Also trace() statements are very CPU intensive, if you have one pinging every frame it will slow down your player.

You're attaching movies without removing them. That's not good practise, as it means you'll end up with just loads of movies crowding on top of each other.

A code efficient way of implementing it is to have all your talk text in an array. i.e.

var talkArray = new Array();
talkArray[0] = "0 text";
talkArray[1] = "1 text"
.....
talkArray[10] = "10 text".

And then use a dynamic text field, filling the text value with what you want.

myTextField.text = talkArray[talk];

boo?

The problem with tweening animation is that the timeline doesn't show within-movie-clip animations, which are liable to go out of sync with the rest of the stuff in the timeline.

Is it better to embed parts of a font (basic alphabet, numbers, punctuation) several times in individual text fields or is it better to embed the entire font in the library as you described, given that the entire font may have 65K+ characters.

Also, does anyone know why setTextFormat(myformat: TextFormat) never seems to work for dynamic text fields placed on the stage?

A ScrollPane is used for combined text and images.

If you just want text to scroll, use a dynamic text box, resize it to the size you want the scroll window to be, and follow the instructions above.

Like I said, leave the dynamic text box empty, and code in the contents instead.

(textbox name).text = "Instructions for game: \n Fir of all, blah blah nlah";

\n is the new line character, use it instead of enter in a string.

First of all.. are you trying to make a dynamic text box scroll?

Or are you trying to make a ScrollPane scroll?

Because if you're using a dynamic textbox, what you want to do is use the UIScrollBar component rather than the ScrollPane. Drag a copy of it anywhere on the Stage in the same movieClip as your text box.

In the 'Properties' box at the bottom of the screen, there is a 'Parameters' tab when you select the UIScrollBar. Set the value of 'scrolltargetname' to the name of the dynamic text box.

Fill the dynamic textbox with text using:

(name of textbox).text = "Your String";

in the frame where both items are in.

DON'T write the text in the box as if you had static text.

I think there's a parameter on the scrollPane component you have to set. Check the parameters and set anything that looks like 'scroll target' or something to the name of your textbox.

Hey,

Quick question about fonts for any experienced Flash users out there.

I have a custom font I'm using for a flash project - do I need to embed the font characters in every single dynamic textbox instance, or is there a universal project-wide mechanism for embedding a font?

Also, does embedding the same font multiple times in different dynamic textboxes increase the total filesize of the project?

The documentation doesn't seem to address any of these.

Cheers!
Yuan

I've tried searching google and actionscript forums already, but they don't seem to have the answer. The links you gave answer a different problem, maybe I should clarify the issue here:

I have *videos*. I do not have existing images to use as thumbnails.

I want either,

1) Some automated (perhaps command-line/PHP/Java whatever) way of creating frame images from a video. That is VIDEO -> Image -> Thumbnail.

2) A way for Flash 9 to only load and display an arbitrary *single* frame from a video source, effectively generating a thumbnail.

Cheers

Sorry to be a bit retarded, but are you sure? I just spent half an hour wading through both As:main threads, because NG doesn't seem to have a content search function.

Eh, nobody?

Alternately, anyone know of any Java packages that might handle this?

Hi,

I'm trying to create a server-side video management system. Basically, I have a bunch of videos in .flv format, with accompanying database records that allow the user to annotate specific emotions to the videos.

My question is, is it possible, through an extension, (free) external program or otherwise extract a specific frame from a .flv file and display it as a thumbnail.

I was wondering if Flash had any way of loading only a single frame for a video, or if anyone knew of any PHP libraries. I know that PHP has GD and ImageMagick libraries that can manipulate images, I wonder if the same holds true for video, especially .flv video.

Failing this, does anyone know of any command-line programs that can produce a thumbnail image file from a flv video, to be run through PHP's exec() command.

Cheers

Cheers for the fast replies!

What happens then if the timeline proceeds to a frame where the class doesn't exist (i.e. by entering a blank keyframe and/or going back to a previous keyframe)

Is the class destroyed, and then constructed again when it reappears, or is the class state kept consistent and simply is not visible? If the state is kept consistent, what happens when you attempt to access the class display properties?

Hey, this is something I've always wondered about, but it hasn't really been an issue since I moved to AS3.

Let's say we have a movieclip on the Stage that's animated from frames 1 to 20, moving from left side of the stage to the right.

Let's also say that in the class definition for that movieclip, we have an event listener applied for EVENT.ENTER_FRAME, which sets the x and y values of the movieclip to your mouse.

Now, my question is, what behavior does the movieclip exhibit? Which of these takes precedence? What if, instead of associating absolute values in the EVENT.ENTER_FRAME handler, we used y+=10?

Would Flash move the movieclip to the right AND move it up, or only one of them?

Another question - recently I've been coding a video annotation application on a single frame in a .fla document with accompanying .as class definitions. However, when I attempt to add a preceding (empty) frame in the main .fla file, horrible errors come up. The trace output says that the stop(); function is not recognised in the frames of the main timeline (has this changed since as2?) and that we have:

1) A call to an undefined function 'addFrameScript' in the first line of the main .as class file.
2) 1120: Access of undefined property currentFrame. in setPropDict() in all the class instances I have placed on the second frame.

