Scottae's Blog

Been Busy

2009-12-22T17:31:00.002-05:00

If you frequent this blog, you probably have noticed I haven't been posting anything for a while. Partially because I have been quite busy, but also because I have been making work related posts to my work blog. So if you want to keep up with what I am blogging on, check me out there.

FDT Flash Issue

2009-01-07T22:53:00.004-05:00

Something that has been bugging me lately is that Flash sometimes hangs up when I try to export a movie. I didn't understand why it was happening. Then one of my co-workers realized what it was. Anytime you open Flash by double clicking on an fla in the Flash Explorer View in FDT, it would hang up when compiling. Basically it would do an eternal compile (it would never finish) and you have to manually shut down Flash. To avoid this, simply open Flash manually before opening an fla from the Flash Explorer View in FDT. Then there is no problem.

Flash & Flex Magazine

2008-12-08T17:41:00.004-05:00

Image via WikipediaI received my first 2 issues today. Very exciting. These magazines are very nice to look at. I like how it is an irregular dimension compared to most magazines. It has a greater height to width ratio making it seem tall and slim. These magazines are filled with all sorts of good stuff Flash and Flex developers and even designers actually want to know about (at least in my opinion). The first issue covers some neat topics such as:

-Creating a Pong Game with AS 3.0
-OOP Principles
-Behind the scenes look at how the delpadre site was created using different Adobe products (PS, AE, Fl, Maya)

And that's only a few. Each magazine comes with a CD containing some useful applications. If you are a Flash or Flex developer/designer, you owe it to yourself to get a subscription to this publication.

I bought CS4

2008-12-08T17:31:00.004-05:00

Image by Dekuwa via FlickrIt's like Christmas early for me. Although I bought this for myself. I am the proud new owner of Web Premium Suite CS4. I got the upgrade so I am supposed to get a $200 discount, but that was not reflected in my order. I'll have to get on Adobe about that. They advertised it, they should honor it.

Anyway, I am always pleased with the way Adobe products look. This is no exception. I've only opened Flash so far. Once thing I noticed right away is the search input box at the top. If you type in a search term, it opens up a search in Adobe's Search Community Help page in your browser. Very nice and convenient. I like it.

One thing that has been bothering me for a while is that Bridge doesn't work for me at all. Even in CS3 it crashes on start up of Bridge. I had hoped that CS4 would be different. But no, it crashes on start up as well. That makes me mad. But I have been too lazy to bother figuring out what to do about it.

Problems with Glaze

2008-12-03T19:05:00.004-05:00

Image by gnackgnackgnack via FlickrI ran into a problem recently while programming a game with Glaze. I was trying to toggle 2 different GeometricShapes in a RigidBody. I was removing one of the shapes and then adding the other one. Next time it would switch back. The problem was Flash would crash. I would get this error:

Error: Error #1502: A script has executed for longer than the default timeout period of 15 seconds.
at org.rje.glaze.engine.collision.shapes::Polygon/UpdateShape()[C:\dev\projects\clients\thrust\projects\Glaze\src\org\rje\glaze\engine\collision\shapes\Polygon.as:123]
at org.rje.glaze.engine.collision.shapes::GeometricShape/Update()[C:\dev\projects\clients\thrust\projects\Glaze\src\org\rje\glaze\engine\collision\shapes\GeometricShape.as:143]
at org.rje.glaze.engine.space::Space/physicsStep()[C:\dev\projects\clients\thrust\projects\Glaze\src\org\rje\glaze\engine\space\Space.as:202]
at org.rje.glaze.engine.space::Space/step()[C:\dev\projects\clients\thrust\projects\Glaze\src\org\rje\glaze\engine\space\Space.as:165]

This was bad. I had no clue what it was for a long time. I had one of my colleagues try tinkering with it and he stumbled on a way to fix it. It seems that you can't really reuse the same GeometricShape once you've added it to the Space. I believe that all Shapes get an id of some sort and it seems that adding the same object that was already removed probably reuses that same id. So I basically have to create a new GeometricShape each time I want to add it to the RigidBody.

FDT swc browsing

2008-11-14T12:00:00.010-05:00

Image via WikipediaOne of the nice things that FDT has is the ability to easily browse swc files (depending on which version you have). In Flash projects, you need swc files so that FDT is aware of library items in the fla that have class linkage set to them. You have to export the swc file and then set the swc file to your class path and viola, you can now use those library items in your project without getting errors. The alternative to this is to actually create class files that associate with the library items.

In cases where you just want to dynamically generate a MovieClip or a Bitmap, creating class files for each library item goes beyond what is needed since Flash automagically creates the class for you behind the scenes. Plus it becomes a lot of work to create a class for each and every library asset in your fla. Imagine you have dozens or even hundreds of items in your library. I'd hate to write classes for each one of those. No thanks. I'll export a swc file and be done with it.

Ok, so back to why I was writing this post. So when you create a swc file from your fla, it throws in references to every class used within the fla. This is what we want right? Not exactly. Not only does it contain references to my library assets that I do need, but it also has references to every other class used in the project. Is this bad? Functionally.........no. But having all my project classes in the swc file takes away some of the nice features that FDT offers.

When Flash creates a swc file, the basic classes look like this when browsing through them from FDT:

// Generated Source from SWC

package {
import flash.display.BitmapData;

public dynamic class ClassName extends BitmapData {
public function ClassName(XXX : Number, XXX : Number);
}
}

So this is for a bitmap in the library. Not a problem because I only use it to dynamically generate a bitmap. But for my project classes, this is no good for a couple of reasons:

1.) I don't get any of the comments or parameter names when rolling over class names, properties, or methods. Instead I see XXX for parameter names which gives no hint as to what the parameter is. And in FDT, rolling over class names, properties, or methods shows you Java doc comments. These generated classes have nothing.

