I’ve tinkered a bit with Flash Player 10. One thing that seems almost funny about the 3D effects of Flash thus far is that very few examples show off actually 3D objects. Most examples I’ve examined show 2D planes transformed in 3D space. So, I’ve created a sample 3D cube primitive in AS3 as a convenient example for people who want to get started with their own parsers or drawing tools (etc).
dispatchEvent()™
Collective thoughts on the Flash Platform, iOS, Unity, and any other technology we use.
Filed under Flex …
Actionscript 3 performance tuning review
by Caleb Johnston
After late-night conversations amongst coworkers and friends over beers, I’ve discovered that many flash developers remain unfamiliar with AVM2′s inter workings. A while ago, I found a couple documents which have benefited me greatly in understanding AVM2 and AS3:
Actionscript 3.0 and Performance Tuning
There are definitely some big take-aways in these two documents. I would list them here, but then you might not read them for yourself! ;)
The first document is 74 powerpoint slides (prepared by Gary Grossman of Adobe) which is very useful for getting a quick understanding of AVM2 topics such as garbage collection, the benefits of strong typing, the Actionscript byte code (abc) format, the code interpreter and JIT compilation. For an AS3 developer this is a must-read.
The second document is a bit more dense. It contains 108 pages of more formally described underpinnings of the virtual machine. It focuses a lot on how your AS3 code will ultimately be run as processor instructions. Its a great follow-up to the first document. If you’re a geek, I would highly recommend reading this overview.
Tweening timeline animations with KitchenSync
by Mims H Wright
One of the new features in KitchenSync 1.5 is the ability to tween animations on a MovieClip’s timeline… and I’m not just talking about gotoAndPlay(), I’m talking about controlling the starting and stopping points, speed, and easing functions of an animation on the timeline with code. It does this by incrementally controlling the current frame number of the MovieClip using a KSTween and a special ITweenTarget (a class used to control the values of an object) called TimelineController.
Take this FLA animation.
As you can see, there is a simple animation using a guide layer and labels on the key frames.
Introduction to Flex Resource Bundles
by Roger Braunstein
Hark, Flex developers. Lend me your ears! I must take this post to implore you: use Resource Bundles! Trust me, I know, there’s a lot to keep up with these days, but if you aren’t already privy to the awesome secrets of the humble bundle, hopefully I can help convince you to use them. I’ll show you how, without breaking one bead of sweat from your brow! First, let me tell you why they’re cool. Then, I’ll show you how to get rolling with your first bundle. Then, I’ll set you loose, and hopefully you can all write in with excellent questions and help me make this a great resource for the next readers! Read on, fair Flexer.
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