you make it possible for them to do so.

At 8/2/14 01:31 AM, MintPaw wrote: http://prntscr.com/48qfve

Got carried away with the arrows.

Bahahaha :')

To distribute your game through FGD you have to submit your game for approval. They say you have to have all ads disabled for them review it.

How would I go about disabling NG's API ads for this process?

At 8/1/14 05:18 AM, hektikmusic wrote: Sadly I've noticed a lot of game/movie uploaders only list the musician ingame and not naming the track on here thus not giving the musican their fair share, or any share in fact, of ad revenue. It's offensive to say the least :(

I guess that's an issue that arises when the site is full of teens or younger. Well, they could just be a**holes for doing it as well. Should be a warning/ban system in place for what you explained.

At 7/31/14 06:23 AM, Glboom wrote: Alright I found some really useful links relating to rhythm in games.

http://illogictree.com/blog/2010/05/how-to-code-a-rhythm-game/
http://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/13y26t/how_do_rhythm_games_stay_in_sync_with_the_music/

I am trying to make a rhythm game and see how it goes. ☺

You know....ever since I started teaching myself to code (start of this year) I would often think of game mechanics from certain types of games and imagine how I would go about trying to code them - even if it was beyond my knowledge. Do this to just get the creaky, programming wheels spinning in my head - and sometimes it may spawn an idea/mechanic in my head that I want to work on/incorporate into one of my games.

tl;dr
It never crossed my mind to wonder exactly how rhythm games were made.....(man, I kid you not - it took me 8 tries to get the spelling of rhythm correct haha....sad given I've played guitar for 10 years...). Anyyywayyys - I wanted to thank you for sharing these links! I don't think I ever could have figured this one out on my own.

If it's a team of 3 or so (including you) working on the game or anim. and the music is original, between 7 and 15 pieces, pay the composer like tipping a waiter at a restaurant, especially if the game is not hugely popular. With one song? Probably 5-10% will suffice. However, chances are you'll only get like $40-100 total from ad rev with a decent game (a 340k ad impressions game I did music for two years ago only made $50). Even selling your game or getting a sponsorship won't get you a ton anymore unless you are a well known flash studio or the game is very well made.

What I recommend for using a preexisting piece from NG is, instead of ad rev, you arrange to pay the composer a lump sum licencing fee to get him/her to waive the non-commercial requirement of the CC license for you. I have done this with a number of individuals who have wanted to use one track or another of mine. The cost can range between $10 to $25 per track in most cases, and most composers are more than willing to negotiate for a tight budget (some will even do it for free or a very low price if you are polite and the game doesn't look like a big one).

Thank you for all of your input. I can totally see where you guys are coming from. Right now it is just a team of 1 - just me haha and my games are so incredibly small - more like tech demos really - because I have only started learning to program since the beginning of the year. So every time I am trying to learn some new complex code, I make a small game to practice/learn the new code. Was told by a lot of programmers that it's better to make a lot of little games along the way rather than just learn lots of code before attempting to make a game as you'll learn more things this way. From my experience so far I have to say this is true. So my games will not go far at this point in my game making career haha That's awesome you were a part of a game with 340k ad impressions.

At this point with my current skill set, I can only dream of achieving that. So while my small, simple games could probably forgo music at this point, I still want to try and make them as best as I can so I would like music for them. With my first game I actually paid for royalty-free music that had an unlimited license (I can't remember proper license name at the moment - it allowed me to use the song on as many projects as I wanted to rather than a single project use). It was a great 2-minute medieval style loop song that I paid $17. Given it was my first game, and everything I told you about my current status as a game developer above, you can probably guess I didn't make enough money off the game to cover the song. I guess that is why I was looking to split ad rev, but after reading your reply I can see why this is the very reason composers prefer a payment over ad revenue. I am capable of scoring the game myself - but I would much rather spend that time working on learning to program.... decisions...decisions...

Again, thank you for all of your input as well as everyone else that replied to my post. I will have to start searching for music that fits my game and then start making contact with composers.

Not saying you'd do that OP... just ranting.

Haha I 100% get what you guys mean and you totally have the right to rant. Working in Flash it isn't very difficult to steal my game as Flash is very unsecure. At least if they put it on their site I still get ad revenue, but it causes me to also have to put my name and a link back to me in every project since this could happen.

Now if I were selling a game for PC release, I don't know how upset I would be about my game getting pirated. Don't get me wrong - I know I would be upset, I just don't know HOW much it would bother me.

As musicians, how do you guys feel about piracy? I know it bothers the vast majority, then there are those few that believe music is meant to be shared, and then there are those pirates that claim they will buy the album/game if it is good - that they just pirated it first to make sure it was worth there money.

