A new AS3 framework has been released by Arul @ Luracast. Do check it out at http://code.google.com/p/short/.

I’m pretty excited about it because of 2 things. Firstly, it’s the first framework released by someone based in Singapore. Secondly, I share the same frustration as the creator – a simple getURL that used to be so simple now takes more than 3 lines of code to create!

And lastly, if you’re based in Singapore, do check out the upcoming Flex User Group (fug) meeting that’s on this Wednesday (8 Sep 2010). RSVP at Facebook.

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XML2Object (AS2)

Documentation / Download

Developed by sephiroth, one of the Flash gurus in the Flash community, XML2Object does what it’s name says. It converts an XML to an Object. Easily, I might add.

Pros:

• Allows you to access XML elements just like an object.

Example:
Transform the passed XML source into an XML readable Object.

import it.sephiroth.XML2Object;
var dataObj:XML = new XML ();
//
dataObj.ignoreWhite = true;
var sXML:String = "path/to/xml_file.xml";
function handleLoad (success:Boolean) {
	if (success) {
		_root.xmlObj = new XML2Object ().parseXML (dataObj);
	}
}
//
dataObj.onLoad = handleLoad;
//Load the data
dataObj.load (sXML);

Cons:

• It doesn’t detect a single item as an array. This is a problem if, for example, you load a gallery, and there’s only 1 item in the gallery. Your code will be built to entertain more than 1 item but it will not recognise a single item as an array.

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Bitmap Exporter (AS2/3)

Documentation | Download

There are alot of classes that utilises the ByteArray to export whatever that is in Flash to an image, but for AS2, this is pretty much the only available one. (Do let me know if there’s a better one.)
As mentioned earlier, the Bitmap Exporter allows you to export a movieclip from Flash with predefined width, height and quality settings.

Pros:

• Probably the only class that allows you to do this with AS2.

Cons:

• Utilises the server heavily.
• The exporting takes some time.

Transform Manager (AS2)

Documentation | Download

Ever wanted to create an application just like Photoshop? Well, maybe not exactly like Photoshop, but at least to allow your users to create their own customise their very own [insert brand object here].
The Transform Manager by Grant Skinner does the job perfectly. For me, the class makes rotating, scaling, moving and deleting objects very intuitive. However, usability experts might argue that users who are not used to Photoshop or any other image editing tools might find it a problem. Nevertheless, this is an awesome tool to have, and building on top of the class is possible as gskinner has graciously released the classes with the source code.
Like TweenMax, Grant’s documentation is awesome and is impossible to not understand.
Note: The link I posted above is to an older version that is free, the current and newer version costs $299. An AS3 version is also available but you will need to join the Club Greensock to get it.
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Sephiroth Color Picker Component (AS2)

Documentation/ Download : http://www.sephiroth.it/file_detail.php?id=147

This is a UI Component that was never added by Flash. Thanks to Sephiroth though, you now get a lightweight, Color Picker Component for free.

There are dozens of classes released by the great Flash community all the time, and it will be impossible to list them all in this one article, what I’ve listed here are the ones I find myself reusing or has benefited me greatly.
You’ll also realise that I have not added any Tweening engines to this article as I believe they deserve to have a list on their own. Also, the classes listed here are mainly AS2. I will be sharing a similar list for AS3 soon.
Please feel free to add in more classes or components that you believe should be in this list.

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I’ve always had a problem understanding documentation for APIs, hence when I do get something, I have this urge to share so that anyone who has the same problem can do what I am trying to do.

In my opinion, the best documentation ever written is by gskinner for TweenMax, and I think few would argue with me about that.

Having said that, the documentation written by aral for the SWX Twitter API is actually not too bad as well. But being completely new to both the Twitter API and the SWX Twitter API, one might be lost upon landing on the API page.

Now that my ramblings are done, on with the tutorial.

First, download the SWX Code from here. As of the time of writing, go ahead and download the v2 which is still in BETA as it works just fine.

This tutorial will show you how easy it is to update your Twitter status using the SWX Twitter API.

Here’s a look at what we will be creating:

Code:

stop();
loader.serviceClass = "Twitter";
loader.method = "getPublicUpdates";
loader.debug = true;
loader.loadMovie("http://swxformat.org/php/swx.php","GET");

import org.swxformat.*;
var swx:SWX = new SWX();
swx.gateway = "http://swxformat.org/php/swx.php";
swx.encoding = "POST";
swx.timeout = 10;
swx.debug = true;
swx.faultHandler = Delegate.create(this, faultHandler);
swx.progressHandler = Delegate.create(this, progressHandler);
swx.timeoutHandler = Delegate.create(this, timeoutHandler);

function updateTwitter() {

	var callParameters:Object = {
		serviceClass:"Twitter",
		method:"update",
		args:[message_txt.text, username_txt.text, password_txt.text], 

		result: [this, resultHandler],
		progress: [this, progressHandler],
		timeout: [this, timeoutHandler],
		fault: [this, faultHandler],
		debug: true
	}
	swx.call(callParameters);
	isLoading(true);
}

function resultHandler(event:Object) {
	isLoading(false);
	status.text = event.result;
}

function progressHandler(event:Object) {
	trace("progressHandler: " + event.bytesLoaded + " of " + event.bytesTotal);
}
function timeoutHandler(event:Object) {
	isLoading(false);
	status.text = "Call timeout. Please try again.";
}
function faultHandler(event:Object) {
	isLoading(false);
	status.text = "Call fault. Please try again.";
}

update_btn.onRelease = function() {
	updateTwitter();
};

Source Files (AS2.0 | CS3 Format)

I’m not going to explain the code unless someone requests for it as it’s really quite simple and straightforward. The other reason is due to a lack of time. I figured if I don’t share this now, I might not want to do it in the future, so hey, at least you have the code.

