Flash :: Drawing Objects, 'closing' Them, And More

Closing Drawing API Shape
I've been making changes to an Ivan Dembicki "elastic line" sample file. I'd like to close off the shape with a curved line so that the shape doesn't have a hard edge to it. Right now the shape fill closes off the shape (the shape itself isn't closed). I've tried various things but failed miserably. Anyone know how to turn this into a closed, rounded shape? I'll attach my file but this is what Ivan's drawing API code looks like:

Code:
p.onEnterFrame = function() {
this.clear();
//this.lineStyle(3, 0xFF0000, 100);
this.lineStyle(1, 0x4827CF);
for (var i = 1; i<this.arrMC.length-1; i++) {
this.update.apply(this.arrMC[i]);
}
var e, s = this.arrMC[0];
this.beginFill(0x4827CF);
this.moveTo(s._x, s._y);
for (var i = 1; i<this.arrMC.length; i++) {
s = this.arrMC[i-1];
e = this.arrMC[i];
var mx = (s._x+e._x)/2;
var my = (s._y+e._y)/2;
this.curveTo(s._x, s._y, mx, my);
}
this.lineTo(e._x, e._y);
this.endFill();
};
I'm working in Flash MX 2004. Thanks for the help.

Drawing Around Objects
I was wondering if there was an easier way to kind of highlight text and objects. instead of drawing around everyletter and object. The reason i'm doin this is to create a light gleam effect.
NE thoughts NE one.

Thanks

[CS4] Drawing Objects
How do you turn them off >=(. Every time i make a line i have to go into it to manipulate it. Any way around this?!??!

Drawing Objects
Hi! I've got a problem with drawing objects in every last versions of flash. I would like to create simple lines and sketches with the pencil tool line but sometimes flash creates drawing objects automatically, and makes me some troubleshootings for I have to spend more time to draw something.

Could anyone help me about this issue?
thanks a lot
Emanuele

Drawing Lines... AROUND Objects...
hey... say for example i have a curve on my page... and i want to highlight it, or shade it with a simple line... 1 px wide or tall....

is there an option in flash to recreate these borders?

i really want to avoid cutting and pasting the object, resizing it... changing its colour and placing the main object ontop of it...

i need to use the lines for stuff like dotted lines n stuff

surely u understand what i mean right?

Drawing Objects In Flash
Why is that when I draw a rectangle or square and the cornors have a radius the cornors get chewed up or crooked at runtime?

Drawing Objects And Scaling
Hello everyone,

I have a vector drawing object inside a parent movieclip. The drawing object is acting as a semi-transparent frame for and image on another layer. the problem is when I scale the parent movieclip the thickness of the drawing object is changing. I know that you can turn off scaling for lines and rectangles, but is there a way to do the equivalent for a vector drawing object?

Thanks for any help,
Wade

How Do I Arrange Objects When Drawing With AS3?
I've created a background with code (a radial gradient background). How do I lay symbols on top of the background in my animation? Right now the background covers everything when I export my animation. I tried putting the code on a separate layer below the actions layer. Can anyone help me? Thanks.

Other Objects In Drawing Application...
hello,
i am making a drawing game in flash mx. i have managed to get the actual drawing working, so you can draw etc. that is ok.
the thing that i am having trouble with is that i would like to have a nav bar that doesnt get drawn on. example: when i have a navigation bar on the screen and i try to draw the pen or ink will go over that. i would like to make it so that nothing can overlap it if you see what i mean. how do i do this?
Please help!!

Thank you,
Tristan

P.S. I hope i explained it well enough

Drawing API Saved W/ Shared Objects?
Is there a way to save what is drawn w/ the drawing API component locally using shared objects? i know how to save text w/ shared objects but is there a way u can point to the drawing api to save it?

thanks,
Kirk

Multiple Similiar Objects Drawing Optimizations
Hello.
I have a lot of similiar objects with same gradient fill. The objects represents parts of large object, which can be draggged by mouse. hey should be represented by separate sprite, because they should be able contain children and support drag&drop into them.
I have noticed significant difference in performance while dragging container with shapes, when started use gradient fill.

