Detecting point where two objects collide - actionscript-3

I'm totally beginner in Flash and Actionscript so sorry if my questuon is stupid.
I have to make a platform game - I'm planning to write something like Icy Tower - my character is jumping from one platform to another to get to the top of a tower of something. And here is my problem - I want to allow the character to jump onto a platform only from the top, but if he collides with whe platform from the bottom, or from the side, I want him to bounce (I hope you understand what I want mean).
So, to do something like that, I need to be able to detect where exactly do these two objects collide - the only solutions that comes to my mind is to keep the coordinates of every platform in some array and compare them with the characeter's position evertime he jumps, but it just doesn't seem right. Is there an better way to solve this problem?
I will be grateful for any advice.
PS. Sorry for my English

You can make use of a game library like flixel, or flashpunk. They are both great.
Essentially, you will need to iterate over all objects that your character can collide with. You can make use of .hitTestObject() to roughly determine if your character is colliding with any of the objects. Thereafter you can then get the coordinates and dimensions of your character on the stage and compare them to the coordinates and dimensions of the hit object to determine directions.
So in psuedo code
for each (var platform:DisplayObject in platforms) {
if (character.hitTestObject(platform)) {
if (collideFromBottom || collideFromSide) {
// allow movement
}
if (collideFromTop) {
// stop downward velocity
}
break; // might as well, as you have detected the collision
}
}
CollideFromBottom would be comparing the top of your character with the bottom of the platform. Remember that as Sprites, both player and platform have [x,y] properties and [width,height], allowing you to determine coordinates.
P.S. this question should have been asked at gamedev.stackexchange.com

I'd recommend you to use a Physics Engine like Box2D(
behold the examples), instead of creating some hitTest colision based game from scratch.
The probability of you having serious code/design problems and leaving the project aside are big.
There's a lot of good tutorials on internet, here a good resource - Using Box2d to Create a Side Scrolling Game:
Part 1
Part 2

Related

How can I optimize rigid body collidsions with Ogre3D and BulletPhysics

I am developing some games with my friends, using Ogre3D and Bullet Physics.
I managed to get our game character moving (just simple run and turn).
I guess I can implement 'jumping' by this class:
btCollisionWorld::ClosestRayResultCallback res(btFrom, btTo);.
However, my big issue is collision optimization.
I tried:
adding 100~500 rigidbody objects (after we changed these to mapobject in our game)
one staticplanecollision object (ground)
one character rigidbody object
FPS for just moving on plane is 60~80 = ok. But when my character collides with any other rigidbody object, FPS is going down to 7.
I have no idea that fix this problem.
I am not useing DynamicCharacterController or KineticCharacterController.
Character is controlled by setLinearVelocity() and rigidbody->getWorldTransform().setRotation(quat) function
Some more information:
PhysicsManager::GetInstance()->getDynamicsWorld()->stepSimulation(evt.timeSinceLastFrame,8);
I've had this issue before, I don't know if that's your case, but we were implementing Damned (game), and when we modeled the kitchens we were using the stoves' meshes as collision objects (btDbvtTriangleMeshShape), and everytime the character got close to a stove the FPS went down...
The solution was to use a simple collision shape for each stove (like btCompound with a few boxes), and the FPS issue went away :)
Hope your issue is similar to this so you can solve it by reducing the complexity of the collision shapes you're using.
If this isn't the case, please, show me the code you run when handling your character (also, KinematicCharacterController is highly recommended, and moving from Bullet to PhysX is even more recommended ;D).
Best.

Moving character on a specific stage Actionscript 3

I'm making a game with ActionScript 3.0. There's is one thing I can't figure out:
I have a big circle on the background. On this circle I want to let a character randomly move. But this character can only move on this circle, so it can't go to the background. Where do I need to start with this, how can i specify a specific stage like this?
P.S. I can't upload a picture yet, I've not enough "reputation points", otherwise I would have uploaded some pictures to get my question more clearly.
A general idea around which you can evolve is using hitTestPoint() method on your stage using current player's coordinates as the point being tested, and if this method returns false, this means the player has left the stage, and you need to put him back. Using previous location is the failsafe method, but you might also invent some other more smart way to do this.
The manual on hitTestPoint()

