I recently stumbled upon an old bit of code which demonstrates a technique I created for an efficient scrolling data grid on the YouView TV platform. I call it ‘Blit Scrolling’. Below is a demo of the concept – click on the window and use the arrow keys to scroll around (Flash required):
Continue reading Optimal scrolling for 2D games or UIs
Tag Archives: source code
How to verify that something implements an interface with Mockito
If you want to write a unit test which verifies that something implements a particular interface, or extends a particular class, here’s how…
Continue reading How to verify that something implements an interface with Mockito
SmoothBitmap – How to ensure Bitmap pixel smoothing in AS3
A common oversight in Flash projects, when using a Bitmap with loaded content is that Flash will revert a Bitmap’s smoothing parameter to false when you replace its bitmapData. That is, when the data loads into the Bitmap, anti-aliasing will get turned off. This is simple enough to fix, but since you may not know if someone is going to replace the bitmapData of a Bitmap you have created – then it’s much better to code defensively for it.
This little SmoothBitmap class is for just such an occasion. Instantiate it like a regular Bitmap and, no matter what another developer does with it, smooth, anti aliased pixels when scaling/rotating will be ensured. Enjoy 🙂
Loan Shark – fast object pooling utility
A couple of years ago, I created an object pooling utility for a games project I was building in AS3. Since then, I’ve used it quite a few times, in order to speed up apps and improve resource management, easing the load on the garbage collector by reusing objects instead of recreating them. Continue reading Loan Shark – fast object pooling utility
SWFIdle – simple flash idling utility
If you’re still churning out Flash banners, please use this!
I created this simple utility, called SWFIdle, to enable the Flash Player to lower its CPU usage while the user is not interacting with it. Since it’s possible to have multiple Flash instances embedded in one page (for example, a game and a couple of banners), I recommend using this in your projects, so that Flash instances needn’t fight for CPU and give Flash a worse name than it has already 😉
I know there’s the hasPriority embed attribute now. But:
- That assumes you have access to the HTML that embeds your SWF
- If no other players are present, it has no effect
- There’s still usually little reason to be running your SWF at a high framerate if the user isn’t interacting with it
- Flash banners with wastefully unoptimised drawing routines are probably one of the key reasons that Flash got poo-pooed off of mobile platforms and disabled on everyone’s laptops – CPU usage = battery usage!
How to embed an entire asset SWF and get symbols from it
The problem
You want to embed an entire SWF, full of assets, into a class and retrieve individual symbols from it – but you don’t want to have to embed each asset individually.
The solution
SWFAsset – a couple of lines of code and you’re away.
How to correct 3-D projection on stage resize
The problem:
You’re using Flash 10’s native 3-D API and notice the projection goes a little skewiff when resizing the window.
The solution:
You need to reset the stage’s projection centre on stage resize, like so…
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var centre:Point = new Point(stage.stageWidth/2, stage.stageHeight/2); root.transform.perspectiveProjection.projectionCenter = centre; |
Embed tag gotchas in Flex SDK 4
In moving to compiling projects with the new Flex SDK 4, I noticed a couple of gotchas to do with the EMBED metatag that I thought I’d share:
Runtime Shared Libraries
If you wish to embed assets in your SWF with the EMBED metatag, so you can manage and update things easily, there’s an extra compiler parameter you must add, in order for your project to compile properly:
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--static-link-runtime-shared-libraries=true |
This is already added as a new default parameter in FlashDevelop projects. But if you’re planning to build projects from outside a similar IDE, you must add this to your compiler string. Otherwise, the compiler will think you have uninitialised constants and warn you so.
Embedding Fonts
Using the EMBED metatag, or even better runtime loading, for fonts is the sensible way forward. The amount of projects I’ve seen where you need to build from an FLA file full of fonts, which you need to hunt down and install is crazy. With Flex SDK 4, you’ll need to add an extra attribute to your embed tag for fonts, called ’embedAsCFF’:
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[Embed(source='myfont.ttf', fontName='MY_FONT', fontWeight='regular', unicodeRange='U+0020-U+0040,U+0041-U+005A', mimeType='application/x-font', embedAsCFF='false')] public static const MY_FONT :Class; |
Happy compiling!