How to do slow motion effect in flash game with box2d - actionscript-3

As i am working on top view racing game in which am trying to add slow motion effect when a car hits objects. I have tried with decreasing Stage.frameRate but the game appears lagging. and i have also tried with online tutorial called touch my pixel ( ref : http://blog.touchmypixel.com/2009/12/box2d-contactpoint-filtering/ ). But i didn't understand.
Is there any solution for showing such kind of slow motion effect. can anybody help me in this regard
Thanks and regards,
Chandrasekhar

Easiest way would be to have a global modifier property somewhere which can be used to multiply the movement of everything in the game.
For example, you could have the property speedModifier default to 1.
public var speedModifier:Number = 1;
And whenever you apply velocities, just multiply by the modifier:
body.SetLinearVelocity( new b2Vec2(x * speedModifier, y * speedModifier) );
This way all you need to do to half the speed of the game is to half the modifier:
speedModifier = 0.5;
To keep your code tidier and make managing this component of your game easier, there is probably a straightforward way to iterate over all of the bodies within the Box2D world and modify their velocities at the top of each update step. Something along the lines of:
for each(var i:b2Body in world.GetBodyList())
{
var currentVel:b2Vec2 = i.GetLinearVelocity();
var newVel:b2Vec2 = new b2Vec2(
currentVel.x * speedModifier,
currentVel.y * speedModifier
);
i.SetLinearVelocity( newVel );
}

Related

How to get collision between bat of player and ball and ignore player's body

I have baseball player animation where player are hitting with bat, I have 90 frames in that animation and on sprite for ball. I added circle physic body to ball. How to make, what is a concept, to get collision only with ball and bat and not between player's body and ball ?
Bat is on every image together with player.
I am using Cocos2d-x and Chipmunk but I can switch to Box2d easily if this problem is solvable.
What you are looking for is a way to distinguish between collisions in your physics world. When using box2D you can set the user data for the physics body. When a collision happens you can get the two bodies that are colliding and get the user information set on it. Then handle your collision appropriately.
Pseudo-code below to create a body:
b2BodyDef ballBodyDef;
ballBodyDef.type = b2_dynamicBody;
ballBodyDef.position.Set(tileNode->getPositionX() / Pixel_To_Meter_Ratio,
tileNode->getPositionY()/ Pixel_To_Meter_Ratio);
auto b2CircleShape ballShape;
ballShape->m_radius = ballSize / PTM_RATIO; // Pixel to meter ration is 32.0 in my project
auto ballBody= physicsWorld->CreateBody(ballBodyDef);
// This will be used later on when you want to have different reactions for different collisions.
ballBody->SetUserData("BallBody");
Using similar code above create your bat body (will not put all the code below).
...
auto batBody = physicsWorld->CreateBody(batBodyDef);
batBody->setUserData("BatBody");
When doing your check in your contact listener you can ignore all collisions that has user data that does not match BallBody and BatBody. Something like below in your collision handler.
auto objectOne = contact->GetFixtureA()->GetBody();
auto objectTwo = contact->GetFixtureB()->GetBody();
auto objectOneUserData = (objectOne->GetUserData());
auto objectTwoUserData = (objectTwo->GetUserData());
Do your checks on the userData above and return out of the function. This should do the trick. It's what I use to handle or ignore specific types of collisions.
I hope this helps.