This also begs the question - when are the constructors for classes within a timeline called? Is it when the containing clip is instantiated, or when they first appear?

Hopefully there are some AS3 experts out there who can answer these questions!

Okay this is weird... when i execute that code with a duplicated movie clip o fthe explosion it worlks (but not with the original). However, now, i can't removeMovieclip the explosion and it consumers the entire screen .

Do you know of anything other than deptch that would interfere with an attachMovie function? (it doesn't work with duplicateMovieClip either).

If depth collided, wouldn't the most recent movieclip replace the previous?

Yes, and I've even tried changing both the linkage reference name and the movieclip library name. When I try to attach a movieclip (for example a different explosion) other than the one that's supposed to appear, it duplicates perfectly.

kay, so in this game that I'm making, i have a function on the main timeline that reads:

function aoedamage(thisx,thisy,missilename) {
attachMovie("aoeblast", "rocket" + _root.spawncount, _root.spawncount);

_root["rocket"+_root.spawncount]._x=thisx;
_root["rocket"+_root.spawncount]._y=thisy;

if(missilename=="tidus") {
_root["rocket"+_root.spawncount].damage=40
;
_root["rocket"+_root.spawncount].radius=10
0;}
if(missilename=="starburst") {
_root["rocket"+_root.spawncount].damage=14
;
_root["rocket"+_root.spawncount].radius=50
;}

_root.spawncount+=1;
//end function
}

What this function is supposed to do is create an explosion movie clip (references "aoeblast" in the library) that will then proceed to explode. However, trace functions reveal that the attachMovie doesn't seem to work, and a movie clip isn't created whenever this function executes.

Now the really weird part is that though it doesn't work 90% of the time, for some reason it executes perfectly and I get a really nice explosion 10% of he time. I can't seem to find anything wrong with the code. Any ideas why flash is being so schizophrenic?

Okay, so in this game that I'm making, i have a function on the main timeline that reads:

function aoedamage(thisx,thisy,missilename) {
attachMovie("aoeblast", "rocket" + _root.spawncount, _root.spawncount);

_root["rocket"+_root.spawncount]._x=thisx;
_root["rocket"+_root.spawncount]._y=thisy;

if(missilename=="tidus") {
_root["rocket"+_root.spawncount].damage=40
;
_root["rocket"+_root.spawncount].radius=10
0;}
if(missilename=="starburst") {
_root["rocket"+_root.spawncount].damage=14
;
_root["rocket"+_root.spawncount].radius=50
;}

_root.spawncount+=1;
//end function
}

What this function is supposed to do is create an explosion movie clip (references "aoeblast" in the library) that will then proceed to explode. However, trace functions reveal that the attachMovie doesn't seem to work, and a movie clip isn't created whenever this function executes.

Now the really weird part is that though it doesn't work 90% of the time, for some reason it executes perfectly and I get a really nice explosion 10% of he time. I can't seem to find anything wrong with the code. Any ideas why flasg is being so schizophrenic?

Basically, if the clip has the same name as the clip initially placed on the stage (i.e. it is th eoriginal duplicated clip) the code for the movie clip doesn't execute. I was wondering if the nonexecution o fthis code still contributes to processing.

Yes, all used movie clips a removeMovieCliped immediately after usage.

In the offstage movie clips I have all of them with If (this._name<>"stagemoviename") { all the code}; Does this mean that none of the code inside is executed, or does it mean that flash runs through it but with no effect?

Is it worth caching bitmaps of extremely simple vector movie clips, such as a straight line or a circle?

And can it be done on a movie clip that animates?

does anyone know also if sound adds significantly to the processing of a flash?

By the way, I'm also currently looking for someone to find sound effects and possibly voiceovers for the game.

I'm using a graphire 3 wacom tablet, and it also lags.

It wouldn't be a problem, but for some reason when i use pressure it leaves round blots on the brush stroke every so often :S

Thanks for all the advice and tips.

You mention ASProf before, I looked it up, but I don't really have any idea how it works/would help.

And do you think that creating my own hittest funciton would help reduce the lag significantly?

And calling functions hurts too. If you only use a function a couple times, instead of calling the function, just paste the actions of the function right into the sequence that they are a part of.

What?!? I was under the impression that functions helped. I have almost everything that is repeated in the game stuck up in functions declared on the main timeline :S.

I'm intrigued by the idea of writing your own hittest function, but would that really reduce the lag? I presume that it would involve creating a pseudo-collision circle around each object, and then checking to see if the total of the radii of the object collision circles is smaller than the actual distance between them?

Problem is that would require all movie clips to be centered. Hmmm...

Read a book on it.

Or like you said, go to Actionscript.com and look stuff up.

I learnt actionscript by making games. If you think there should be a function in actionscipt, there probably is... you just have to look it up.