At 6/25/08 06:32 AM, henke37 wrote: And it is a good thing that it does not work at all if there is an error. The alternative sucked. Hunting for the error is the worst part in debugging.

AS3 Nazi! You can turn off compiler errors, though, so I forgive you.

Let me translate for Gust:

"Typing" means declaring what a variable is.

Typed:
var Blah:Number

Non - Typed
var Blah

When you don't Type a variable, it has to look up what it is, which is called hashing, and this takes time to do. When you're looping a line of code 1000 times, that lookup time is expounded and slows your stuff way down.

Function Local variables are once you simply declare within you function:

function Blah(){
var Blah:Number
}

These work faster within the function and will free up memory later when the function is done and the variable is deleted.

For the locking and unlocking, do the lock BEFORE your whole loop, then unlock AFTER it. Not sure what you tried, but that's the proper way to do it.

You might find this thread useful, as I basically went over these same things with Gust and Dougy. Thanks again dudes! :3

At 6/25/08 06:10 AM, GustTheASGuy wrote: Not IDE, API. As in the language API. The framework.

Oh, yeah, I always mix those up. The IDE sucks. They'll probably improve that with flash Diesel though.

Does anyone have a good trick for whiping out the display list and the memory in AS3? I'm asking because I want to start with a clean slate when someone goes back to the game menu to start a new game.

In AS2, I would just send it to a blank frame and it would reset everything (I was coding on the timeline.) Now I'm using classes and I'm not sure what to do, other than resetting all of the variables and such manually, which would be a pain because I'm using object pooling.

At 6/25/08 03:28 AM, GustTheASGuy wrote: A lot of people use. More importantly, you need to know if you yourself need it. The difference is an improved API, proper exception throwing and the fact that it runs much faster. Do you need any of that? More simply, do you find the silently dynamic nature of AVM1 is an obstactle for your coding?

Improved API? You must be talking about Flex or something, because the CS3 workspace is a downgrade from flash 8. It's laggy and buggy and forgets where windows were placed and how big they were. The auto-format is useless, too, because it just screws up your code. I miss Flash 8 a lot, to be honest.

Cool, I've been waiting for this!

Hmm, do you use an armature of any sort to lay stuff out before you draw? Like circles or body masses? I'd be interested to see your process.

DOWN WITH MODERNISM!! DX

At 6/3/08 04:11 AM, sspecter wrote: Just increase the framerate and avoid framerate lags.

There is no such thing as "mouse lagging before framerate". Unless your AS is broken, the cursor should update it's position at each frame. If the framerate lags, then obviously the mouse will lag, there is no way around it.

Bah, that goes against what I've witnessed. You're obviously an impostor from Adobe, don't feed me your lies. :D

At 6/3/08 05:43 PM, Nuggs wrote: Should I have the animated parts cached as Bitmaps, or should I make those separately boxed off vectors?

The only time you want to use caching is with a static movieclip. Every time you rotate, set alpha or color, change frames, or resize a cached movieclip, it has to remake the bitmap. So if you have an animation, it'll have to draw the vectors AND the bitmap evey frame, which will actually slow it down. The only time you want to use caching is with a static image that you're moving around (X and Y movement only).

If I had a penny...

Put your nose to the grindstone and do the work yourself. You'll feel a lot better about the results later anyway. The simple truth is, people who can animate are usually creative enough to write their own stories.

I may have something for you in the near future. :D

At 6/3/08 02:37 AM, Patcoola wrote: cut he bg into parts and only show whats on frame.

like a tile system

I've done this before, but whenever the picture would switch it would lag a frame or two. So, make sure you use a small enough tile size.

It's also a huge pain in the butt to draw and line up everything...

At 6/2/08 11:48 PM, Nuggs wrote: What is the best way to scroll a large background without slowing down the flash?

This is actually something I've been wondering too. I usually just put everything in a movieclip and move that, but is the v-cam more efficient? I would think moving the stage would be more costly than moving a single movieclip.

Then again, I'm looking at this from a optimization point of view. If you just want to move a big picture around, put it in a movieclip and move it. CacheAsBitmap will help if it's a smaller image, but once it hits a certain size, the caching doesn't turn on because the flash player is afraid it'll eat up all of the computer's memory and crash.

The best option is to use a raster image (a bitmap instead of flash vectors) as this is the most optimized for the flah player. It will, however, make the file size, and thus the loadig time, bigger/longer.

Could you compose to action, like they did for cartoons in the 1940s? Think Tom and Jerry.

At 6/3/08 02:38 AM, TomsPulp wrote:

&& - adds a second condition to the if statement
! - means NOT, the if statement will only work when the opposite of the condition following the symbol is true.

Can you integrate that into the originl? I tryed and keep getting errors for it.

i'm still new to AS

Eh, just ignore that, it pretty much does the same thing as the ElseIf anyway.