2.) Control clicking any class names, properties, or methods takes you to the generated classes in the swc and not to the actual class you created in your project. This is not helpful at all. I wish that FDT looked for the class files in the project first, and then to the swc file second.

So I have a simple work around. In all my projects now, I have two fla files. The project.fla and the projectAssets.fla. What I do is copy all the library items from projects.fla and paste them in projectAssets.fla. Then I use projectAssets.fla to export the swc file. FDT doesn't care what the name of the swc file is. It will use whatever swc file you set to the class path. So now the swc file only has class references to the library items and nothing of my project class files. Very easy fix. Only thing that is a little bit tedious is you have to update each time you add new assets to the library. But it's a quick process so it's not too bad.

Design Patterns

2008-11-01T18:42:00.005-04:00

Image via WikipediaI was doing some research on some design patterns I could implement in a project I am working on. I was specifically interested in the Decorator pattern. While I was searching the interwebs, I ran across a couple of very good blogs devoted to design patterns in ActionScript. To me, finding these blogs are like finding treasure. I am very glad I ran across these. They are going into my list of RSS feeds in Google Reader. Here are the highly coveted blogs I speak of:

Flash Playa
ActionScript 3 Design Patterns

So now I am spending my Saturday night reading all the past blog entries in these blogs. I like to live on the edge. One of the blog posts that caught my eye was about the Prototype pattern. Apparently this pattern allows you to clone a deep copy of an object. I know there are classes in AS 3.0 that already have a clone method. Like the Rectangle class and all the filter classes for example. But how about being able to clone a Shape that was drawn a specific way. Normally you have to create a new Shape and redraw the graphics. Being able to clone it would be very cool.

Regular Expressions Explorer

2008-10-30T10:13:00.003-04:00

Image via WikipediaI ran across this blog on Regex love for the masses. I like using Regular Expressions whenever I get a chance to. But I am in the same boat as Derrick. I can only do some very basic Regular Expressions from memory. After that I need help. I use FDT for my AS 3.0 editing. Fortunately Eclipse has code hints in the Find panel which pops up a list of RegExp you can use when you have the Reg Exp check box selected. But this explorer is very nice. It has a lot of common pre-built expressions. Also people up commit their own creations for the community. Also a lot of helpful links. I like the interface. A very nice job done on this explorer.

Ant

2008-10-27T22:30:00.002-04:00

Image via WikipediaI know that Ant is a very useful tool in Eclipse. I've just been to lazy to go and figure out how to use it. I ran across this blog a while back and forgot about it. I somehow managed to run into it again today. So I will post about it for future reference. I am in the middle of reading it now. This is a very good starter to get you up and running with Ant.

Zoning into Productivity

2008-10-21T23:44:00.001-04:00

Image by movimente via FlickrThis is pretty much how I feel lately.....Zoning into Productivity

Glaze Hello World

2008-10-18T22:17:00.005-04:00

Image via WikipediaI've been looking all over the place for a good tutorial, example, whatever for Glaze. I am wanting to use Glaze because it appears to have the best performance of all the Flash 2D physics engines out there. Unfortunately there is no documentation, and the only example which you can view source for (in the demos package) is a bit complex. So I spent a little time looking through it and I figure out how to create what I consider a 2D physics "Hello World". Basically a ball falling to the floor and bouncing.

package {
    import flash.display.Sprite;
    import flash.events.Event;
    
    import org.rje.glaze.engine.collision.shapes.Circle;
    import org.rje.glaze.engine.collision.shapes.GeometricShape;
    import org.rje.glaze.engine.collision.shapes.Polygon;
    import org.rje.glaze.engine.dynamics.Material;
    import org.rje.glaze.engine.dynamics.RigidBody;
    import org.rje.glaze.engine.dynamics.joints.Joint;
    import org.rje.glaze.engine.math.Vector2D;
    import org.rje.glaze.engine.space.BruteForceSpace;
    import org.rje.glaze.engine.space.Space;    

    /**
     * The document class for my Glaze "Hello World" application
     * 
     * @author scott
     */
    public class GlazeTestDoc extends Sprite {

        /** The space that all the physics objects are created in */
        private var space : Space;

        /** The dimensions of the space */
        private var dim : Vector2D;

        /** Color for static objects */
        private var staticColour : uint = 0xE8EC95;
        
        /** Whether to show the bounding box or not */
        private var debug : Boolean = false;
        
        /**
         * Constructor function
         */
        public function GlazeTestDoc() {
            
            // Initialize the space
            space = new BruteForceSpace(60, 90, null);
            space.masslessForce.setTo(0, 200);
            
            // Set dimensions
            dim = new Vector2D(550, 400);
            
            // Create the floor
            createFloor();
            
            // Create the ball
            createCircle();
            
            // Get things rolling
            stage.addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, enterFrameHandler);
        }
        
        public function createFloor() : void {
            var staticShape : GeometricShape = new Polygon(Polygon.createRectangle(dim.x, 40), new Vector2D(dim.x / 2, dim.y));
            staticShape.fillColour = staticColour;
            space.defaultStaticBody.addShape(staticShape);
        }

        private function createCircle() : void {
            var cirBody : RigidBody = new RigidBody(RigidBody.DYNAMIC_BODY, 10, 100);
            cirBody.p.setTo(300, 0); 
            var circ : GeometricShape = new Circle(18, Vector2D.zeroVect, new Material(55, 0.9, 1));        
            cirBody.addShape(circ);
            space.addRigidBody(cirBody);
        }
        
