I want to do something like this with AS3, but I'm new to AS3 and I'm not sure how to go about the coding.
What I need to do is I have 1 x blank MC called all_mc, inside that I need to have 200 x empty_mc all lined up one after another on the x axis.
Each empty_mc is 100px wide and load from a Linkage in the library called panelClass (which is a MovieClip).
The empty_mc itself is called emptyClass in the library.
I need the all_mc to display on the stage from start. It should look like this image. The I need 200 of these red squares.
I know instead of adding all 200 MCs manually, I should be making a loop? But I can not get my head around it for the life of me. Can someone please kindly help me out?
Just make a loop and dynamically create your MovieClips:
var mcWidth:Number = 100; // Using hardcoded value because MovieClip.width is not always reliable (if the MovieClip contains shapes with strokes, etc.)
for (var i:int = 0; i < 200; i++) {
var mc:panelClass = new panelClass();
all_mc.addChild(mc);
mc.name = "empty_mc" + i; // set a name so that it can be accessed later on
mc.x = mcWidth * i;
}
Related
The statement for takes a triple as an argument
(initial value of i, condition to cease looping, i increment)
I want to create a different movie clip each time the loop goes on.
So, I tried:
for (i = 0; i < 9; i++){
var Unit+i:MovieClip = new MovieClip()
}
But, this triggers the following error:
1086: Syntax error: expecting semicolon before plus"
What's the correct syntax, then?
To address the issue. You cannot create a var dynamically by using the var keyword. So doing var Unit+i will give you a syntax error.
You can create an array ahead of time and put your objects in that (as per #Panzercrisis's answer which is perfectly acceptable).
Other ways you can do this:
If you current context is dynamic (like if this is timeline code or part of a dynamic class like MovieClip), you do something like this:
this["Unit"+i] = new MovieClip();
From a compile time checking and code maintenance perspective, this is a little sloppy in my opinion, but for quick timeline projects it's certainly acceptable.
You could also just not store the clip anywhere but the display list:
for(var i:int=0;i<9;i++){
var mc:MovieClip = new MovieClip();
//do whatever you need to do to the clip
//like draw something for instance
mc.graphics.beginFill(0xFF0000);
mc.graphics.drawRect(0,0,100,100);
addChild(mc); //add to the display list so you can see it
}
If you never need to remove this clip, this way is great.
Or, you could add them to a container display object
var clipContainer:Sprite = new Sprite(); //Sprite is the same as movie clip but without the timeline stuff
addChild(clipContainer);
for(var i:int=0;i<9;i++){
var mc:MovieClip = new MovieClip();
//do whatever you need to do to the clip
//like draw something for instance
mc.graphics.beginFill(0xFF0000);
mc.graphics.drawRect(0,0,100,100);
clipContainer.addChild(mc);
}
The clipContainer would then act the same as an array, where you can access all it's children. Also, moving/scalling the container would in turn move/scale all it's children
Basically this is what you want to do:
var arrMovieClips:Array = new Array(9);
for (var i:int = 0; i < arrMovieClips.length; i++)
{
arrMovieClips[i] = new MovieClip();
}
This will create an array with nine elements, so you essentially have nine variables in a row:
arrMovieClips[0]
arrMovieClips[1]
arrMovieClips[2]
...
arrMovieClips[8]
Then it will go through and loop 0, 1, 2, etc. When it gets to the length of arrMovieClips, which is 9, then it'll stop. As it goes through 0-8, it'll create a new MovieClip and store it in each spot.
I am using a tileList in ActionScript 3 to display movieclips. However I have the problem that not all reference points of the movieclips are in the correct place. This leads to that these movieclips are shown partly outside of their cell in the tileList.
I have tried to adjust the x and y position of the movieClip before adding it to the tileList, but this did not change anything. Now I have tried to find if it is possible to change the x and y position of an object already in the tileList, but without finding any answers.
I hope that I have made my problem clear.
Thanks in advance!
EDIT:
This is the code I tried:
private function initTileList():void {
for(var i:int = 0; i < _movieClips.length; i++) {
changePos(_movieClips[i]);
tileList.addItem({label: _movieClips[i].name, source: _movieClips[i]});
}
}
private function changePos(mc:MovieClip):void {
if(MovieClip(mc).getRect(mc).x != 0) {
mc.x -= MovieClip(mc).getRect(stateMachineRef).x;
}
if(MovieClip(mc).getRect(mc).y != 0) {
mc.y -= MovieClip(mc).getRect(stateMachineRef).y;
}
}
I do not have any errors, it just doesn't affect the position of the object in the tileList.
Example of how the problem looks.