Anyway, I noticed when I was combining your code chunks that your If statements went in different orders in each one. So I would predict that with the code you posted, if you held the RIGHT key and another key, it would move right and have the correct graphic, if you held the UP key with the DOWN or LEFT key, it would move correctly, but display the wrong graphic. If you hit the DOWN and LEFT key, it would move down and display the correct graphic. Finally, the LEFT key it totally submissive, and any other key would take over it.

So, in conclusion, you inadvertently made a model for genetic inheritance with multiple alleles. :D

Here, I did it for you.

onClipEvent (load) {
	var moveSpeed = 3;
	var speed = 10;
	var dir = 1;
	var moving = 0;
	stop();
}

onClipEvent (enterFrame) {
	if (Key.isDown(Key.RIGHT)) {
		this._x += moveSpeed;
		moving = 1;
		dir = 1;
	} else if (Key.isDown(Key.UP)) {
		this._y -= moveSpeed;
		moving = 1;
		dir = 4;
	} else if (Key.isDown(Key.DOWN)) {
		this._y += moveSpeed;
		moving = 1;
		dir = 2;
	} else if (Key.isDown(Key.LEFT)) {
		this._x -= moveSpeed;
		moving = 1;
		dir = 3;
	} else {
		moving = 0;
	}
	
	if (moving) {
		gotoAndStop(dir);
	} else {
		gotoAndStop(dir+4);
	}
}

:D

Actually, I didn't look at your code. The real problem is that you have two onEnterFrame events on a single clip with the same if statements. Combine them and it'll work the way you want it to.

That's simple:

if (Key.isDown(Key.RIGHT) && !Key.isDown(Key.LEFT) && !Key.isDown(Key.UP) && !!Key.isDown(Key.DOWN)) {
     // Code here will only work when the right arrow is down and every other arrow is not down
}

&& - adds a second condition to the if statement
! - means NOT, the if statement will only work when the opposite of the condition following the symbol is true.

At 6/2/08 04:56 AM, GuyWithHisComp wrote:

At 6/2/08 02:19 AM, Kajenx wrote: event.updateAfterEvent();

You know what that function does right?

It redraws the screen every event. So if your event triggers too much, obviously it will lag.

I added that on with the hopes that it would speed up the response time. I was doing the same thing without it though.

I think it's just a problem with the flash player, to be honest. It probably has input events as a lower priority than rendering the graphics.

So I'm working on a game with some intense graphics, and it seems like the mouse input starts lagging way before the framerate starts dropping. I have a custom cursor that is supposed to follow the mouse, but when I really whip it around and there's a lot of movieclips moving around on the stage, it lags behind a frame or two.

Here's the code:

addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_MOVE,CursorFunction);

...

private function CursorFunction(event:MouseEvent):void {
	// Mouse
	Mouse.hide()
	Cursor.x = mouseX;
	Cursor.y = mouseY;
	event.updateAfterEvent();
}

I noticed this when I was making Ether Cannon too. It's weird because the framerate is nice and constant (and everything is moving around smoothly). The custom cursor is the only thing that lags.

Any ideas? Maybe I should email Adobe and yell at them.

Blender is by far the best for 3D!

</controversy>

Why is this in the flash form?

At 5/14/08 09:40 AM, GustTheASGuy wrote: A member is a var or function. So I mean

class Main {
var thing : MovieClip;
}

Flash will assign that property automatically and you have Main (root).thing.

I'm still confused.

Okay, I'm using the IDE. I draw a picture and turn it into a movieclip on the main timeline and name it "myMovieClip." Now, if my document class is "Main" do I just go "var myMovieClip:MovieClip;" in that and Flash will know I'm referring to the movieclip I made on the stage? And then if I want to access it in a different class I just go "Main.myMovieClip"? Is that what you're saying?

At 5/14/08 08:00 AM, GustTheASGuy wrote: Define it as a member of the document class.

Can you give me an example? And how would I reference it?

If my document class was Main, would I say Main.myMovieClip?

@ Gust: I figured out the basics of extending movieclips and such, so I've converted my recent project into 100% classes. But now I'm having trouble because I want to do a hittest between two things I've put on the stage. I can't figure out how to reference a movieclip from inside a class. In AS2, I would just go:

if (_root.LargeSquare.hitTest(this._x, this._y, true){
blah
}

I know about the new hitTest and such, I just can't figure out how to reference "LargeSquare" from inside another class.

@ Dougy: Thanks, I'll take a look at your example!

Alright, I've given in and I'm finally learning to use classes, but I'm running into problems. How do you reference something outside of the class? Before, I would just go root.NameOfMovieclip or root.Movieclip.Variable, but that won't work with classes and is generally considered bad form now on the timeline anyway.

I'm used to putting code on a movieclip's timeline, so how do I get a similar accessibility/result using classes? I'm using AS3 btw.

Haha, none taken. I basically had a crash course in arrays these last few days. I look at my first post in the particle thread and it's seems pretty obvious where to improve it now. :D

Try this.

WHOO triple post!

I just remembered why I didn't look up the swap and pop. I got rid of the shifting and splicing and pre-generated everything. That DID speed up the array, but when I tried the list it was even faster.