        /**
         * Triggered on the enter frame event.  This is what makes the physics engine do its thing
         */
        private function enterFrameHandler(pEvent : Event) : void {
            
            // Clear the stage graphics (everything is drawn here for speed at the moment)
            this.graphics.clear();
            
            // Step the engine n times.  The higher n, the more accurate things get.
            space.step();
            
            // Draw all the active shapes
            var shape : GeometricShape = space.activeShapes;
            while (shape) {
                shape.draw(this.graphics, debug);
                shape = shape.next;
            }
            
            // Draw all the static shapes
            shape = space.staticShapes;
            while (shape) {
                shape.draw(this.graphics, debug);
                shape = shape.next;
            }
            
            // Draw all the joints
            var joint : Joint = space.joints;
            while (joint) {
                joint.draw(this.graphics, debug);
                joint = joint.next;
            }    
        }
    }
}

Very good AS 3.0 resource

2008-10-18T20:36:00.005-04:00

I am post this link because it seems like one I'll want to come back to later on. It has links on different ActionScript libraries. Many of the 3D libs, 2D physics, tweening libs, etc. Some of the ones I haven't seen were on AI in games. That will come in handy later on.

The best AS3 learning resource ever!

UPDATE

A co-worker sent this one to me today. This one has even more good links

AS3 Code Libraries

CS4 is out

2008-10-15T18:37:00.007-04:00

Image via WikipediaMan, this was quite unexpected. It seems like CS3 just came out not too long ago. As a matter of fact, it came out less than 2 years ago. That is crazy fast for a new software suite upgrade. There is lots of cool new stuff in the new version of Flash. The Flash blog world is buzzing right now. I am trying to keep up with reading all the cool new blog posts on Flash CS4 and Flash Player 10. One of which has some good links.......New Flash CS4 and Flash Player 10 Articles online. Super exciting times for us Flash developers.

Tweening on a bezier curve

2008-10-15T16:52:00.005-04:00

Image via WikipediaI've been using Tweener for some time to easily do programmatic tweening of display object properties and other things. It's very simple to use and works very well. Funny thing though how I tend to use ActionScript libraries only to the extent that I need them for. I never really bothered to look at the special properties of Tweener. But after recently seeing this blog post on Tweener: Bezier Curve Animations, I realized that Tweener is even more bad ass than I originally thought. After looking through some of the Tweener documentation, I ran across this post.....The search for the perfect bezier tweening syntax. In this blog post, there is a bezier maker that allows you to graphically create a bezier curve in Flash in real time, and it generates the Tweener code to create that curve. Very awesome. I can hardly wait to tween on some curves.

iTunes Visualizer

2008-09-24T08:49:00.003-04:00

This has to be one of the coolest visualizers I've ever seen. Apple has always done a good job with their visualizers and screen savers. That's one of the things Apple does that impresses me. But I think this one is super cool. You can check out the video below to see it in action. If you don't have iTunes, I think this visualizer is one good reason to get it. Although you don't have much choice if you have an iPod. Damn you Apple.

Magnetosphere revisited (audio by Tosca) from flight404 on Vimeo.

The Robert Hodgin Show

2008-09-17T09:56:00.005-04:00

Started out this morning checking out the new blog posts as usual. Ran across this one that Keith Peters posted today. For those of you who don't know who Keith Peters is, he is a Flash bad ass that has written many Flash ActionScript books and generally speaks at Flash conferences. Most people in Flash community know, respect, and look up to him.

Now, back to my original train of thought. I find it funny that Keith is talking about Robert Hodgin like I would speak of Keith Peters. So I am checking out Robert's blog, and man there is some cool stuff on there. Here's an example video from one of his posts.

Solar, with lyrics. from flight404 on Vimeo.

DisplacementMapFilter

2008-09-16T16:04:00.004-04:00

Damn it, I've never really gotten around to get a good understanding of this filter. I wish I had before. Because now I am working on a project where I know this filter is the way to go. So now I've been looking around trying to find a good tutorial on how to use it. There are plenty of those. But for me that is not good enough. I want to have an understanding of how it works. That has been hard to find. Well, I finally found one. I am blogging about this so that I will have future reference to this. I am sure I'll come back to it.

I've moved!!!

2008-09-03T15:22:00.006-04:00

Whoo hoooo!!! I've finally moved. I spent my entire Labor Day weekend doing so. Thanks to all my friends and family who helped me move. Man it sucked. I hate moving with a passion. This move just reinforced that feeling of hatred. The good news is that I love where I live now. I lived in the same apartment for the last 5+ years. My original intent was to buy a home. That turned out to be a nightmare since banks and lenders aren't giving them out so easily anymore due to so many people defaulting on them.

So I am living much closer to town now. It's literally in the middle of the two places I travel to most often. The office downtown and to the FFMAA. It's 15 minutes to either one from where I am now. I love it. I don't have to deal with traffic in the morning to downtown. It actually takes only 15 minutes to get there when you live inside the perimeter. It's also a very nice apartment. It actually has a parking deck connected to the building. So I don't have to walk up stairs to get to my floor.....awesome. Plus it's covered parking so my car isn't exposed to the elements all the time.

The property is very nice. The people living here seem more my age, young professionals. Lots of hot women living here :). It's like a fresh new start.

