Tag Archives: flash

Relative Positioning

Actionscript:
  1. var size:Array = [1, 1.5, .5, 1, .4, 1, 1, 1, .2, 1.1]
  2. var boxes:Array = new Array();
  3. var spacing:Number = 4;
  4. var container:Sprite = Sprite(addChild(new Sprite()));
  5. container.x = container.y = 100;
  6.  
  7. for (var i:int = 0; i<size.length; i++){
  8.     var box:Sprite = makeBox();
  9.     var prev:int = i - 1;
  10.     box.scaleX= box.scaleY = size[i];
  11.     if (i == 0){
  12.         box.y = 10;
  13.     }else{
  14.         // here's the trick
  15.         // if you animate the height property you need to do this again and again:
  16.         box.y = boxes[prev].y + boxes[prev].height/2+ box.height/2 + spacing
  17.     }
  18.     boxes.push(box);
  19. }
  20.  
  21. function makeBox():Sprite{
  22.     var box:Sprite = Sprite(container.addChild(new Sprite()));
  23.     with (box.graphics) beginFill(0xFF0000), drawRect(-50,-10, 100, 20);
  24.     return box;
  25. }

Sometimes you need to position a bunch of Sprites or MovieClips that are different sizes - and you want to keep the spacing between them the same. This snippet shows a simple example of this.

For more info you could also do this tutorial that I wrote on learningactionscript3.com

Posted in UI, misc | Also tagged | Leave a comment

sinh & cosh

Actionscript:
  1. function sinh(x:Number):Number{
  2.     return (Math.pow(Math.E, x) - Math.pow(Math.E, -x)) * 0.5;
  3. }
  4.  
  5. function cosh(x:Number):Number{
  6.     return (Math.pow(Math.E, x) + Math.pow(Math.E, -x)) * 0.5;
  7. }

Needed sinh and cosh today. Easy enough to create with existing math functions. If you needed more speed you could inline these and replace Math.E with 2.71828183.

Got the math over at wikipedia (as usual).

Posted in Math, misc | Also tagged | Leave a comment

Utils3D.projectVectors() & 100,000 pixels

Actionscript:
  1. var matrix:Matrix3D = new Matrix3D();
  2.  
  3. const PARTICLE_NUM:int = 100000;
  4. var verts:Vector.<Number> = new Vector.<Number>();
  5. var pVerts:Vector.<Number> = new Vector.<Number>();
  6. var uvts:Vector.<Number> = new Vector.<Number>();
  7.  
  8. for (var i:int = 0; i<PARTICLE_NUM; i++){
  9.     verts.push(Math.random()*250 - 125);
  10.     verts.push(Math.random()*250 - 125);
  11.     verts.push(Math.random()*250 - 125);
  12.    
  13.     pVerts.push(0), pVerts.push(0);
  14.     uvts.push(0), uvts.push(0), uvts.push(0);
  15. }
  16.  
  17. var canvas:BitmapData = new BitmapData(400,400,false, 0x000000);
  18. addChild(new Bitmap(canvas));
  19. var dx:Number=0;
  20. var dy:Number=0;
  21.  
  22. addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, onLoop);
  23. function onLoop(evt:Event):void {
  24.  
  25.     dx += (mouseX - dx)/4;
  26.     dy += (mouseY - dy)/4;
  27.    
  28.     matrix.identity();
  29.     matrix.appendRotation(dy,Vector3D.X_AXIS);
  30.     matrix.appendRotation(dx,Vector3D.Y_AXIS);
  31.     matrix.appendTranslation(200, 200, 0);
  32.    
  33.     Utils3D.projectVectors(matrix, verts, pVerts, uvts);
  34.    
  35.     canvas.lock();
  36.     canvas.fillRect(canvas.rect, 0x000000);
  37.         var leng:int = pVerts.length;
  38.     for (var i:int = 0; i<leng; i+=2){
  39.         canvas.setPixel( pVerts[i], pVerts[i + 1], 0xFFFFFF);
  40.     }
  41.     canvas.unlock();
  42. }

The above shows an easy way to use Utils3D.projectVectors() to move some pixels around in 3D. Since the 3D math is done behind the scenes by the flash player it runs quite fast...

Posted in 3D, BitmapData, Vector, matrix, setPixel | Also tagged | 3 Comments

Vector.sortOn()

Actionscript:
  1. var a:Vector.<Sprite> = new Vector.<Sprite>();
  2.  
  3. trace("unsorted");
  4. for (var i:int = 0; i<10; i++){
  5.     var s:Sprite = new Sprite();
  6.     s.x = int(Math.random()*100);
  7.     a.push(s);
  8.     trace(s.x);
  9. }
  10.  
  11. quickSortOn(a, "x", 0, a.length-1);
  12.  
  13. trace("sorted");
  14. for (i= 0; i<10; i++){
  15.     trace(a[i].x);
  16. }
  17.  
  18. // modified code from kirupa.com
  19. // http://www.kirupa.com/developer/actionscript/quickSort.htm
  20. function quickSortOn(a:Vector.<Sprite>, prop:String, left:int, right:int):void {
  21.     var i:int = 0, j:int = 0, pivot:Sprite, tmp:Sprite;
  22.     i=left;
  23.     j=right;
  24.     pivot = a[Math.round((left+right)*.5)];
  25.     while (i<=j) {
  26.         while (a[i][prop]<pivot[prop]) i++;
  27.         while (a[j][prop]>pivot[prop]) j--;
  28.         if (i<=j) {
  29.             tmp=a[i];
  30.             a[i]=a[j];
  31.             i++;
  32.             a[j]=tmp;
  33.             j--;
  34.         }
  35.     }
  36.     if (left<j)  quickSortOn(a, prop, left, j);
  37.     if (i<right) quickSortOn(a, prop, i, right);
  38. }
  39. /* outputs something like:
  40. unsorted
  41. 26
  42. 33
  43. 20
  44. 63
  45. 7
  46. 68
  47. 75
  48. 39
  49. 67
  50. 53
  51. sorted
  52. 7
  53. 20
  54. 26
  55. 33
  56. 39
  57. 53
  58. 63
  59. 67
  60. 68
  61. 75
  62. */

This demo is my first quick stab at using at a sortOn() function for the Vector class. It sorts a Vector of Sprites by their x property.

Recently there were a few times when I was prototyping ideas and suddenly realized that I needed to change my Vector to an Array because I needed to use sortOn().(If you don't already know, there is no built in sortOn() method for the Vector class). In the past I spent some time with sorting algorithms, bubble, insertion etc... so I knew I could pretty easily write my own sortOn(), but I also realized that a generic implementation wouldn't be easy/possible without loosing the type of the Vector. What I mean is, if you have a Vector of Sprites, you need a sorting method that takes a Vector.< Sprite > type as an argument (as seen above), if you have a Vector of TextFields you need a Vector.< TextField > type as an argument. You could of course use a generic type, but this kind of defeats the purpose of using a vector in the first place...

I will likely post a revised version of this in the near future with a slightly improved implementation of QuickSort. I haven't spent that much time with this, but If I recall correctly this is not the ideal implementation. I ported this code from a nice Kirupa tutorial and modified it to sort based on a property...

Posted in Object, Vector, arrays, associative arrays, sortOn | Also tagged | 3 Comments