Hard to say where's the problem without knowing these things:
1. What tileList.AddItem() does exactly;
2. What is stateMachineRef
3. How MovieClips are loaded. If they are loaded from a network, that'll be a whole different story.
By the way, you don't have to cast MovieClip(mc) as mc is already a MovieClip. Also, there is no difference as to when you will correct the coordinates: before or after adding to the tileList. Should work either way.
So, given that information on your problem is not complete, I would just suggest you insure the following steps:
-We assume all tiles are displayed inside a tile container. It can be Stage or a MovieClip or any suitable DisplayObjectContainer, so let's call it just tileContainer from now on.
-We assume all tiles are of the same width and height. If you are not sure, you should check it again.
-We assume that each tile in the tileContainer is displayed at some regular grid coordinates. I.e. it conforms the following code:
for (var pos_y:int = 0; pos_y < GRID_SIZE_Y; pos_y++) {
for (var pos_x:int = 0; pos_x < GRID_SIZE_X; pos_x++) {
var tile:Tile = getNextTile(); // just get a tile from somewhere
tile.source.x = pos_x * TILE_WIDTH; // using your tile structure
tile.source.y = pos_y * TILE_HEIGHT;
tileContainer.addChild(tile.source);
}
}
Now I see your problem that some tiles are created in a way that they have their source movieclip coordinates shifted from (0,0). So they will not align with the grid.
What are you doing seems to be a proper way of aligning them but I don't know exactly what happens in your code so I'll just rewrite it:
function changePos(mc:MovieClip) {
var r:Rectangle = mc.getRect(mc);
mc.x -= r.x; // note you don't need any if's
mc.y -= r.y;
}
And in the above loop just add the changePos() AFTER setting the grid coordinates:
tile.source.x = pos_x * TILE_WIDTH;
tile.source.y = pos_y * TILE_HEIGHT;
changePos(tile.source);
tileContainer.addChild(tile.source);
If you're following all these steps, that's basically all you need and it will work for sure.
Hey everyone so having a little trouble trying to accomplish this. I understand how to add lives and display them through a Dynamic Text Field on the stage. My game is set up right now to where this happens and whenever the player dies a live decrements so it works fine.
But I want to display and Image of all 3 lives a custom Movie Clip that I drew in Flash CS6 to represent the lives. So All 3 lives will be displayed in the game and once the player dies one of the lives images is removed.
I have some idea on what to do. For instance I created a "for loop" to display all 3 images on the screen and created variables to place them horizontally next to each other with a space of 30 pixels.
But I'm not sure if this is the correct way to approach this. Also kind of confused on how I would remove one of the images when the player dies?
Her is my code so far:
public var playerLives:mcPlayerLives;
private var nLives:Number = 3;
private var startPoint:Point;
private var aPlayerLivesArray:Array;
In my main class Engine:
aPlayerLivesArray = new Array;
addPlayerLivesToStage();
Then the addplayerlivestostage function:
public function addPlayerLivesToStage():void
{
var startPoint:Point = new Point((stage.stageWidth / 2) - 300, (stage.stageHeight / 2) - 200);
var xSpacing:Number = 30;
for (var i = 0; i < nLives; i++)
{
trace(aPlayerLivesArray.length);
playerLives = new mcPlayerLives();
stage.addChild(playerLives);
playerLives.x = startPoint.x + (xSpacing * i);
playerLives.y = startPoint.y;
aPlayerLivesArray.push(playerLives);
}
}
So like i stated above everything works fine and it does display the 3 images that represent the lives, but would this be the correct approach or is there an easier method?
i think you're using right way to add lives.
and for removing them, you don't need to remove all and add new lives, you can remove the last element of lives array, so, it's done, i think thats already an easy method
so, you can implement this
for (var i = 0; i < nLives; i++)
to make a better usage for "adding lives in-game (earning lives)"
something like
for (var i = aPlayerLivesArray.length; i < nLives; i++)
but don't forget to decrease array length by 1 after removing last element of livesArray when player dies
Looks pretty close to a reasonable approach. I would have a blank container movieclip on stage where you want the lives icons to display. Create one life icon in your library and link it for export with actionscript. When you generate your game view, you can populate this container with the starting value of three lives. Place the first one, then place the subsequent ones based on the first location.