So far the only thing that sucks is unpacking (of course) and the fact that I won't have cable or internet for almost 2 weeks. I don't get that. I have to go with Comcast because that is the provider that services this area. I don't see how giving me a cable box, a modem, and switching them on takes 2 weeks of scheduling. I'm sorry, but that is just ridiculous. That is 2 weeks that Comcast could be making money off of me. They had better pro-rate this month, or I'll be raising holy heck.

Survivor115 Onlinespiel

2008-08-27T13:20:00.002-04:00

This is a really cool little Flash game. It is hard as hell. It reminds me of Geometry Wars on XBox Live. Check it out here

Papervision Interactivity

2008-07-13T13:29:00.004-04:00

I am starting to really get into Papervision (GreatWhite). I am going to do some relatively simple experiments and games using the engine to really get myself familiar with it. I recently was trying to add some click events to some 3d objects. I was having the hardest time getting this to work. I searched around to find some answers. Most examples were not using GreatWhite (which is what I am using). Finally I ran into Mad Vertices. This is an awesome resource. I am book marking this one. I saw their example and realized I have to set the ViewPort interactive property to true. IDIOT!!! GOSH!!!

Using the framework RSLs

2008-07-10T14:22:00.002-04:00

I am posting about this so I have easy reference to it in the future.

Using the framework RSLs

Configuring the debugger version of Flash Player

2008-07-02T14:26:00.005-04:00

I thought this is a nice way to see trace actions without having to run an application from Flash or Flex directly. You can see trace actions of any swf file no matter where it is.

Debugging Flex applications with mm.cfg and flashlog.txt

Here's another nifty link to check out

Using the logging API

ScareyGirl

2008-06-13T00:54:00.003-04:00

As some of you may know, I like video games. I like to play them and I like to try and make them too. I always keep an eye out for any cool Flash games. I've seen quite a few good ones and only a handful of excellent Flash games. When I say excellent, I mean something that is more than just a spiffy game that keeps your interest for less than 10 minutes. ScareyGirl seems like it will be in the excellent game category to me. I only have this video to go off of. But this game looks beautiful. And some of the game play elements look very interesting and unique. This seems like a game that would be on a console and not a silly Flash game. I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up on Xbox Arcade. I know that N+ did that. That is another awesome game by the way. Seems like they ended up on a lot of different platforms. Kind of funny how a simple little Flash game got so popular and now they are making mad cash.........I hope they are.

My Xbox 360 died

2008-05-18T20:26:00.004-04:00

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

Why?!! Why did this have to happen to me? I thought I got lucky and snagged a good one. Damn it, and my store warranty expired. Now I'll have to send it in. Crap.

It's my birthday

2008-05-17T15:18:00.003-04:00

LAME!!! Almost all my friends are out of town this weekend......on the birthday that is on a Saturday. What bullshit? It almost seems like a conspiracy to me. So what am I doing on my birthday you ask? Nothing......sitting around watching T.V., playing video games, surfing the web, etc. Which is exactly what I like to do. So I can't complain too much.

I didn't post about Naga last weekend. I got 3rd place in the Advanced Masters No-Gi competition. I feel pretty good about that. I got my ass whooped in the Gi competition though. Oh well, I am just happy I came out of it relatively injure free. I jammed my finger a bit, but it is better now. The nice perk to competing in the advanced level is that guys don't do crazy stuff that will potentially injure you. They know what they are doing and don't get all crazy like white and blue belts. I hope I'll be even more ready next tournament. I want to get first place so I get a sword out of it rather than just a medal.

Distort Image

2008-05-08T10:35:00.004-04:00

I've wondered how to do this in the past, but recently I needed it for work. I needed the kind of distortion that makes an image look like a trapezoid and not a parallelogram. So I did some looking around, and it appears that Flash can't do this very easily via ActionScript. Did some more searching and found that everyone refers to the Sandy DistordImage class. Exactly what I was looking for. But I needed it for AS 3.0. This version of the class is AS 2.0. So, I took the liberty of converting it to AS 3.0.

package com.kiroukou.graphics { 
 import flash.display.BitmapData;
 import flash.display.Sprite;
 import flash.geom.Matrix;  

 /**********************************************
  * Copyright (c) 2005 Thomas PFEIFFER. All rights
  * reserved.
  *
  * Licensed under the CREATIVE COMMONS Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0
  * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
  * You may obtain a copy of the License at
  *                      http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/fr/deed.en_GB
  *
  * DistortImage class
  * Availability : Flash Player 9.
  *
  * Description
  * _________
  * Tesselate a movieclip into several triangles
  * to allow free transform distorsion.
  ****************************
  * From an idea and a first implementation from (C) Andre Michelle
  * http://www.andre-michelle.com
  ****************************
  * @author Thomas Pfeiffer - kiroukou
  * @contact kiroukou@gmail.com
  **********************************************/
 public class DistortImage {

  protected var _mc : Sprite;
  protected var _w : Number;
  protected var _h : Number;
  protected var _sMat : Matrix ;
  protected var _tMat : Matrix ;
  protected var _xMin : Number;
  protected var _xMax : Number;
  protected var _yMin : Number;
  protected var _yMax : Number;
  protected var _hseg : Number;
  protected var _vseg : Number;
  protected var _hsLen : Number;
  protected var _vsLen : Number;
  protected var _p : Array;
  protected var _tri : Array;
  protected var _texture : BitmapData;

  /**
   * Constructor
   *
   * @param mc Sprite :  the movieClip containing the distorded picture
   * @param bmd BitmapData : The bitmap data object to be distorted
   * @param vseg Number : the vertical precision
   * @param hseg Number : the horizontal precision
   */
  public function DistortImage( mc : Sprite, bmd : BitmapData, vseg : Number, hseg : Number ) {
 
