In case you missed it Michael of Polygonal Labs has released a package of ActionScript 3.0 data structures that are especially dedicated for game development. He’s also writing examples on how some of the classes are used, for example Queue and Tree.
The hexagon framework will contain similar data structure classes but they will adhere more to interfaces and patterns. Nevertheless I will optimize them for speed as best as I can. In case you are wondering … no, the hexagon framework hasn’t been released yet but I can say now that it won’t take too long anymore until initial release.
As you can see hidden.resource has been moved to it’s own domain, namely www.hiddenresource.net. At that opportunity I also gave the site a WordPress update and a new look (including those slick 16-bit style pictures at the top). Besides that HDRS is going to focus more on Game Development with ActionScript 3.0 in the future as that is what I’m (and probably the readers of this blog are) most interested in.
Ok, I’ve searched with Google, I’ve asked on FlashCoders but nowhere got an answer. As far as I can understand it we still have to deal with the old problem in Flash of exporting library assets into frame 1 and using a Preloader. If we simply export the library stuff (and classes) into frame 1 we render our Preloader pretty much useless. But creating a Preloader like in ActionScript 2 obviously doesn’t work anymore.
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I’m happy to announce that Alcon 2.0 has finally been made public. The new version was completely rewritten using ActionScript 3 and Flex 2 and contains several new features that I missed in version 1. The most significant additions are the following:
- Output of up to four log files. You can define which log files to output by changing the settings in the AlconConfig.xml file. Like this it is easily possible to watch the flashlog.txt file that can be created with the Flash Debug Player (more info on this here and here).
- Alcon now features an Inspect panel for inspecting objects.
- A hexadecimal dump of an object can be made. Don’t ask me what this might be useful for now but you never know. 
- Alcon now features a stopwatch that can be used to measure passed time more easily.
- You are now able to monitor the current host application’s stage framerate and memory usage.
For more info and download check out the Alcon page over at osflash.org.
Please note that this is a beta version! It still has bugs and the Debug class for ActionScript 2.0 is not yet included.
Been quiet here recently! One who writes code much, writes blog post few! ++ STOP ++ Flash Game Programming Wiki is down! Had my web server package changed which required a physical server transfer. Looks as if something on MediaWiki got broken by that. All stuff is still there but the site doesn’t open on any URL. ++ STOP ++ Alcon 2.0 is in development and will soon be released. ++ STOP ++ Apollo Alpha is out but I still haven’t touched it, no time, too busy! Does Photoshop CS3 is being released on tuesday?!? Who knows? Head explodes ++ STOP ++ …
Check out The Great Game Experiment, a community site especially for gamers and game developers. Members can introduce their favorite games, add new games, meet other gamers/developers etc. The site also focuses on Independent Game Developers, after all it was Jeff Tunnel of Garage Games who breathed life into it (The same Jeff Tunnel of Dynamix fame btw! Games like Project Firestart and Rise of the Dragon come to my mind).
Developers can introduce their creations and find other developers – both professional and hobbyist – to get working together on a project. Games made in Flash are welcome and there’s even a category for it.
Check out this 3D isometric game engine called renderhjs made in Flash! It took me three days to get my jaw back up from the floor!! (Ok, I’m lying there, I just found this link about ten minutes ago). Not only is it real-time calculated and fully textured 3D but it is written in ActionScript 2 for Flash Player 8 as a minimum. There are some glitches (watch the water basins in the toilet while rotating around) but still this is most impressive! In fact it looks even better than the graphics in Resident Evil. All I’m missing is a control to move the camera around freely but nevertheless it would be awesome to see a full game of this. (via UnitZeroOne).
… If you use a Logitech mouse you already got it! The company now officially made it clear on their support forums that there will be no support for Mouseware for Windows Vista. Instead they point their customers to use the generic mouse driver that ships with Vista. But have they told you that the mouse movement is much slower with that one, even on highest speed? Or that the middle mouse button will not work? I like my MX310 and don’t plan to buy a new one just for Vista because this mouse fits like a glove. The same goes for my soundcard. M-Audio hasn’t made any official statement about a Vista driver so far.
One might thank Microsoft for this mess because of their ridicolous protection mechanisms but then again companies like Wacom prove that developing Vista drivers for existing hardware isn’t impossible. Seems like Logitech jumped onto the ‘all new and shiny’ banwagon by presenting their newest Vista supporting products instead of writing some drivers for their existing customers! Oh right! I forgot to tell them that some customers like me are left handers and don’t want to use an ergonimic right hander mouse!
No Vista for me until this driver mess has seriously improved, and definitely no Logitech products for me for a while, thanks!
While the whole world is hyping Rich Internet Applications, I’m sitting here in my lab and could not bother less! Flex is really neat and who says that it’s only useful for shopping- or flight-ticket booking systems?! Nobody? Good! I’m using Flex to develop my game development Middleware, i.e. editors like the TileSetTool that I’m working on (if I’m not working on the hexagon framework what I’m doing most of the time). When Flex2 was still really fresh I’ve pondered to use Java for this instead but as it turned out, ActionScript 3 is fast enough for most of my desired operations.
So for now this TileSetTool can be used to convert my (custom format) tileset XML files and their belonging tileset image files into combined tsc file which are compressed and saved to disk by the tool (using Zinc). This editor is probably just the first stage to a much more versatile tilemap editor. The tool uses parts of the hexagon framework which also will contain a tile engine to support the tilesets and maps.
It’s fantastic how quick you can knock an application out of the ground with Flex and AS3 while others are still fighting with their IDE.
You can click the image to see a full screenshot of the tool. In case you’re wondering … no, I’m not working on a Flash version of Uridium 2 (would be an idea though). The tileset is only for testing purposes.
Filter Forge is a new software for Windows that allows creating Photoshop filters in a tree node based editor. Yep, thats right! You design filters by connecting components together with virtual wires. Imagine the possibilities! The application ships with a standalone tool as well as a Photoshop PlugIn and after you played around a bit with the trial version you might want to file this tool under “apps with that I could spend the whole day long, experimenting with it”!
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