Monday, October 16th, 2006
A couple of days ago the ActionScript 3.0 Cookbook has been published. Obviously it’s a Must-Have but so far I resisted to buy it, waiting for some User Reviews on Amazon. Anyone else got it already? I would be interested in if many new stuff is covered or if it’s just a AS3.0 fitted version of the older AS Cookbook (though I doubt that when I read the authors names).
Then there is the highly anticipated Flex 2 book which is due for the 1. quarter next year and so it still takes a while until then. Another book I’m looking forward to is Advanced ActionScript 3 with Design Patterns, also by Joey Lott, especially because I still haven’t fully grasped patterns. Maybe this will help.
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Wednesday, September 27th, 2006
It was about time! According to PowerFlasher a new (and free) update of FDT is due in October. But it will not support AS3/Flex, this will come in quartal 1/2007.
I still need to use AS2 very often for jobs so it’s good to see the Eclipse 3.2 incompatibility being fixed very soon. However I’m using Flex Builder (plug-in) more and more to get on with AS3 and Flex and it’s hard to miss all those great features from FDT there! Therefore it would be awesome if Adobe is providing an update for Flex Builder in between. Some very helpful features from FDT that I’d love to use for AS3 are templates (we all use them, they make coding a lot faster) and Mark Occurances (this might seem inferior but once you used it you know that it is the number one killer feature). Another thing that bothers me is that one needs automatic build active to have compile-time error reporting. It would be cool if the Flex Compiler would report errors on-the-fly like MTASC does it, so I can turn off automatic build and use Ant for building instead which I prefer.
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Thursday, August 31st, 2006
flashfilterlab.com … quite awesome! In case you’ve missed it, you can create your own Flash 8 Filters in a Construction Set-like environment where you connect virtual cables to generator boxes (think Maya’s Hypershade or Native Instruments Reactor). I haven’t touched the Flash 8 Filter stuff that much so far (mainly because non-Flash 8 jobs who keep me away from it *grrml*) but I think it’s about time as the lab demonstrates how much potential is in that. It’s a pity though that calculation-intensive Flash’s Bitmap/Filters are still too CPU demanding for most realistic applications.
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Wednesday, August 30th, 2006
In ActionScript it was common knowledge that shorter Variable and Function names yielded better performance in situations were it depends but does that still hold true for ActionScript 3.0? I’ve ran a couple of quick tests to find a clear answer about this. I usually tend keep my Variable/Function names to 1-3 characters when performance really mattered but it might actually not be necessary. Consider the following test …
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| package
{
import com.hexagonstar.util.debug.Debug;
import flash.utils.getTimer;
import flash.display.Sprite;
public class PerformanceTest extends Sprite
{
private var aVeryVeryLongVariableNameaVeryVeryLongVariableName:Number;
private var num:Number;
public function PerformanceTest()
{
var startTime:Number = getTimer();
for (var i:int = 0; i < 4000000; i++)
{
aVeryVeryLongVariableNameaVeryVeryLongVariableName = (i * Math.random()) * 100;
}
var timeTaken:String = getTimer() - startTime + " ms";
Debug.trace("timeTaken (long): " + timeTaken);
}
}
} |
I’ve ran this code ten times with the 50 characters long variable name and then ten times with a 3 characters long one, both in their own SWF’s. The results ranged from 757ms to 820ms, more or less the same on both sides. The sum of the long variable version was 7924ms and the one of the three characters long one was 7903ms, not much of a difference.
The next test was similar but this time with a 50 characters long Method name and the other again with a 3 characters long one, the Methods returned a random Number for 4000000 times during this test. The results looked similar but the total sum of each test gave a 12044ms for the long name test and 15570ms for the short named one. A noticable difference of over 3 seconds. This might have been coincidence but I’ve ran the tests a couple more times and it turned out every time that the result were very close together. This is quite interesting because I was safely believing that short names would still have an advantage. It might be time to rethink this.
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Sunday, August 20th, 2006
I’m currently developing a role-playing game in AS3.0 (non-fantasy themed!!) in my spare time. This has been and still is in the design phase since a while and I’m pondering whether to use isometric graphics or an orthogonal view (that has a slight tilt but still is fully orthogonal. If you remember Jagged Alliance you get the idea). Though orthogonal view would make things easier I feel that isometric view gives more visual freedom so I will probably end up with that.
(more…)
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Thursday, July 27th, 2006
… Ok, a bit of exaggeration here but it comes pretty close! In case you missed it, Andre Michelle has written a RealTime Synth with ActionScript 3.0 that immitates an analogue synth not unlike the famous 303. The Userinterface is slick and the knobs are turning linear when dragged with the mouse. The sound is very good for that it is calculated! Try playing around with the Filter, Cutoff and ADSR curves and you will see (hear) that it sounds pretty much like a real synth. Heads up to Andre for being such an Innovator!
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Wednesday, July 12th, 2006
I’ve updated Alcon (ActionScript Logging Console) to v1.0.8! The only thing that has been added in this version is a Debug Class for use with ActionScript 3.0, everything else hasn’t been changed. The AS3.0 Debug Class can be found in the com.hexagonstar.util.debug package.
Note that you must use Debug.trace() since I’m not even sure if it’s somehow possible with the MXMLC to redirect to a custom trace method (like it is possible with MTASC). If you got any hints on this, please let me know! The new version can be found as always on it’s page at the Flash Game Programming Wiki! Enjoy!
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Sunday, July 9th, 2006
The creator over at e-phonic.com seemingly has created the first realtime synth in Flash with AS3.0. Realtime in the meaning that it creates the produced sound completely by itself and not relying on predefined samples. He used the ByteArray and the Loader class (Loader.loadBytes) based on an idea and first experiment from David at Robots /w Lasers.
The synth consists of a simple, white emptyness in where you have to click with the mouse and it plays generated sounds depending on the coordinates. The sounds might be still a bit awkward but hey, it’s a milestone in Flash history, isn’t it?! 
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Wednesday, July 5th, 2006
ActionScript 3.0 and Flash Player 9.0 brought a big leap of speed and all kinds of changes and optimizations with it. But these mainly happen under the hood only. While Flash 8 came up with the bitmap level manipulation stuff, Flash 9 doesn’t come with any groundbreaking new features that are visible to the surface (except for the speed improvement).
Yesterday on a meeting I was asked if I could use a rotatable 3D mesh in Flash for the clients presentation project and I could only tell them that the lack of native 3D support is the big weakness of Flash. Eventually we will end up with a single frame animation to fake the rotation. However this was one example that there must be quite a demand for 3D support in Flash, not only for experimentation but even more for commercial use. In fact native 3D is already overdue since a while but I accept that implementing such a thing is not an easy challange.
So native graphics acceleration for Flash has to come one way or the other, not only because everybody wants it but also for Flash to stay competitive (think about WinFX). There is still Director one could argue. But somehow I get the feeling that Director will either continue it’s shadow existence or it will disappear sooner or later. 3D for Flash has to come, there is no way or excuse around it! Maybe the next version? Too early! Maybe Flash 10? Who knows! We might however see some sweet audio improvements in a near future!
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Saturday, July 1st, 2006
mdm is working on a new tool named Rebus that can turn AS3 (and Flex2) files into .NET2 executables. It’s still in beta but registered users can download and test it. I’ve did a quick test and compiled my SWNameGen with Rebus and it went surprisingly smooth and flawless. It will offer some new and interesting extensions, to quote from the mdm support forums …
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