Maybe that last question is going off topic for this post, but I just thought it would be interesting to hear what you fellow musicians thought about it.

And Step is one of the most tolerant people I know when it comes to this, so be wary. I'd kick someone's arse if they did this without asking me first and used something I made for profit.

Ha no worries man I am with you on this one.

Newgrounds does indeed offer a revenue splitting system, but I believe it's intended to be used after an agreement on the revenue split is nailed with the composer. It may not seem like a big deal for a free flash game which might make just a few dollars of ad revenue, but what if you eventually make something really popular that gets thousands of dollars? Wouldn't a musician deserve a say in his/her cut of the profit in that case? Above all, it's common decency to inform a composer that you wish to use his/her music, even if it's for an entirely non-commercial purpose.

In any case, of all the times I've had my music used in movies/games on here, they've never asked for permission or decided a revenue split with me, and I've never minded too much, but you really never know so it's generally best to play on the safe side and discuss it with the composer first :).

Wow can't believe people actually use your stuff without even asking - that's just wrong haha I see your point about newgrounds agreement and how before using their revenue split that an agreement should be made with the musician. Makes total sense :)

However, if a composer wanted say 5% of the revenue share but wanted it increased to 10% after it hit the $1000 mark (just an example) I would probably find another composer. I'd rather find a composer that gave me a flat rate. That's just me though. However, if it was a Flash game that was available through download (pay for game) or if it was a mobile game (imagine Flappy Bird scenario) then I could understand them wanting an increase in profits should it hit a certain benchmark. Then again, if it was just a song that they didn't create for the game (was an old song) I don't think I would be down for anything other than a flat rate. If they actually composed a song just for the game, or scored multiple songs for the entire game, then I would totally be down for such an agreement. Again, this is just my opinion.

All in all, I think we can agree that the business side of things is just plain not fun haha I want to spend all my time/energy learning better code/making new games as I'm sure you want to spend all your efforts making new and better music :)

At 7/29/14 08:39 PM, Step wrote: You should always discuss it with the composer. Some people (including me) will usually let the other person use it for free, but a general percentage would usually be around 2 - 5% for an existing song and 5 - 10% for a custom-made song. However, technically, no matter how much money you make, if it's commercial you need to discuss an agreement with the composer.

Thank you for the reply. I will be messaging composers soon I just wanted an idea of the range before I started asking. Seems reasonable to me. And yes, commercially would definitely need to be under a signed agreement - but for a free, small flash game on the internet I don't think I have to worry about that as I believe NG split-revenue agreement is sufficient.

I have been learning to program since the start of the year....long journey so far haha With my first game I just paid for a royalty-free song. The game only made a few dollars across NG and other portals, so this time around I figured I would reach out to the community while I am still an amateur programmer.

How much (percentage) of the ad revenue would you guys charge for one of your songs here on NG? I'm not talking about having to do the work to score for the game. I am talking about using one of your existing songs already on NG.

Just curious what you guys have to say. I'm from a film background and in the film industry - composers usually are paid 1-3% of the films budget (whether it's independent or Hollywood status). I don't have a budget - just a simple guy trying to make simple Flash games. So I look forward to seeing your responses. I've been told by a few artists that I could use their work for free - to just give them credit - but I know most of you are probably not like that (or am I wrong?).

I don't understand what you mean. The code is supposed to be already inside of an enterframe. Return exits the current function without running the rest of the code within it. Break exits the current loop without running the rest of the code within it and without iterating anymore. The enterframe still gets called again 1/30 of a second later regardless of any breaks or returns from the previous run. The code above return doesn't "cease," that code has already run by the time you get to the return.

Sorry I wasn't so clear but you answered everything I needed to know with this. Thanks for all your help MSGhero. I truly do appreciate it.

If you don't specify, first of all I thought you'd get an error in FD, they are treated as Objects and have to be casted which is terrible for performance and causes a memory leak in some specific cases.

Well then say for instance in this class I've shown I have it's update function:

public function lvlUpdate(_player, dC):void

In my main class I have _player and dC declared. They are movie clips. So just to be clear, you would want me to do:

public function lvlUpdate(_player:MovieClip, dC:MovieClip):void

I only recently understood how to pass parameters between classes....so forgive me for not fully understanding the correct way to go about it.

for whatever {
break;
trace("doesn't get shown");
}
trace("gets shown");
return;
trace("doesn't get shown");

So even if all that code you mentioned above was in an EnterFrame handler - all code above return inside that function would cease. Like, even code above that loop inside the EventFrame handler.