Once again, hope this helps someone out there.

Note: For other Flash Developers like me out there, if you need to integrate Facebook as well using AS2.0, take a look at http://www.echoesofburmajones.com/2009/09/18/20/facebook_connect_in_flash_actionscript_2.htm for an excellent tutorial (w/source files)!

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The reason why I’ve not been updating much recently: http://bit.ly/tcbfc2 (the campaign has finished! thanks for all the support!)

The microsite was a campaign for the Singapore launch of the highly anticipated sequel: Battlefield Bad Company 2, an FPS developed by DICE and published by EA games.

As BF2 features destructable environments – and tanks. We came up with the idea of letting players do exactly that – in real life. What users were able to do was that they could connect to a real model tank in the physical world and battle 3 other players in a prebuilt environment.

A camera was mounted on each of the tank so that the connected player can “see through” the turret of the tank. Players control the tank with the keyboard and then engage other players in battle with other tanks on a diorama that was installed at a cineplex in Singapore.

To be able to control the tank, my tech lead stripped bare the insides of the RC tank that we got from our supplier, VSTank, and put in his own customised and improvised version of the Arduino + XBee shield + Xbee components. Customised batteries were ordered and modded to power the Arduino which then passes the commands received through the XBee to the tank motors.

Each tank has a defined server which is actually a Netbook. To enable the sending of Serial data via the USB COM ports, serproxy was used along with the excellent SmartFoxServer. As there was no stable wifi-connection in the cineplex, the netbooks were connected using M1′s Mobile Broadband service (a 3G HSDPA network).

Due to the slow speeds of the mobile broadband, we had to sacrifice some video quality to achieve minimum control lag for the players who are connecting to the tanks from all over the world. The other problem we had was the streaming of the video feeds. As Singapore does not have any web hosting companies that offer Flash Media Servers, we turned to Influxis. This was perhaps the smoothest part of the entire project. The Influxis support was amazingly helpful, and the free tools and control panel that comes with every account was easy to use and set up. I am thinking of writing a tutorial for broadcasting a live feed to the world using Influxis soon!

As we were looking at a few alternatives at the time, the other service I tried was UStream, a free web streaming service that does exactly what I wanted. The problem though was that there was almost a 4 second delay between the feed I was broadcasting and the one that I was receiving. This was impossible to use for our game as we needed almost zero lag to let players control the tank efficiently. After signing up for the cheapest available plan (US$6/month) to do a test, we decided to go with Influxis as the 4 second delay was brought down to 0.5 seconds!

Next, a queue system was built so that only 4 players were able to connect to each one of the tanks.

The entire project was completed within 2 weeks and it generated thousands of hits from all over the world. I’m pretty sure that what we did was an industry first. It was tough but the process was fun and I learnt alot along the way.

Some pictures of the diorama, tanks, and Arduino:

The Arduino

Prototyping

Tank Version 1.0

The XBee Shield

The insides of the tank

Mounted XBees for minimum interference

All 4 Tanks ready to roll!

That’s all for now. I’m just sharing what I learnt during this project with everyone. Hope everyone had fun reading it and watching the videos!

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Applied to a single button. Frame 1 shows that sound is on, and frame 2 shows that it’s off.

sound_mc.buttonMode = true
sound_mc.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK,toggleSound)

function toggleSound(e:MouseEvent){
	var tempMC:MovieClip = e.currentTarget as MovieClip
	var sTransform:SoundTransform = new SoundTransform(1,0);
	if(tempMC.currentFrame == 1){
		tempMC.gotoAndStop(2)
		sTransform.volume = 0;
	}else if(tempMC.currentFrame == 2){
		tempMC.gotoAndStop(1)
		sTransform.volume = 1;
	}
	SoundMixer.soundTransform = sTransform;
}

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The Garbage Collector in AS3 is smart, but it’s driving me crazy.

Being new to AS3, I didn’t realise that removing a child from the display list does not kill all it’s listeners, sounds, and some other stuff I don’t know.

When it affected me, I stopped for a moment and thought why is it built this way. It is true that sometimes, after removing a child from the display list, you do want the listener to stay.

Yet, I don’t see why they didn’t create another function that lets user kill all listeners in a particular child before removing it.

Anyway, after being stuck at this problem for a few agonizing hours, I realised all I need to do, is actually create a if statement inside any listener I want to kill as well, that if it’s parent is already null, i.e. to say it is already removed, then it should kill itself!

A simple solution. Hopefully no new bugs turn up after implementing this as a solution. Keeping my fingers crossed.

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Check out the latest issue of the FFD Magazine:

No related posts.

You can call it the global mute as well. What this line of code does is actually just turning down the entire flash’s volume down to 0. This is great for websites or games alike when a “Sound Off” or “Mute” feature is needed.

SoundMixer.soundTransform = new SoundTransform(0);

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Stumbled upon this great flasher’s blog recently while trying to research for something I want to do:

http://en.nicoptere.net/?p=574

The speed and quality of the fur generator is, I believe, the best out there right now.

Awesome stuff.

Other generators:

http://blog.inspirit.ru/?p=131

http://projects.stroep.nl/fur/

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function removeChildrenOf(mc:MovieClip):void{
	if(mc_mc.numChildren!=0){
		var k:int = mc.numChildren;
		while( k -- )
		{
			mc.removeChildAt( k );
		}
	}
}

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