   _mc = mc;
   _texture = bmd; 
   _vseg = vseg;
   _hseg = hseg;
   _w = _texture.width ;
   _h = _texture.height;
   __init();
  }

  protected function __init() : void {
 
   _p = new Array();
   _tri = new Array();
   
   var ix : Number;
   var iy : Number;
   
   _xMin = _yMin = 0;
 
   _xMax = _w; 
   _yMax = _h;
   
   _hsLen = _w / ( _hseg + 1 );
   _vsLen = _h / ( _vseg + 1 );
   
   var x : Number, y : Number;
 
   // -- we create the points
   for ( ix = 0 ;ix < _vseg + 2; ix++ ) {
    for ( iy = 0 ;iy < _hseg + 2; iy++ ) {
     x = ix * _hsLen;
     y = iy * _vsLen;
     _p.push({ x: x, y: y, sx: x, sy: y });
    }
   }
 
   // -- we create the triangles
   for ( ix = 0 ;ix < _vseg + 1; ix++ ) {
    for ( iy = 0 ;iy < _hseg + 1; iy++ ) {
     _tri.push([_p[ iy + ix * ( _hseg + 2 ) ] , _p[ iy + ix * ( _hseg + 2 ) + 1 ] , _p[ iy + ( ix + 1 ) * ( _hseg + 2 ) ]]);
     _tri.push([_p[ iy + ( ix + 1 ) * ( _hseg + 2 ) + 1 ] , _p[ iy + ( ix + 1 ) * ( _hseg + 2 ) ] , _p[ iy + ix * ( _hseg + 2 ) + 1 ]]);
    }
   }
   
   __render();
  }

  /**
   * setTransform
   *
   * @param x0 Number the horizontal coordinate of the first point
   * @param y0 Number the vertical coordinate of the first point
   * @param x1 Number the horizontal coordinate of the second point
   * @param y1 Number the vertical coordinate of the second point
   * @param x2 Number the horizontal coordinate of the third point
   * @param y2 Number the vertical coordinate of the third point 
   * @param x3 Number the horizontal coordinate of the fourth point
   * @param y3 Number the vertical coordinate of the fourth point 
   *
   * @description : Distord the bitmap to ajust it to those points.
   */
  public function setTransform( x0 : Number , y0 : Number , x1 : Number , y1 : Number , x2 : Number , y2 : Number , x3 : Number , y3 : Number ) : void {
 
   var w : Number = _w;
   var h : Number = _h;
   
   var dx30 : Number = x3 - x0;
   var dy30 : Number = y3 - y0;
   var dx21 : Number = x2 - x1;
   var dy21 : Number = y2 - y1;
   
   var l : Number = _p.length;
 
   while( --l > -1 ) {
    
    var point : Object = _p[ l ];
    var gx : Number = ( point.x - _xMin ) / w;
    var gy : Number = ( point.y - _yMin ) / h;
    var bx : Number = x0 + gy * ( dx30 );
    var by : Number = y0 + gy * ( dy30 );
    
    point.sx = bx + gx * ( ( x1 + gy * ( dx21 ) ) - bx );
    point.sy = by + gx * ( ( y1 + gy * ( dy21 ) ) - by );
   }
   
   __render();
  }

  protected function __render() : void {
   
   var p0 : Object; 
   var p1 : Object;
   var p2 : Object;
 
   var c : Sprite = _mc;
   var a : Array;
 
   c.graphics.clear();
 
   _sMat = new Matrix();
   _tMat = new Matrix();
   
   var l : Number = _tri.length;
 
   while( --l > -1 ) {
    a = _tri[ l ];
    p0 = a[0];
    p1 = a[1];
    p2 = a[2];
    
    var x0 : Number = p0.sx;
    var y0 : Number = p0.sy;
    var x1 : Number = p1.sx;
    var y1 : Number = p1.sy;
    var x2 : Number = p2.sx;
    var y2 : Number = p2.sy;
    
    var u0 : Number = p0.x;
    var v0 : Number = p0.y;
    var u1 : Number = p1.x;
    var v1 : Number = p1.y;
    var u2 : Number = p2.x;
    var v2 : Number = p2.y;
    
    _tMat.tx = u0;
    _tMat.ty = v0;
    
    _tMat.a = ( u1 - u0 ) / _w;
    _tMat.b = ( v1 - v0 ) / _w;
    _tMat.c = ( u2 - u0 ) / _h;
    _tMat.d = ( v2 - v0 ) / _h;
 
    _sMat.a = ( x1 - x0 ) / _w;
    _sMat.b = ( y1 - y0 ) / _w;
    _sMat.c = ( x2 - x0 ) / _h;
    _sMat.d = ( y2 - y0 ) / _h;
    
    _sMat.tx = x0;
    _sMat.ty = y0;
    
    _tMat.invert();
    _tMat.concat(_sMat);
    
    c.graphics.beginBitmapFill(_texture, _tMat, false, false);
    c.graphics.moveTo(x0, y0);
    c.graphics.lineTo(x1, y1);
    c.graphics.lineTo(x2, y2);
    c.graphics.endFill();
   }
  }
 }
}

Data Binding

2008-04-28T18:16:00.003-04:00

Something that has eluded me for some time now is a good understanding of data binding in Flex. I get the general gist of it, but I want a better understanding of how it works, how to use it properly, when to use it, etc. So I was looking at the list of Metadata tags for Flex 3 recently and I ran across a lot of good links on the subject. I am posting it here so I can easily reference the links again in the future. The page with the links is below:

Binding Data

FlexBuilder, FDT, AS 3.0

2008-04-22T23:42:00.011-04:00

So lately I am having to do a good bit of work with Flex Builder. I love Flex Builder.....for the most part. MXML is great and very intuitive. I love using the design mode in Flex Builder to get things set up quickly and easily. When it comes to editing AS files, my preference is FDT. People ask me why I prefer FDT over Flex Builder. Sometimes I forget exactly why that is at the moment they ask so then of course I look like an idiot that doesn't know what I am talking about. Many of the reasons are very specific and sometimes hard to explain. But when I am using Flex Builder to edit AS files, there are little things it's missing that annoy me. Below I tell you some of the things that FDT has which Flex Builder is missing:

Organize Imports is a huge deal. You can get Flex Builder to add imports for you by completing the code hints it supplies you....but that is the extent of what it does for you. It won't organize them for you. If there are copies of imports, Flex Builder doesn't give a crap. Your imports can get ugly really quick. Also if you copy some code into Flex Builder and you don't have the imports, then you have to add the imports manually, or you have to force the code hint by backspacing on new items and select the appropriate class. If there are several items that need imports, then you have to do this for each one. In FDT, you hit Ctrl + Shift + O and it's done.......no matter what.

Live Error Highlighting is another one. Flex doesn't let you know you've screwed up until after you saved, and even then it takes it's sweet ass time. FDT lets you know instantly.

SWC Browsing is very nice

Formatter is awesome. I like being able to specify exactly how I want my code to be formatted. Then no matter how or where I type my code, I can hit Ctrl + Shift + F, and viola...perfectly formatted code. No need to go line by line and hit backspace or tab.

Live Code Generation is fabulous. You won't know you are missing this until you have used it.

Advanced Refactoring is freakin awesome. I don't have to worry about how I named a method, property, class, whatever. I can refactor it at any time, anywhere, and it gets taken care of....for every reference throughout the class, project, workspace....whatever.

Improved Autocompletion....in Flex it bugs me. I have to start typing before I can hit Ctrl + Space or I won't get anything. In FDT, I can hit Ctrl + Space and I will get the most relevant items first, such as local variables in a method and parameters for the method. Very nice.

Also, if you have any web links in your code, you can control click the link and it will open in a web page if you are working in FDT. Nothing happens in Flex.

TODO's don't work in Flex.

Go here to see full list of features for FDT. I know there are more things that bug me, but I can't think of them right now.

So I have been wondering if there is a way to have the best of both worlds. After searching around, I found an excellent link......Complete starter guide to develop Flash. At the very least you should skim through this article to see what kind of things it covers. That's essentially what I am doing at this point to get what I want for right now. Look under the section titled "Setting up Eclipse/FDT with the Flex 3 SDK". He also references a link that Mike Chambers posted.....Using Flex Components in ActionScript Projects.

Ctrl + Enter run setup was a header that caught my eye. It points out that you can change short cut keys. Derrrrr......I never bothered to look. Very nice.

Got me a Flex book

2008-04-16T00:39:00.002-04:00

Got my first Flex book. It's Adobe Flex 3 Training from the Source. I applied for an Amazon Visa card when I got it so I got $30 bucks off. So I paid like 8 bucks for this book and it is brand new. Sweet!!!! I'm such a savvy shopper. Plus it looks like a really good book. I can't wait to start reading it.

New Photoshop Scripting Goodness

2008-04-10T18:46:00.004-04:00

Just checking out the blogs as usual today and came across one that is different from the norm. The norm being stuff related to Flash or Flex and coding. Hearing about Photoshop and coding got me thinking "What the hell??!!". Here's the blog article I ran across. It seems pretty cool. You can use a few different languages, but the best option is JavaScript because it is cross platform and it is familiar. So you can get up and running in no time if you are familiar with JS, AS, JSFL, etc. So that seems cool, being able to write script to do things for you. But what really struck me was this:

Actions are also limited to executing commands within the hosted application, whereas scripts can communicate and exchange information with any (or all) of the applications in the Creative Suite. For example, you could write a script that initiates a procedure in Adobe Illustrator CS3 and then forwards the results to Adobe Photoshop CS3 for completion. Now that's pretty cool!

That is pretty awesome. I want to tinker with this and see what is possible. I wonder if you can have stuff go from PhotoShop to Flash via a script.......or Illustrator to Flash.

FDT 3.0 Enterprise

2008-04-10T08:47:00.007-04:00

I am the proud new owner of the Enterprise version of FDT 3.0. I took advantage of this special offer they recently announced. This is going to make my life easier when it comes to coding in AS 3.0. It's got all the best features. Here's a video they put out showing some of the features of the Enterprise version. I purchased Basic version some time ago. But they stripped out some of the features I was used to having in FDT 1.5. Some of those being High-speed Search and Type Hierarchy and Quick Views. They are now available in FDT 3.0 Professional. But I would have had to pay the full price to upgrade. I thought that to be ridiculous. I couldn't pass up the offer to Enterprise. It's still expensive, but once you use FDT, it's hard to go back to anything else.