Some untested code:
NOTE: The following presumes your container clip for the lives is named lives_container and your link instance name for the life icon in the library is Life_icon.
var numberOfLives:Number = 3;
var iconSpacing:Number = 5;
var nextX:Number = 0;
for(var i:int = 0; i < numberOfLives; i++ )
{
var icon:MovieClip = new Life_icon();
icon.x = nextX;
lives_container.addChild( icon );
nextX += icon.width + iconSpacing;
}
This way you could add extra lives easily if the player gained any by adding new icons at the last nextX value, like so:
function addLife():void
{
var icon:MovieClip = new Life_icon();
icon.x = nextX;
lives_container.addChild( icon );
nextX += icon.width + iconSpacing;
}
or remove them as the player loses them:
function removeLife():void
{
var numberOfLivesDisplayed:Number = lives_container.numChildren();
lives_container.removeChildAt( numberOfLivesDisplayed - 1 );
nextX -= icon.width + iconSpacing;
}
Using a container clip for the lives icons makes adjusting the location of the life icons easier if it becomes necessary later.
So, I'm trying to get a few movieclips to follow it's precursor and have the last one follow the mouse. The problem is I'm creating them from code instead of using the interface and, since I'm not an expert, I can't get them to work.
All I have in the library is a MovieClip(linkage:"LETRA") which contains a textField inside(instance name:"myTextField").
Here's what I have:
import flashx.textLayout.operations.MoveChildrenOperation;
import flash.display.MovieClip;
import flash.events.Event;
//this are the letters that will be following the mouse
var phrase:Array = ["H","a","c","e","r"," ","u","n"," ","p","u","e","n","t","e"];
//variable to spread them instead of creating them one of top of each other
var posXLetter:Number = 0;
//looping through my array
for (var i:Number = 0; i < phrase.length; i++)
{
//create an instance of the LETRA movieclip which contains a text field inside
var newLetter:MovieClip = new LETRA();
//assing a letter to that text field matching the position of the phrase array
newLetter.myTextField.text = phrase[i];
//assign X position to the letter I'm going to add
newLetter.x = posXLetter;
//add properties for storing the letter position
var distx:Number = 0;
var disty:Number = 0;
//add the listener and the function which will move each letter
newLetter.addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, moveLetter);
function moveLetter(e:Event){
distx = newLetter.x - mouseX;
disty = newLetter.y - mouseY;
newLetter.x -= distx / 10;
newLetter.y -= disty / 10;
}
//add each letter to the stage
stage.addChild(newLetter);
//increment the next letter's x position
posXLetter += 9;
}
With that code, only one letter is following the mouse (the "E") and the rest are staying where I added them using addChild and the posXLetter variable.
Also, I'm trying to get it to behave more like a trail, so if I move up, the letters will lag beneath me; if I move to the left, the letters will lag to my right but I think that with my current approach they will either A) move all together to the same spot or B) always hang to the left of the cursor.
Thanks for any possible help.
This is a kind of motion called Inverse Kinematics and it is a quite popular way to make rag dolls in games. It uses a design pattern called the Composite Pattern where one object adds another object as a child of its and then when it's update() function if called, it calls all of its (usually one) child's update() functions. The most common example of this is of a snake. The snake's head follows your mouse, and the rest of the snake's body pieces move with the snake, and it looks immensely realistic. This exact example is explained and build here although it does not include joint restrictions at all.
This example is in the middle of a book, and so may be hard to start reading, but if your somewhat familiar with design patterns and/or have some intermediate experience with programming, then i'm sure you can understand it. I advise that you, after reading and understanding the example, scratch what you have now because it is not very elegant coding. You may feel that this example uses too many classes, but trust me, its worth it as it allows you to very easily edit your code, if you decide to change it in the future, with no drawbacks.
Also, i know that this snake is not what you want, but if you understand the concept then you can apply it to your own specific needs.
I hope this helps.
I think it is a scoping issue. You might need to modify your handler
function moveLetter(e:Event){
trace(e.target); //check if this is the right movie clip
distx = e.target.x - mouseX;
disty = e.target.y - mouseY;
e.target.x -= distx / 10;
e.target.y -= disty / 10;
}
Well, I'm doing a checkers game and I need to refer a piece by its position (x and y, both) and remove it from the screen (no problem with this).
I've been traying combinations with "this." but nothing.
How would you do that?
this.x and this.y are functional from the scope of your checkers pieces object; however, if you're accessing a piece outside of their scope, you must use a piece's instance name. Although not optimal, you could loop through children DisplayObjects.
// create a collection of your checker pieces
var checkers:Array = [];
// create a checker piece, whatever your DisplayObject class is.
var checker:Checker;
checkers.push(checker);
// add it to the stage, probably your game board
addChild(checker);
checker.x = 100;
checker.y = 100;
// loop through the children (from your game board)
for (var i:uint = 0; i < numChildren; i++)
{
var checker:DisplayObject = getChildAt(i);
trace(checker.x);
trace(checker.y);
}
Using coordinates to reference a piece may not be optimal for game play. You might want to consider a row / column or approach it from how your game board works.
If this is not clear, you should specify some code or expand your question with more detail.