Efficient collision detection in AS3

I have a problem with a game that I'm doing. I basically have objects that are in a map and I have to check for each of them if they collide with the walls (and then do something). Since was working with AS2, I thought about doing the same way: I drew a picture with only the walls, so with only rectangles and everything else in between is transparent (does not exist, then the floor for example). In AS2 I put the image to the screen, let's call it wall, and then I did a hitTest to wall with every object. That is for instance, the object was actually on the image, since that the transparent parts were part of it, but the function was testing only on the visible parts, and so with the walls. So it worked.
Now in AS3 there is no HitTest but hitTestObject, which I used, and I do for example wall.hitTestObject(object). The problem is that this function is as if it doens't see the transparencies, and the objects while not touching the walls collide with them!
I found the PixelPerfectCollisionDetection that actually solves the problem but it is huge and heavy so in my case, with so many objects to be tested (at least 60) at each frame, the game slows down a lot!
What I need is a function like hitTestObject (i don't need a lot of accuracy!) that take care of the transparent parts of an image.
How can I do?
As mentioned in the comments, physics/game libraries will have this code built-in for you and should work out of the box.
But if you want to build it yourself, or even introduce your own optimizations, the first step (which is very inexpensive) is checking for bounds collision using entirely built-in functionality of DisplayObject.getBounds and Rectangle.intersects (though you must do so in a consistent coordinate space, i.e. the stage):
if (obj1.getBounds(stage).intersects(obj2.getBounds(stage)) {
// Cheap bounds intersection is true, now do pixel-perfect detection...
}
Then if the bounds check is true, perform the pixel-perfect collision detection.
It seems that BitmapData.hitTest is your best bet - see a blog post by Mike Chambers.
Prior to this method, if you're interested in neat techniques, there was a method outlined by Grant Skinner in his blog. It's quite a clever algorithm using built-in bitmap routines (aka, fairly fast), creating a BitmapData only as large as the overlapping region (or even scaling that down), and drawing the two objects into specific channels of the bitmapdata, then using BitmapData.getColorBoundsRect() to determine if there are any pixels touch. I'm guessing BitmapData.hitTest is faster, but it'd be fun to compare.
I ran into the same problem and to be honest i found the easy way to get rid of that is just generating a "mask" layer for the collisions. You can always place this under your background so it doesn't show, or change the transparencies and whatsoever. Do this in Flash, and after "covering" with rectangles (or whatever) the collisions, just select them all and make that a movie clip.
I'm guessing since you made the symbol in Flash, it obviously knows that even if the symbol consists of several individual drawings or whatever, it's not just an image.
For me this worked fine .

Flash CS4 / AS3 symbol within symbols

I'm trying to create a multi-level dungeon adventure in Flash CS4. The layout is an instance created of a symbol called Level, within the symbol are multiple wall subsymbols (wall), instances of Wall. There is a collision routine to stop the player walking through the walls, called from Wall.As.
Level is drawn about the centre point (0,0).
When I create an instance on the stage of Level (level), the collision tester is using the xy coordinates for the walls drawn about 0,0, not the "real" xy where it's appearing on the stage.
So what I need to know, is how to "update" the xy for each wall subsymbol with the live stage information, overriding the XYs drawn in the parent. It has to be updated unfortunately (I can't keep it static), as the levels are big so have to scroll.
Thanks for your advice.
With all due respect forget your approach, you're reinventing the wheel for nothing and probably to end up getting worse performance. What you need is pixel-perfect collision detection and probably including basic physics so already we're talking a huge amount of work. If you want to build levels in a design way for a game, use this, it'll blow your mind how awesome/easy/cool this is:
http://www.gotoandlearn.com/play.php?id=135
Its always a guess when trying to answer questions like this, as there are a lot of unknowns. That being said, in programming, there are always more than a few ways to solve a problem. Examine your collision detection routine - if you worked with hitTestPoint, and the point that was being tested (mouseX,Y or your main actor) with localToGlobal, you likely wouldn't need to test for the x,y variables of your collision objects. Read up on those two subjects and this question might be rendered moot.
At any rate, you could update relative coordinates in your Wall.as instance by leveraging globlaToLocal:
public function get curLoc():Point
{
return globalToLocal(new Point(this.x, this.y));
}
and retrieve them from your parent class as a point you can then test against:
trace(_wall.curLoc);
Hope that helps
I suppose you could accomplish what you're trying to do by manipulating the transform property of the wall symbols, but honestly I would concur with Ascension Systems and just abandon your collision testing routine for something different.
You may not need to go all out with a physics engine for your game, in which case just use hitTestObject to do the collision detection.