Best and most performant implementation of dynamic shapes in cesium

I am currently working an application that is using a Cesium Viewer. I need to be able to display a collection of shapes that will be updated dynamically. I am having trouble understanding the best way to do this.
I currently am using Entities and using CallbackProperties to allow for the updating of shapes.
You can through this into a sandcastle to get an idea of how I am doing this. There is a polygon object that is being used as the basis for the cesiumCallback, and it is getting edited by another piece of code. (simulated with the setTimeout)
var viewer = new Cesium.Viewer('cesiumContainer', {});
var polygon = {};
polygon.coordinates = [
{longitude: 0, latitude: 0, altitude: 0},
{longitude: 10, latitude: 10, altitude: 0},
{longitude: 10, latitude: 0, altitude: 0}
];
// converts generic style options to cesium one (aka color -> material)
var polOpts = {};
// function for getting location
polOpts.hierarchy = new Cesium.CallbackProperty(function() {
var hierarchy = [];
for (var i = 0; i < polygon.coordinates.length; i++) {
var coordinate = polygon.coordinates[i];
hierarchy.push(Cesium.Cartesian3.fromDegrees(coordinate.longitude, coordinate.latitude, coordinate.altitude));
}
return hierarchy;
}, false);
viewer.entities.add({polygon: polOpts});
setInterval(function(polygon){
polygon.coordinates[0].longitude--;
}.bind(this, polygon), 1000);
The polygon being passed in is a class that generically describes a polygon, so it has an array of coordinates and style options, as well as a render method that calls this method renderPolygon passing in itself.
This method of rendering shapes works for everything I need it to, but it is not very performant. There are two cases for shapes updating, one type of shape will be updated over a long period of time, as a slow rate like once every few seconds. The other is shapes that will will get updated many times, like thousands, in a few seconds, then not change again for a long time, if ever.
I had two ideas for how to fix this.
Idea 1:
Have two methods, a renderDynamicPolygon and a renderStaticPolygon.
The renderDynamicPolygon method would do the above functionality, using the cesiumCallbackProperties. This would be used for shapes that are getting updated many times during the short time they are being updated.
The renderStaticPolygon method would replace the entities properties that are using callbackProperties with constant values, once the updating is done.
This creates a lot of other work to make sure shapes are in the right state, and doesn't help the shapes that are being updated slowly over a long period of time.
Idea 2:
Similarly to how the primitives work, I tried removing the old entity and adding it again with its updated properties each time its need to be updated, but this resulted in flickering, and unlike primitives, i could not find a async property for entities.
I also tried using primitives. It worked great for polylines, I would simply remove the old one and add a new one with the updated properties. I was also using the async = false to ensure there was no flickering. This issue I ran into here was not all shapes can be created using primitives. (Is this true?)
The other thing I tried was using the geometry instance using the geometry and appearance. After going through the tutorial on the cesium website I was able to render a few shapes, and could update the appearance, but found it close to impossible to figure out how to update the shapes correctly, and also have a very hard time getting them to look correct. Shapes need to have the right shape, a fill color and opacity and a stroke color, opacity and weight. I tried to use the polygonOutlineGeometry, but had not luck.
What would be the best way to implement this? Are one of these options headed the right way or is there some other method of doing this I have not uncovered yet?
[Edit] I added an answer of where I have gotten, but still not complete and looking for answers.
I have came up with a pretty good solution to this, but it still has one small issue.
I made too ways of showing entities. I am calling one render and one paint. Render uses the the Cesium.CallbackProperty with the isConstant property true, and paint with the isConstantProperty false.
Then I created a function to change the an entity from render to paint and vice vera. It goes through the entities callback properties an uses the setCallback property to overwrite the property with a the correct function and isConstant value.
Example:
I create a ellipse based on a circle object I have defined.
// isConst is True if it is being "painted" and false if it is being "rendered"
ellipse: lenz.util.extend(this._getStyleOptions(circle), {
semiMinorAxis: new Cesium.CallbackProperty(
this._getRadius.bind(this, circle),
isConst
),
semiMajorAxis: new Cesium.CallbackProperty(
this._getRadius.bind(this, circle),
isConst
),
})
So when the shape is being updated (while the user is drawing a shape) the shape is rendered with the isConstant being false.
Then when the drawing is complete it is converted to the painted version using some code like this:
existingEntity.ellipse.semiMinorAxis.setCallback(
this._getRadius.bind(this, circle),
isConst
);
existingEntity.ellipse.semiMajorAxis.setCallback(
this._getRadius.bind(this, circle, 1),
isConst
);
This works great performance wise. I am able to draw hundreds of shapes without the frame dropping much at all. I have attached a screen shot of the cesium map with 612 entities before and after my changes, the frame rate is in the upper right using the chrome render tool.
Before: Locked up at fps 0.9
Note: I redacted the rest of the ui, witch makes the globe look cut off, sorry
And after the changes: The fps remains at 59.9, almost perfect!
Whenever the entity is 'converted' from using constant to not constant callback properties, it and all other entities of the same type flash off then on again. I cannot find a better way to do this conversion. I feel as thought there must still be some thing I am missing.
You could try using a PositionPropertyArray as the polygon's hierarchy with SampledPositionProperty for any dynamic positions and ConstantPositionProperty for any static positions. I'm not sure if it would perform any better than your solution, but it might be worth testing. Here is an example of how it might work that you can paste into the Cesium Sandcastle:
var viewer = new Cesium.Viewer('cesiumContainer', {});
// required if you want no interpolation of position between times
var noInterpolation = {
type: 'No Interpolation',
getRequiredDataPoints: function (degree) {
return 2;
},
interpolateOrderZero: function (x, xTable, yTable, yStride, result) {
if (!Cesium.defined(result)) {
result = new Array(yStride);
}
for (var i = 0; i < yStride; i++) {
result[i] = yTable[i];
}
return result;
}
};
var start = viewer.clock.currentTime;
// set up the sampled position property
var sampledPositionProperty = new Cesium.SampledPositionProperty();
sampledPositionProperty.forwardExtrapolationType = Cesium.ExtrapolationType.HOLD;
sampledPositionProperty.addSample(start, new Cesium.Cartesian3.fromDegrees(0, 0)); // initial position
sampledPositionProperty.setInterpolationOptions({
interpolationAlgorithm: noInterpolation
});
// set up the sampled position property array
var positions = [
sampledPositionProperty,
new Cesium.ConstantPositionProperty(new Cesium.Cartesian3.fromDegrees(10, 10)),
new Cesium.ConstantPositionProperty(new Cesium.Cartesian3.fromDegrees(10, 0))
];
// add the polygon to Cesium viewer
var polygonEntity = new Cesium.Entity({
polygon: {
hierarchy: new Cesium.PositionPropertyArray(positions)
}
});
viewer.zoomTo(viewer.entities.add(polygonEntity));
// add a sample every second
var counter = 1;
setInterval(function(positionArray) {
var time = new Cesium.JulianDate.addSeconds(start, counter, new Cesium.JulianDate());
var position = new Cesium.Cartesian3.fromDegrees(-counter, 0);
positionArray[0].addSample(time, position);
counter++;
}.bind(this, positions), 1000);
One nice thing about this is you can set the timeline start/end time to a reasonable range and use it to see your polygon at any time within the sample range so you can see the history of your polygons through time (See here for how to change the timeline start/end time). Additionally, you don't need to use timers to set the positions, the time is built in to the SampledPositionProperty (although you can still add samples asynchronously).
However, this also means that the position depends on the current time in the timeline instead of a real-time array value. And you might need to keep track of a time somewhere if you aren't adding all the samples at once.
I've also never done this using ellipses before, but the semiMinorAxis and semiMajorAxis are properties, so you might still be able to use a SampledProperty.
Of course, this doesn't really matter if there are still performance issues. Hopefully it will improve as you don't need to recreate the array from scratch each callback and, depending on how you're getting the data to update the polygons, you might be able to add multiple samples at once. This is just speculation, but it's something to consider.
EDIT
Cesium can handle quite a bit of samples added to a sampled position, for example in the above code if you add a million samples to the position it takes a few seconds to load them all, but renders the polygon at any time without any performance issues. To test this, instead of adding samples using a timer, just add them all directly to the property.
for (var i = 0; i < 1000000; i++) {
var time = new Cesium.JulianDate.addSeconds(start, i, new Cesium.JulianDate());
var position = new Cesium.Cartesian3.fromDegrees(-(i % 2), 0);
positions[0].addSample(time, position);
}
However, if you run into memory problems currently there is no way to remove samples from a position property without accessing private variables. A work around would be to periodically create a new array containing new position properties and use the previous position property array's setValue() method to clear previous values or perhaps to use a TimeIntervalCollectionProperty as in this answer and remove time intervals with the removeInterval method.

