Procrastination and Meatspace
Rails by FrozenHaddock, see more on Flickr
Many apologies for the severe lack of content here recently. I can assure you, I'm not dead.
To start with, I was merely a lazy teenager recently discovering *gulp* actual social interaction and taking exams, then general Meatspace issues interfered with my access to a computer with a copy of Flash.
However, I have computer access now (Admittedly still no Flash, but I'm hoping to return to my trusty home machine soon) and I intend to get the blog moving again! I'm sure I own enough creativity to write without a copy of Flash for now... :)
Thanks to the forum-dwellers for keeping it alive in my absence, even though we had an attack of spam. You guys rock.
This post does't have much interesting, so I'll leave you with one of my photographs for now. It's a habit I've gotten from my personal blog, and I like the effect. I'll try and include at least one relevant image with each post from now on, though as this doesn't have much of a theme to it, I raided my Flickr account. I hope you don't mind.
- Tom, Frozenhaddock Admin
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AS3: Avoider game, part 12, and a new project
The latest post at MichaelJWilliams' blog brings his AS3 Avoiding game tutorial to an end with part 12 ...or does it?
This final segment details garbage collection, the nitty gritty part of game development that's important to you, but doesn't bother the players that much, until they notice the lag that inevitably comes from leaving each of those enemies onstage...
Anywho, it's a must-read and a nice tie-up-the-loose ends post, and this series of tutorials is once of the best out there.
Now, why may it not be coming to an end?
Myself and Michael shall shortly be launching a new site geared around the wonderful Avoiding game, hosting both our tutorials amongst other things, and we'd love for you to get involved! Perhaps you have an avoiding game you've written and want to show it off, or you want to share the secrets to that interesting feature you've worked in, throw us an email or hit me up in the comments for this post and we'll get back to you. Stay tuned for more information :)
Add a quality toggle button in Flash
Most game players will often complain if they can't find a quality toggle button (although they rarely use it anyway). So it's probably a good idea to add a quality toggle button.
1. Draw something - this will be the quality toggle button (I recommend a "Q" for this.)
2. Convert it to a MOVIE CLIP (registration point - centre).
3. Go to the actions panel and apply the following code (ActionScript 2.0):
onClipEvent(load){
selection = 1;
}
on(release){
selection += 1;
if (selection >= 3){
selection = 1;
}
if (selection == 1){
_root._quality = "HIGH"
}
if (selection == 2){
_root._quality = "LOW"
}
}
4. ... and you're done! (Unless you want to add some more fancy stuff to it, this is just a tutorial showing the basic concept.)
Note: if you want to make your game sound a lot cooler and more professional, try renaming quality "anti-aliasing" or "smoothing" ;)
Another note: There are four different qualities: "HIGH", "LOW", "MEDIUM" and "BEST".
Yet another note: Qualities "HIGH" and "BEST" means high-end anti-aliasing, "MEDIUM" produces some anti-aliasing and "LOW" none.
The last note: Anti-aliasing could also be described as smoothing.
Make a preloader in Flash
Preloaders are a very good idea if you intend your flash game to go on the web. It's basically a page that is shown before the entire document has loaded. And they're also very easy to make!
- Create an empty keyframe at Frame 1.
- Draw your loading content inside it. This could include anything. What you put in this frame will be what the person playing the game will see when the game is loading. Ideally this should contain the word "Loading..." somewhere.
- Create another keyframe at Frame 2 and draw inside it. This will be what the player sees after the game has 100% loaded.
- Go to the actions for Frame 1 and enter the following:
if (getBytesLoaded >= getBytesTotal){
_root.gotoAndStop(2)
}
Now test your movie, click Simulate Download, and it should be working! Any queries, comment below and me or someone else will try to get back to you.
Forum Update
After nearly losing everything, I managed to undo the update, restore all data, posts etc. Then I re-installed successfully. I don't know what's new but enjoy.
Also not the new site Christmas layout. Comment here if you have any thoughts about it.
When I can get round to some spare time, I'll try and do some tutorials. I think for now I'll stick pascal to one side, soon as though this site will need a lot more AS3 content, especially with TDXIII making the jump now. So keep your eyes peeled this December.
Thank you
Dazza_13 - FH Admin
Just a slight technical hitch…
After an update gone awry, the forum is temporarily down.
I'm writing this literally 10 minutes or so after Dazza_13 pointed it out, and he has now started attempts on fixing it, so it may well be up soonish, but best to be safe than sorry eh?
So if you have any issues, comment on the relevant tutorial or if it's a general question comment here and I'll try and get back to you :)
Whilst I'm here, coming soonish: My wonderful learning AS3 adventures: Part 1. Where I show you what I created following an easy and free to use tutorial from another website. Hurrah!
Toodles, and hopefully by the time you read this the forum is back!
-TazzyDevil XIII, FH Admin
Ok, so it’s time to make the leap…
Yep, I'm now officially learning Actionscript 3.
It's scary. I know.
This means that apart from the occasional finished project that are currently in progress in AS2, everything I post now will be in AS3.0! Unfortunately, this means I'll be stopping with the Avoiding game tutorial (I'll still be writing tutorials though!) because it's all in AS2. However... if you check out the website of Michael J Williams, you'll find his tutorial in AS3 based off of our AS2 tutorial! We'll still post updates here for it, but make sure you check there too!
Now, because I'm a learner now, the tutorials will be pretty basic, and I may be blogging about my experiences with coding more often. This means that FrozenHaddock now has 3 (Count them, three!) writers for Actionscript 3.0 (Dazza_13 began learning AS3 a short time ago) and hopefully, we can bring you more and more content!
I'll still answer your questions on AS2, and the forum's AS2 forum will remain open (And may well be looking for a new moderator) so keep on coding in it until you feel ready to make the jump :)
Finally, sorry for the recent lack of content. We've been terribly busy with college, but we'll try and get some more stuff up soon :)
-Tazzydevil XIII, FH Admin
Prox: My Avoiding Game [Released!]
http://www.fettspielen.de/en/game/skills/prox
Schiiing!
Well, It'll be a month or so until you see it in all it's shiny glory because the way Fettspleilen embed strips my bitmap data effects, but here it is to play, I'll make sure to post when it's up here on FrozenHaddock.
Have Fun!
Moving house
Well, I'm moving house on Friday, so I'll have intermittent internet access and therefore will be unable to update the site for a bit.
Hopefully the other author-enabled people (Dazza_13, KirkyGamer, Crabpope and Brart) can keep you happy until I return, I'll try and keep up with emails and the like, but I'm not promising anything!
See you in a week or so!
-Tom, FrozenHaddock.co.uk
RPG anyone?
I'm back! Although I doubt anyone actually knows me because of by incredibly huge period of inactivity, except from Tom. But I am back, don't know for how long, but yeah.
Anyway,
YES - Bring back the RPG!!! I've found the main file and am thinking of getting it running, yet again. However the things which lead to it stopping the last time were lazy artists (James probably won't see this so yes lazy, not busy). So anyone interseted in helping with artwork please contact me in someway, I will be putting up the current beta version at some point over the next few days, as and when I get the chance to block off any bugs etc I'm aware of and those which I am currently fixing.
Also, even if aren't a flash artist, would you like to see the return of the RPG?
Until I get it up, here's a link to an incredibly old version, but the best preview I can give you so far.
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