Programming games

1
Programming games

• Reminders
• Sound and Video
• Grabber feature
• Health bar timer
• General comments adding to a project
• Homework Finish work!

2
Jigsaw location of files

• Note in most situations, Flash is not this
  particular
• Name your .fla file something other than jigsaw.
  I named mine lizard.
• Save the .fla file on drive
• Create on that same drive, at the top of the
  drive a as3 folder.
• In the as3 folder, create a folder named jigsaw
• In the jigsaw folder, save Piece.as

3
Other FLASH applications with external as files

• For example, shooter
• Save the .fla file on a drive
• In that same drive, at the top,create a folder
  as3
• In that as3 folder, create a folder with the name
  of the package
• In that folder, save all the class files.

4
Uploading

• You can use your newmedia.purchase.edu as a place
  to store your .fla and .as files
• HOWEVER
• To upload to show your work to the world, you
  File/Publish and upload the .html and the .swf
  files only.
• PLUS you also need to upload the
  fileAC_RunActiveContent.js. It is produced when
  you publish an application.

5
Runtime files

• Basic applications INCLUDING those with .as
  filesupload .html and .swf
• Applications using video and sound (accessed
  using FLVPlayback and Sound objects)also need to
  upload the .flv and .mpg files OR use full URL
  for their location

6
Video and sound

• Need to acquire the video clip and the sound
• Adobe Flash Media Encoder can take in various
  file types and produce .flv
• For Sound, need to find editors/encoders
• Flash can handle other types for certain
  functions
• As with images, it makes sense to use other tools
  to get the image/video/sound you want

7
Video and Sound

• Can incorporate sounds into frames
• OR
• var urlnameString "missle.mp3"
• var requestsfURLRequest new URLRequest(urlname)
  
• var msoundSound new Sound(requestsf)
• // at appropriate place in the code
• msound.play()

• Can incorporate video into frames
• OR
• var flvFLVPlayback new FLVPlayback()
• flv.source "dickey2.flv"
• flv.x 10
• flv.y 10
• //at appropriate place
• addChild(flv)//
• // alsoflv.play()

8
Placement

• REMEMBER
• the origin of a symbol in the Library is what is
  positioned by the code.
• The transformation point is the point of
  rotation.
• You can manually change scale, angle, etc., but
  be clear on what you are doing

9
Caution

• If you are combining coding and material from
  different (old) programs, be careful on names.
  Each thing needs its unique name
• Example
• ball from bouncing ball vs ball from cannonball
• Timers

10
Caution

• Case (upper case versus lower case) matters
  within Flash and ActionScript
• And
• Case matters on newmedia.purchase.edu server

11
Grabber

• also called idler, attractor,
• Animation to attract attention to a kiosk type
  application
• Person/player comes up and does something,
  typically move mouse, that initiates actual
  application
• Idler re-starts if and when system is idle
• detecting state of being idle is not obvious

12
Jigsaw

• The idler/grabber animation does relate to real
  application.
• Real application starts when mouse is moved
• Idler resumes
• after game is started, but no move made
• after completed puzzle
• after a long time between moves

13
Technique for timing

• Use 2 Timer objects
• Control starting and stopping
• Essentially when something happens, stop and then
  re-start Timer
• This is like advancing your alarm clock if you
  wake up early, but now want to sleep longer.

14
Add a health bar

• Needed
• bar that visibly shrinks over time
• when bar is gone (or close), end game
• Solution
• Create bar symbol in Library and use Linkage to
  link it to a class
• Create a single Bar instance dynamically
• Grow and shrink using methods called from methods
  in other classes

15
Notes on jigsaw

• You need to bring instances of each piece to the
  Stage and name the instances
• piece1, piece2, etc.
• You do NOT have to reconstruct the puzzle on the
  Stage.

16
Notes on jigsaw, others

• Be sure to use the ActionScript 3.0 tutorials
• NOTE the separation of coding into two files
  makes it much easier to do other jigsaws.
• The Piece.as file is the same
• The .fla file has the pieces!

17
Note

• You can use other/better names for the buttons
• The button that invokes the function mixup could
  hold the text PLAY

18
Debugging

• Can use trace statements to indicate where the
  code is
• Values of variables, properties.
• REMOVE this code
• Can remove it using //

19
Jigsaw

• Early version of program has 3 buttons, calling
  functions, mixup, check and build.
• Better version is to remove the check button and
  put in a call to check after each move.
• Remember the code is doing the work, not you!

20
Reflection

• It is beneficial to reflect on why something is
  more complicated.
• In cannonball, angle
• Text in input text field
• Need a way to save value to make sure all frames
  have the up to date value
• Need to convert text to number
• Need to convert original angle (degrees) to
  radians

21
Adding to existing project

• May need to add labels and change gotoAndPlay
  functions to refer to labels
• May need to insert frames
• Insert frame
• right click and Convert to Key Frame
• Copy and paste-in-place
• may need to repeat for successive frames
• Symbols in Library are copied over.
• Watch out for use of same names!

22
Homework

• Finish projects
• Do your final ActionScript Project. Post proposal
  for my approval, comments suggestions.
• Note many of the examples and explanations
  (Notes, Tutorials) were done in response to
  requests.
• Latest sending email from Flash (using php
  program on the server). See variant of Chasing
  Bo.
• Review lecture notes and guide to final quiz