Possible to Drive Object Properties with Motion Tween? - actionscript-3

I'm trying to create a complex parallax effect in Flash video sequence that includes translation and scaling among many layers.
I've been looking for a way to set up my scene to where I could just animate one object (preferably with motion tween) and then apply some percentage of that animation to each background object (or flip values accordingly).
Is there any way to harvest Motion Tween data out of a layer of a MovieClip and translate that into x,y values for objects? [So far I've only created instances of objects and set their positions through actionscript.]

Seems like you need to use a copy motion option of the layer context menu
Also tweening actionscript libraries e.g. TweenMax are capable of tweening any properties of any objects, but they do it with actionscript (which can be easily copied/modified/pasted), not Adobe Flash UI.

So converting every visual element to a movieclip allowed me to position the items in Z as well. That pretty much solved my problem.
Thanks everyone.

Related

8-direction Figure Animation with Arrow Keys

I've been charged with designing a demo for an isometric video game in ActionScript 3. I have the bitmap spritesheets that show the avatar I'm using standing and walking in each direction. The walking animation is made up of three frames.
My problem, though, is that I need to figure out how to make use of them. I'm not familiar with animation in Flash, and I need input on how to gotoAndPlay() the walking frames for the right direction. I don't think isolating the necessary DIRECTION is going to be a challenge, so much as starting it and keeping it going while the arrow keys are down.
My current code is basically comprised of keyboard handlers for KEY_UP and KEY_DOWN, each containing a switch-case statement that changes the Avatar.currentDirection property. The handler continues to fire while the keys are down, but I need to add animation to the game.
I've seen some examples where they simply embed the animations into an SWF, propagate an array of the various walking stages, and alternate between them using an EnterFrame event handler, but this seems really clunky. I guess in the end I'm trying to make use of Adobe Animate, but I don't know how you're supposed to do that.
Ops, fortunately i'm working with sprites (atlas animations) right now!.
if i'm right, you just needs to use them for playing some animation with functionality.
if you have a well sized sprite which is tiled with isometric slots like it:
(9 frames sized 64x128)
your work is very easy, only create new movieclip from library, inside it, create a borderless rectangle (which is our mask) in a layer (named mask) then import image to the project, and its better to disabling smooth ability from image properties,
now, inside your movieclip, you have to create new layer (under the mask layer) and add your sprite image for each frame, and change its position:
at last, enable masking for mask layer, then its time of coding,
name your animation queries (like image 3) and for loopable animations, insert gotoAndPlay('anim_name') inside last frame. i hope you are familiar with controling movieclip animations which is basic consept of any flash project.
now to extend it for 8 directions support, you just need to play and switch between dirctions according single and multi keypreses,

as3 3D global transform / rotation

I have a little problem. I have 2D image of roulette wheel on the stage and used 3D rotation tool to get a little 3D effect (Image 1). Now I want to rotate it on it's Z axis so that I can get spining effect of wheel. I tried to use rotationZ += ... but it doesn't rotate it the way I want. I saw one tool in flash toolbar called "Global transform" (Image 2). When I click it I see transformation lines for image (Image 3), that I need for rotation, the blue line is one I need (Z axis). But I don't know how to use that kind of transformation via code. I don't even know if that is local or global rotation. I hope you understand me, maybe pictures will help you! Thanks!
HERE IS DROPBOX LINK FOR IMAGES --> Dropbox Images
What you are trying to do is simply an issue of nesting elements and applying effects on them in certain ways.
To accomplish the rotation as you want, you'll want to create your roulette wheel image in 2D as if you were looking at from a birds eye view. I highly recommend creating this graphic in vector format. Import this graphic into Flash and turn it into a movieclip. For arguments sake, I'm going to give this movieclip an instance name of wheel so it is easy for us to follow along with these instructions. Now, within the wheel instance, you'll want to apply a rotation to the roulette wheel. You can accomplish this either by using a Motion tween on the timeline, but the best way would probably be to use a programmatic approach so you can randomize the rotation in some way.
Now, place the 'wheel' instance on the stage and use the 3D Rotation Tool and rotate the wheel on it's X axis, this will make the wheel look like one in your image.
Now if you have performed the rotation within the wheel instance properly, you will have your spinning wheel.
I've created a sample of what you want with the following files using Flash CC 2014 that you can download here:
FLA File
Sample compiled SWF FILE
There is actually some math involved in understanding 3D transformations - including rotations - and how they combine with each other.
If your are interested in further explanations, and have a bit of math background, have a look at the theory
otherwise, the first thing you should remember is that rotation/scaling/translations may be composed (combined) but that the order is very important. rotationX, rotationY, rotationZ are sort of "coordinates" that enable to describe any orientation in the vector space, like x,y,z describe any position. But they are not sufficient to allow to do any rotation around any axis from any current orientation.
In your case, what you want is to combine a rotation around it's own local z (blue) axis, which means before the initial rotation you have already applied. ex:
roulette.transform.matrix3D.prependRotation(10, new Vector3D(0,0,1));
where 10 would be the angle you chose for the rotation, and the pivot of your object would be the pivot of the rotation (ohterwise, specify your own pivot by passing an additional Vector3D
To complete the picture, if you use appendRotation() instead of prependRotation(), you will rotate your object in the z axis of the world (global) coordinates (after it's current trnasformation).
You may also as already suggested create a Symbol to use as a container, and rotate you object inside it's container, but messing with Matrix3D will give you more control in the end, often with just one line of code like in this case.