Actionscript 3- Random movement on stage? Also, Boundaries?

I'm trying to code something where there are creatures running back and forth, up and down across the stage, and I the player, have to try to go up to them, and pick them up. There are also boundaries on stage-
The map constraints- a big rectangle box is easy enough to accomplish. I've done this.
The boundaries within the map, which are also rectangles, but instead of bouncing the player back INSIDE the rectangle, I'm trying to do the opposite- keep the player out of it.
My code for it looks like this as of now:
//Conditions that check if player/monsters are hittesting the boxes (rocks
//and stuff), then if correct, bounce them away. Following code excludes
//the monsters for simplicity.
if((mcPlayer.x - aBounceBox[b].x) < 0 && mcPlayer.y <= (aBounceBox[b].y + aBounceBox[b].height/2) && mcPlayer.y >= (aBounceBox[b].y - aBounceBox[b].height/2))
{
mcPlayer.x = aBounceBox[b].x - aBounceBox[b].width/2 - mcPlayer.width/2;
}
//Duplicate above code for right side of box here
if((mcPlayer.y - (aBounceBox[b].y + aBounceBox[b].height/2)) < 0 && (mcPlayer.x + mcPlayer.width/2) > (aBounceBox[b].x - aBounceBox[b].width/2) && (mcPlayer.x - mcPlayer.width/2) < (aBounceBox[b].x + aBounceBox[b].width/2))
{
mcPlayer.y = aBounceBox[b].y + aBounceBox[b].height/2;
}
//Duplicate above code for Upper boundary of box here
The above doesn't work very well because the code to bounce for the left and right sides of the box conflicts with the upper and lower parts of the box I'm hit-testing for. Any ideas how to do that smoothly?
Also, another problem I am having is the pathing for the monsters in the game. I'm trying to get them to do the following:
Move around "organically", or a little randomly- move a little, stop. If they encounter a boundary, they'd stop and move, elsewhere. Not concerned where to, as long as they stop moving into rocks and trees, things like that.
Not overlap as much as possible as the move around on stage.
To push each other apart if they are overlapping, although I'd like to allow them to overlap very slightly.
I'm building that code slowly, but I thought I'd just ask if anyone has any ideas on how to do that.
To answer your first question, you may try to implement a new class/object which indicates the xy-offset between two display objects. In order to illustrate the idea more clearly, you can have a function similar to this:
public function getOffset(source:DisplayObject, target:DisplayObject):Object {
var dx:Number = target.x - source.x;
var dy:Number = target.y - source.y;
return { x:dx, y:dy };
}
Check if the hero character is colliding with another object first by hitTestObject(displayObj) of DisplayObject class. Proceed if the result is true.
Suppose you pass in your hero character as the source object, and another obstacle as the target object,
var offset:Object = getOffset(my_hero.mc, some_obstacle.mc);
After getting the resulting offset values, compare the magnitude (absolute value) of offset.x and offset.y. The outcome can be summarized as follows:
Let absDx be Math.abs(offset.x), absDy be Math.abs(offset.y),
absDx < absDy
offset.y < 0, target is above source
offset.y > 0, target is below source
absDx > absDy
offset.x < 0, target is to the left of source
offset.x > 0, target is to the right of source
absDx == absDy
refer to one of the above cases, doesn't really matter
Then you can update the position of your hero character according to different situations.
For your second question concerning implementing a very simple AI algorithm for your creatures, you can make use of the strategy above for your creatures to verify if they collide with any other stuff or not. If they do collide, assign them other directions of movement, or even simpler, just flip the signs(+/-) of their velocities and they will travel in opposite directions.
It is easier to implement simple algorithms first. Once it is working, you can apply whatever enhancements you like afterwards. For example, change directions when reaching junctions or per 3 seconds etc.