I Quit

2008-04-08T10:05:00.005-04:00

I quit my job yesterday. It's something I've been thinking about doing for a while now. I just wasn't happy working there. I enjoyed working with the people at the company, but I didn't dig the work. I am into games and I have been hit up with sooooooo many opportunities to develop games in Flash. I can't pass them up. But I certainly don't regret working with Tricycle. I think there are a lot of good things that came about from working there. I met some cool people which I feel I will keep in contact with. I was forced to use Flex......I know that sounds harsh, but I don't think I would have bothered with it otherwise. I have a much better understanding of what Flex is and when/how to use it. I put in two weeks notice, so I will continue to work for Tricycle until April 18th. After that I am working on games full time. Sweet!!!

Battlestar Galactica

2008-04-04T16:09:00.003-04:00

One of my favorite series on TV is Battlestar. It's pretty awesome. This is going to be the final season for it. Kind of sucks, but I'd rather it leave on a good note rather than drag it on into eternal crapiness. The first episode of the new season airs tonight. I am excited. I ran across this nifty article on the Giz which I found rather humorous. The video gives a complete rundown of the story up to now in 8 minutes. It's rather impressive, it gets all the important parts. The so called spoilers are hilarious if you have watched all the classic sci-fi movies and TV series.

Battlestar Galactica Exclusive Spoilers, and 8-Minute Video Summary [Onionmodo]

Enjoy......and frack off.....so say we all.

Hail

2008-03-15T17:23:00.006-04:00

I just got hit hard with a hail storm. We had a tornado hit downtown Atlanta last night. That in itself is pretty crazy. Usually I don't think of tornadoes hitting big cities like Atlanta. I believe their normal prey are trailer parks and homes out in the middle of nowhere. These hail stones were pretty big. They were moth ball sized and some where bigger. They were knocking off tree branches. I was afraid it would screw up my car. Fortunately it didn't seem to hurt anyone's car in the parking lot. So that was a relief.

Flash 10 Features

2008-03-08T16:07:00.006-05:00

Features in Flash 10. Looks pretty exciting.

I can't believe I haven't seen these videos yet. They show some cool new features that will be in Flash 10. Quite awesome.

1st Video - Flash “Next”
New Stage Rendering Core - Example they show allows live video to play at author time that's fully interactive allowing for more WYSIWYG type design, preventing you from constantly having to publish to see your work.
Tweening - It is freaking awesome now. You don't have to create key frames. You can change the motion path like a bezier curve.
Inverse Kinematics - WOW!!! This is really cool. Draw stuff, create bones for it similar to 3D programs.

2nd Video - Flash on C/C++
This one wasn't as exciting for me since I don't know C/C++ or any other language really. But it seems very powerful. Allows you to port other code into AS 3.0 to be used in your swf. The thing that was neat was they port Quake in Flash.

Everything else I didn't really care for. Flex on Linux......I use Windows. Seam Carving, seen it.

Gears of War 2

2008-03-07T19:37:00.009-05:00

I am super excited about this new version of GoW. Unfortunately I was disappointed with Halo 3. Hell, even Halo 2 didn't seem like a full upgrade to me. It was Halo 1.67 or Halo 1.....whatever. The next version of a game should be significantly better. Not the same crap with a few extras.

After seeing this video of what's to come for GoW 2, you know that they are improving the game on all levels as well as adding in some new awesome features. One that really gets me excited is at the end of the video where the environment will be destructible. That will change the game play entirely. Wow!!!

Secretary of State Handel Warns Georgia Corporations: New Firm May Be Pulling Old Tricks

2008-03-02T15:30:00.004-05:00

What a crock. For any of you that are incorporated in Georgia, you may have received one of these letters in the mail. I got one a couple of weeks ago. They want $125 by March 4th. It is an official looking document. But I've never received anything like this before and I've been incorporated for 5 or 6 years. Normally all you have to pay is the annual $30 to the Secretary of State. So I did a search and this was the first link I found.

http://www.sos.ga.gov/pressrel/20080220.htm

These bastards are trying to pull a fast one on people who don't pay attention and send it in before the tight due date. I'd like to send them a turd in a box.

New Job

2008-01-09T11:49:00.001-05:00

I was recently contacted by a job placement agency and they hooked me up with a company called Tricycle Inc. I start on the 21st of this month. I am pretty excited. I wonder what the work will be like. I will get to work from home most of the week. They are located in Chattanooga, TN. That daily commute would suck. But I do have to go up there at least once a week. It's about a 2 hour drive one way. That's not bad. My first week they want me to stay there. They are going to have me stay at a hotel so that I can be on site to go over stuff. Pretty exciting. I am going to be busy as hell.

Game Reviews

2007-10-12T16:04:00.000-04:00

First on my mind is the most recent game I've purchased, The Orange Box. So far I am really digging this game. I was a huge fan of the first TFC and I've long awaited the second version. I haven't played it too much, but from what I've seen the graphics are awesome. The game is very familiar with controls, character classes, maps, etc. But it's got a really big face lift. It alone I feel is worth getting. I just beat the Portal game. It also is very impressive. A very different type of game play makes this game unique and interesting. You use a portal generating gun to create portals to get to hard (if not impossible) to reach places. Lots of figuring things out and puzzle solving make this game fun. Only complaint I have for Portal is that is was very short lived. It probably took around 4-5 hours to finish.

I also purchased Halo 3 when it came out late September. I wasn't impressed with this game. Actually, I was let down. All the hype and media and everything........I give it a "meh". To me the graphics just weren't on par with Gears of War, a game that came out almost a year ago. Also the game play is just the regular "run and shoot" Halo game play. There is nothing new about it. After playing Gears of War with its cover system, the regular FPS style game isn't as appealing. I feel I need something more than the Halo name to sell the game. I beat the campaign mode and tried playing online. It just wasn't as fun. I still play Gears of War to this day.