Representing a Monopoly board in flash?

I'm brand new to Flash (and game programming, really), but want to learn a bit of it. My overall learning project is to create a Monopoly clone in Flash. Unfortunately, I'm struggling to get over even my first hurdle - how to create the board graphically, and how then to deal with it in the code. So far, my thoughts are to break the board down into the different sizes of tiles (the normal property ones, the corner 4 and a large one for the middle section), then somehow place these all in the correct position relative to each other and keep that positioning correct as the pieces (and thus the camera view) move about the board. (And, hopefully some day have a zooming ability too...)
Is this a good approach, or is there a better one? Does anyone know where I can find a tutorial specifically on creating board games in Flash (any sort really, wouldn't have to be Monopoly but just a game that has a board which tokens move across - and preferably which has to pan as well).
Also, as an aside, is there any way to have a dynamically coloured rectangle in a flash MovieClip (like you can have dynamic textboxs)? I ask because it would be useful if there was, as I could generate every property tile with just one MovieClip which took a name, a value and a colour...
everything you describe here you can do pretty easily once you get the hang of component sprites. personally i would make a single sprite that will then hold all of the "tiles" in the game, this would allow you to "zoom" the board while keeping all the pieces relative:
if you create this parent to have an addTile() and getTile(index:int):Sprite method then you can easily push the tiles and retrieve them from an array, so that Go is at index 0, old kent road is at 1 etc. that way you can use a single integer value to determine the position of the player piece as you can then use getTile(int).x etc.
the position of the tiles themselves can be worked out relative to the others. if you have a tile that is 20px wide and 40px high then you can position the tile as x = index * 20 for the first row, after the initial 11, you need to rotate them all and then use the y index instead (rotation = 90; x = 11*20; y = (index-11)*20) this will depend exactly on your origin point of your Sprite.
to draw coloured boxes you use the graphics of the Sprite, there are plenty of tuts on API drawing out there, but here is a basic box of 10x10px:
var drawing:Sprite = new Sprite();
drawing.graphics.beginFill(0x0000FF);
drawing.graphics.drawRect(0, 0, 10, 10);
drawing.graphics.endFill();
Another approach to your question could be to learn about Object Oriented Programming. That may not solve your representing the board graphically straight away, but it would definitely help you structure your game.
With OOP, you could define a "Property" Class with a set of properties such as streetName , color , price etc... I haven't played Monopoly in a while but you can get the general idea, i.e. to create a base object and make it specific by setting the object's properties. Your question about the colored rectangle can actually apply to other properties, a great way to avoid unnecessary repetition.
Broadly speaking OOP tends to emulate real life situations, so you could actually look at your Monopoly game, break it into its various parts, find common properties etc... I won't start a lesson here :) I'd be pretty bad at it, but there's plenty of resources out there . Look for OOP, Design Patterns & Actionscript3.
After a little research, you may find that your question about how to handle graphics may not be such a problem after all.
Your questions are way too general. I'm sure you don't want us to walk you through your whole project right?
Now to gain some experience, I suggest to you simply work through a few flash gaming tutorials. There are a LOT of those, I googled for 2-3 seconds and found this:
http://pelfusion.com/tutorials/35-flash-game-development-tutorials-fla-files/
I'm sure you feel disappointed by this answer, but this is the first step in solving your own problems. The internet has more than enough general game tutorials already. If you have specific problems, we might be of better help to you.
I assume with dynamically colored rectangles, you mean simply changing the color during runtime. Well you simply give the rectangle a name, and change the color property of it in code. Like this: rectangle.Color = Something.
You might want to start out with a simpler project just to learn some of the basics, maybe a little game where the player has to move a rectangle from one side of the screen to the other using the arrow keys or mouse, upon which a score is incremented or something. This will help teach you how the coordinate system works, among other things.
To draw stuff using code, you can create a new Sprite or MovieClip object and use its graphics property to draw primitive shapes (rectangles, etc.) to it at runtime.