AS3 additive tone synthesis. playing multiple generated sounds

Inspired by Andre michelle, I`m building a tone matrix in AS3.
I managed to create the matrix and generate the different sounds. They don´t sound that good, but I´m getting there
One big problem I have is when more than one dot is set to play, it sounds just horrible. I googled a lot and found the additive synthesis method but don´t have a clue how to apply it to as3.
anybody out there knows how to play multiple sounds together? any hint?
my demo is at www.inklink.co.at/tonematrix
Oh common the sound was horrible...
Checked wiki? It is not that hard to understand... Even if you don't know that much of mathematics... Which you should - PROGRAMMING music is not easy.
So:
Let's first define something:
var harmonics:Array = new Array();
harmonics is the array in which we will store individual harmonics. Each child will be another array, containing ["amplitude"] (technically the volume), ["frequency"] and ["wavelength"] (period). We also need a function that can give us the phase of the wave given the amplitude, wavelength and offset (from the beginning of the wave). For square wave something like:
function getSquarePhase(amp:Number, wl:Number, off:Number):Number {
while (off > wl){off -= wl;}
return (off > wl / 2 ? -amp : amp); // Return amp in first half, -amp in 2.
}
You might add other types, or even custom vector waves if you want.
Now for the harder part.
var samplingFrequency; // set this to your SF
function getAddSyn(harmonics:Array, time:Number):Number {
if (harmonics.length == 1){ // We do not need to perform AS here
return getSquarePhase(harmonics[0]["amplitude"], harmonics[0]["wavelength"], time);
} else {
var hs:Number = 0;
hs += 0.5 * (harmonics[0]["amplitude"] * Math.cos(getSquarePhase(harmonics[0]["amplitude"], harmonics[0]["wavelength"], time)));
// ^ You can try to remove the line above if it does not sound right.
for (var i:int = 1; i < harmonics.length; i++){
hs += (harmonics[0]["amplitude"] * Math.cos(getSquarePhase(harmonics[0]["amplitude"], harmonics[0]["wavelength"], time)) * Math.cos((Math.PI * 2 * harmonics[0]["frequency"] / samplingFrequency) * time);
hs -= Math.sin(getSquarePhase(harmonics[0]["amplitude"], harmonics[0]["wavelength"], time)) * Math.sin((Math.PI * 2 * harmonics[0]["frequency"] / samplingFrequency) * time);
}
return hs;
}
}
This is all just converted (weakly :D) from the Wikipedia, I may have done a mistake somewhere in there... But I think you should get the idea... And if not, try to convert the AS from Wikipedia yourself, as I said, it is not so hard.
I also somehow ignored the Nyquist frequency...
I have tried your demo and thought it sounded pretty good actually. What do you mean it doesn't sound that good? What's missing? My main area of interest is music and I haven't found anything wrong , only it's a little frustrating , because after creating a sequence, I feel the need to add new sounds! Had I been able to record what I was playing with, I would have sent it to you.
Going into additive synthesis doesn't look like a light undertaking though. How far do you want to push it, would you want to create some form of synthesizer?

Walkcycles and timing in pygame

I have a pygame.Timer running in my game calling a draw function 32 times/second. The drawing method gets positions from all elements on my screen and blits them accordingly. However, I want the main character to walk around slower than other objects move.
Should I set up a timer specifically for it or should I just blit the same frames several times? Is there any better way to do it? A push in the right direction would be awesome :)
(If anyone's interested, here is the code that currently controls what frames to send to the drawing: http://github.com/kallepersson/subterranean-ng/blob/master/Player.py#L88)
Your walk cycle frame (like all motion) should be a function of absolute time, not of frame count. e.g.:
def walk_frame(millis, frames_per_second, framecount, start_millis=0):
millis_per_frame = 1000 / frames_per_second
elapsed_millis = millis - start_millis
total_frames = elapsed_millis / millis_per_frame
return total_frames % framecount