Halo 3

2007-09-25T16:01:00.000-04:00

Oh man, it came out today. I just got home from shopping. I am about to play it. I was going to get the special edition, but they sold out. So I went with the regular run of the mill version. Doesn't matter much to me. I can watch someone else's special edition dvd.

Team Fortress 2

2007-09-13T12:45:00.000-04:00

I played the hell out of some Team Fortress Classic back in the day. It was the mod for the first Half Life game, which was also very awesome. But the 2nd version of Team Fortress has been one of the longest push backs I can think of for a game release......well, for a game I care about. Anyway, it is now officially less than a month away. And it will be bundled with Episode 2 and Portal which will also be awesome games......how exciting. I wonder if I'm going to have time to play Gears of War anymore.

Generate getter / setter methods for a class

2007-09-09T22:37:00.000-04:00

I love FDT, but I wish there was a better way to create getter and setter methods for properties of a class. I love how Eclipse can do it for Java files. It has a cool wizard that lets you pick which properties to create getter/setters for. Unfortunately they don't have this in FDT 1.5. Hopefully they will implement something like this in FDT 3.0. Anyway, I've created something with JSFL that is a close second. Unzip the attachment and stick the contents in the Commands directory.

C:\Documents and Settings\[user name]\Local Settings\Application Data\Adobe\Flash CS3\en\Configuration\Commands

Now it will be in you list of commands you can run when you have a .fla file open. When you run it a dialog box will open. Copy your properties from your class file and paste them in the code text area. Specify the prefixes for the property names. This needs to match the properties you pasted in the text area or you won't get good results. I use "m" prefix for class properties which stands for "member". It's a Java convention that I've adopted. Usually ActionScript developers use the underscore as a prefix. You can easily go in the code and change this so it defaults to an underscore. Another Java convention is the "p" for the parameter prefixes. You can change this as well if you like. When you click "OK", it will print out all the getters and setters in the output window. It will have java doc style comments and everything. All you have to do now is copy the code from the output panel into your class. This is a huge time saver if you have multiple properties you need to create getter/setters for. There is also a check box to specify if you want them to be implicit getter/setters.

FDT 3.0 Public Beta

2007-09-04T13:03:00.001-04:00

FDT 3.0 Beta is out. The long awaited ActionScript editor that will allow for editing of both AS 2.0 and AS 3.0 class files is now available to the public as a beta for testing. I saw a little bit of it, and so far it seems pretty good. I haven't checked out all the new features, but the fact that it is FDT that can edit AS 3.0 files would probably be good enough. Anyway, if you haven't used FDT yet and you work extensively with ActionScript 2.0 / 3.0, I highly recommend checking this out. I believe it is the best AS editor by far.

UML, Stub Code and ASDocs

2007-08-26T18:46:00.000-04:00

I recently stumbled upon this blog while searching for something else. This Enterprise Architect seems really interesting. The idea of this appears to be that you visually specify and construct your software. Then it will create all the classes for you which saves a big bunch of time. I can see how this would help with planning ahead. I am going to try it out and see if it is worth the effort and money.

New way of doing things

2007-08-24T21:00:00.001-04:00

It's always nice for me to find better ways to do things. I think that is part of what I like about ActionScripting. I feel like I am getting to discover things for myself. I was getting tired of refactoring my classes and having to go back and change linkage properties for individual symbols in the library. This is a really big hassle when working on big projects. I know there are other ways of linking a class with a movieclip symbol. You can use Object.registerClass. I remember it from the days of doing OOP in AS 1.0. Man I don't miss them. And I think that is why I never bothered ever looking back at registerClass again.

I stumbled on this blog while searching on templates in FDT. This is exactly what I had hoped for. Many of the components I create with AS don't really have any drawn graphics. I usually load or attach the graphics dynamically or use Flash's drawing API to draw them on the fly. So with this way of creating components I don't have the hassle of creating a movie clip for every component class and setting it's linkage and AS 2.0 stuff. I can just create the class and viola. This is pretty awesome. The down side to this method is that you have to implement the create method on every class. I guess that's why he used the templates in FDT......so it would do the work for him. Not that big a deal, but I noticed the link to another way of doing it on Peter Joel's Blog.........the link is on How to create classed stage objects with an empty library. To me this just seems to be a bit of a cleaner. And it works like a charm.

AS2 to AS3 preprocessor converter

2007-08-10T15:45:00.000-04:00

I have recently been converting some of my AS 2.0 Flash projects to AS 3.0. I am doing this to help with learning AS 3.0, and to get better performance for my projects. Most of the changes are very tedious and time consuming. There is only some much you can learn from changing Void to void. So I searched around and saw this blog on a converter. Very snazzy. This will definitely help with doing the repetitive work for me.

I am really liking the performance boost with AS 3.0 and the new way of coding things. But it's challenging trying to relearn how some of the new stuff works. I can't wait for the new version of my favorite AS editor to come out, FDT 3.0. Once I have that, then I will be in full AS 3.0 programming mode. But for the time being, I try to learn when I can on my own. I still do work stuff in AS 2.0. And after seeing some of the capabilities of AS 3.0, I already want to start doing projects in it. It will give me the ability to do many things much more easily that are harder with AS 2.0. And I will be able to do some things that just weren't possible in AS 2.0 (i.e. 3D with PaperVision3D). Exciting times for me.

First Blog Post

2007-08-08T16:48:00.000-04:00

Hey, having a blog is something I've wanted to do for a while. I've just been too lazy or to busy (or both) to do it. But now I am here so it's all good.