What do you mean? That any variable that goes in a function must be private? Sorry, I'm confused....

Give your variables a type:

Oh I will have to read up more on break; because I thought once I did that it would kill the loop and I couldn't access it again...thus why I was thinking I would have to create new loops for each level..

public function thing(var1:String, var2:Int):Void {

Oh I see. In my code the function arguments are there because they are being passed from another class that they are declared in. So even though they are declared in another class I should still define them in the function? If so, any reason beyond readability?

Break gets you out of the for loop, but it doesn't stop the code following the loop from running. Return will exit immediately, but you might be missing something essential. It's something you have to mess around with based on the structure of your code.

I'm confused on how break; doesn't stop code following loop from running... if I did this inside loop:

if (_boneArray.length == 0)
{
      break;
      trace("end loop");
}

the trace would not execute. I know that's inside the loop and you said code following the loop....but I don't know what you mean by following loop. After the loop is just more code inside the update function unrelated to the loop.

Again, I'll hopefully figure out what you mean when I go read up more on how break; works. Also, thank you for letting me know about using Return inside a loop. I will have to look into that as well.

I don't think it did...but you can use loops for anything you want. You have to be careful of removing things from an array while looping over it, and changing the level before the update() loop is complete. You can iterate backwards to avoid issues with index out of bounds errors (which you will get with that code).

I just was hoping to find a way to use a single loop in the Update function rather than multiple loops (one for each level).
I have read about iterating backwards... I will have to try this.

You should type your function parameters the same way you type private variables.

What do you mean? That any variable that goes in a function must be private? Sorry, I'm confused....

If you don't exit the update() after creating a new level, you have to consider what could break. Every piece of code in that loop that runs after you change the level is affecting the new level, not the old level. Sometimes this causes a visual jump, other times it crashes because some things no longer exist. Something essential like "Keys.reset()" or whatever still has to run.

This would probably explain some odd things things that have happened very few times.... Out of all the tests I've done so far as I build the game there were a few times where I'd get thrown an error even tho I was using the same code that had just worked - I would test it again and it wouldn't throw an error. Due to this I will have to iterate backwards like you suggested.
It didn't cross my mind to exit the update() after creating a new level to avoid the implications you mentioned above. I was trying to avoid that by using the "break;" when the loop is complete but doing it that way would make me create a new loop for each level which is a waste.

private var _levels:Array = new Array(_lv1, _lv2, ... );
private var _activeLevel:int = 1;

public function lvlUpdate(_player, dC):void
{
for (var i:Number = 0; i < _boneArray.length; i++)
{
if (_player.hitTestObject(_boneArray[i]))
{
_levels[activeLevel].removeChild(_boneArray[i]);
_boneArray.splice(i, 1);
}
if (_boneArray.length == 0)
{
_activeLevel++M;
resetLevel(_player, dC);
break;
}
}
}

I have a question. If I went about it your way - is there a way that I could use that same loop in the levelUpdate function? Like could I just not use the "break;" when all items are collected, and then use your method to refill the array/change level. Would that update inside the same loop so I wouldn't have to create a new loop for every level?

Hopefully this made sense.

Also thank you for the code example. It really helps sometimes when I'm trying to learn if I see some code, even pseudo code, as it helps things *click* better for me.

Thanks again.

If the order of your levels isn't changeable (the player can't play lv3 before 2 etc) you should just keep an counter for the number of completed levels.

The order of levels isn't changeable. I like your suggestion. Sounds a lot better than having so many different booleans like the way I was going about it. I'll play around with it and see what I can manage. Relatively new to Arrays and Loops. Read all of the documentation for them many of times. I just need more physical practice with them. Thank you :)

At 7/28/14 01:20 PM, Sam wrote: I wouldn't have thought many talented voice actors roam to the programming forum.

Hahaha my thoughts exactly! And to the OP, no need to get offensive. I didn't mean to come off rude. Was just trying to help you in your search. Follow Sam's suggestions though. The people that apply in those areas are more likely to be serious candidates. It doesn't surprise me that you have had a lot of people apply from NG. The Flash forum is full of people looking to collaborate, but they usually lack the efficient skill to be an equal part of the team.

Again, didn't mean any disrespect and I wish you the best of luck.

At 7/21/14 09:53 AM, Creolent wrote: Depends what you mean by 'hours'. If you want an answer for 'if this project is worth your time?' then my answer would have to be, yes. Because without the programmers, we won't be able to get the gameplay we want. Also, this game is being published and SOLD so even at the end of this project, you'll still benefit from it.

Selling it on those platforms requires even more work for your programmer. Hope you are willing to give up 50% of the profits to the programmer.