AS3 - What are the different methods of rendering animation on the screen?

I'm a beginner to AS3 and programming in general, but have learned enough that I want to now start learning how to render animations on the screen. These are the methods that I know of from two days of "researching" on google.
I'm not in a situation where I could afford to take courses from an educational institution, so my only means of learning are through online sources.
Update an objects x or y positions in a loop on every frame. Very basic. Of course any kind of advanced animation (say, showing a character running) is not possible with this method alone.
Using Flash and creating animation on a movie clip's timeline and, combined with moving the position of the object we can achieve some proper animation this way. However I cannot afford Flash, so this is not an option available to me. It also doesn't seem to be a popular option among more experienced programmers either (I think, due to having poor performance when lots of objects animating on the screen?)
Using a sprite sheet and then blitting the relevant image from the sprite sheet onto the screen.
Is there any other way to put an image from a sprite sheet onto the screen other than blitting?
And what other methods of rendering animation are available?
Some online websites claim that blitting is all I'll ever need, but I want to know all the options available so I could choose the most appropriate one for any given situation.
Any help would be appreciated :)
Another option for blitting is Stage3D. Take a look at Starling for 2D animations.
Blitting would be my best opinion. The only other thing I can think of is manually taking the images from the sprite sheet and putting it into each frame of an animation.
To render animation, you can create a frame in a MovieClip and convert it into a MovieClip and name the frame 'running'. Then you need to create an Enter Frame event where the MovieClip's instance name is 'Guy' and in the code on the function write 'Guy.x += 5;' to make your MovieClip go 5 pixels to the right every frame and also in the function write "Guy.gotoAndStop('running');"
Use TweenMax engine for better animation purposes. Easy coding, more Animation!!

Detect object over another object as3

let's say I have two shapes wrapped in Movieclip container. How can I detect if one shape is OVER another one? more precisely, whether one shape is covering a part/all of the other shape?
So far I've managed to do it by comparing coordinates of both shapes, but I'm wondering if there is some built-in function or an easier way to do it. Thanks
DisplayObject.hitTestObject(obj:DisplayObject):Boolean
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/reference/actionscript/3/flash/display/DisplayObject.html#hitTestObject()
If you need finer grain hit testing and are willing to work with BitmapData objects (you can draw a DisplayObject to BitmapData using BitmapData.draw(dispObj));
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/reference/actionscript/3/flash/display/BitmapData.html#hitTest()
Here are a couple ways you could do this:
flash.display.DisplayObject.hitTest()
or
flash.display.DisplayObject.getRect()
ex: sprite1.getRect(stage).intersects(sprite2.getRect(stage));
You can use hitTestObject http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/reference/actionscript/3/flash/display/DisplayObject.html#hitTestObject%28%29
trace(shape1.hitTestObject(shape2));
But keep in mind that this is a simplistic test if just the bounds of the objects overlap. If you want pixel-perfect collision testing you'll have to use some 3rd-party library such as http://www.freeactionscript.com/2011/08/as3-pixel-perfect-collision-detection/

Libs for complex animation of groups of objects in as3

Are there any libraries for animation groups of objects in as3?
I need something like this: for example, I specify an array of images and creates the animation of all objects in the array - fireworks, the spiral vortex, 3D rotation, undulating, etc. Tweenlite and other libraries not fit, because there is no pattern complex motion.
I need to quickly apply complex animation paths to the set of objects.
Particle systems, such as Flint Particles may be inline with what you are citing:
Flint Particle System
http://flintparticles.org/
Examples
http://flintparticles.org/examples/logo-firework
http://flintparticles.org/examples/firework
http://flintparticles.org/examples/firework-display-3d
http://flintparticles.org/examples/catherine-wheel