Are there any methods to improve performance:
As solutions i already took into account:
1. casheAsBitmap - have some disadvantages. All gradients will be drawed first time anyway, second - it doesn't work well with non-integer coordinates(i use scale to transform metric units into pixels), and third - during scale , I assume, all gradients will be painted by Flash again.
2. Is to have common bitmapData for all objects, and update it only on scale, change size. It is kind of not really easy to do thing and i am not sure if it will work well with non-integer values.

thanks, Aleksey

Flash Automatically Groups Drawing Objects?
Everytime i draw something with a brush tool, flash automatically groups it, how do i turn this off?

Saving A Drawing Using Shared Local Objects
Could some one please tell me where i could find an example of a drawing been saved locally or help in any way possible.

Thanks

Drawing Programmatically And Entering Text Inside Drawn Objects
Dear all,
I am newbie to flash.

I am able to draw objects (ex: circle, box, ellipse) programmatically but I am not able to figure out how to double click those drawn objects and enter text into it?

Help me plzz...thanks!

Drawing An Outline Of An Object In Flash And Then Animating The Drawing?
I wish to draw an outline of an object in flash? bit by bit a piece of the outline is drawn until the outline is completed, once this has finished then object then appears and the outline disppears (this part I can manage).

I do not know where to begin? So may need a lot of direction on this one.

Scrolling Drawing Board? Drawing Without Moving The Mouse
Hello, I'm new to this board and kind of a flash newbie so you could probably help me out.

What I'm trying to build is what you could call a scrolling drawing board - just like a drawing board but when the mouse comes close to the edge of the window, it scrolls and lets you continue your drawing.
I have no problem creating a drawing board with API, but i can't make it scroll. Usually when i want to scroll a background image i make it move along with the mouse when the cursor is near the edge of the window (for example, if the mouse's coordinates are above a certain number, the background image starts moving in one direction so it "scrolls" in the other direction).
So i wanted to do this with the movieclip of the drawing in a drawing board (make it move according to mouse's coordinates near the edge of the window), but when i scroll i have to stop the mouse at the edge of the window because i cant go any further :p so the drawing moves but it stops drawing. Or maybe what i need is some way to draw even when the mouse is not moving. Is that possible?

I'm sorry it may seem a bit confused (moreover english isnt my native langage :p), I'll try to post an example later. In the meantime, if any of you see how i can do that ... thanks

Drawing Board With Specific Section For Drawing
Ive made myself a drawing board in flash, but the problem is that i can draw over anything on the stage and I want to have a specific canvas for drawing.
I tried creating a separate MC and pasting the code there but it didnt help although i have no idea why. Any ideas?

Drawing With A Wacom In Flash V Hand Drawing
Animations like American Dad, Family Guy, Futurama, The Simpsons, are they hand drawn frame by frame, or are they more likely to be wacom drawn straight into Flash?

Drawing Scripts For A Drawing Program
Need help with reference scripts for a simple drawing program. I'd like the user to be able to select different tools (circle, square, pencil, paint brush), change the color of the fill, and erase or reset the screen. Can anyone refer me to the right place?

Drawing A Soft Mask... Drawing Api?
Hello everyone, (almost) first post here
I'm creating a, quite original flash website (meh... not my idea in fact, I'm only the flasher!), in wich you're in a car, sitting on the passenger side, and you're looking outside to see the contents coming on the road.
It rains.
A lot.
So the windowseat is "fogged" (how can I say that...???) and while you're loading the content you actually can draw on the glass with your.. err... finger (mouse!), like how your friends usually do in your car when you really don't want their fingerprints all over your car glass

Ok, easy way to do that:
1 - attachmovie
you actually duplicate a circle, give it some randomness in blurring and size so it looks irregular and place it right under your mouse.

Good, it works... but when you move fast, it just leaves a blank spaces between clip and clip...

Hey... that's not fair...

2 - drawing api
Oh my god... I can't make a mask with a simple line, so I should draw a shape while moving the mouse.
The point is... HOW???

I dunno if there's a better way to do that, but that's the only one in my mind now.
Actually the drawn clip should also be blurred a little bit (1 or 2 percent) wich is not a problem since you can easily blur the container.

But now the real point is: how do I draw like that with the beginfill?!?!?

Note: I uploaded the fla so you can have an idea on how it looks...

Help Needed In AS3 Drawing Board ( With Drawing Api)
Hi all,
I'm doing a flash application with flash cs3 actionscript3. I tried with as2.
Now I am facing difficulty in doing it in AS3.

the application includes:-
all the vector or images should be editable means scale rotate color change etc.

draw line -
draw rectangle -
circle
input text.
curve with node points

if anyone have any tutorials or any resourse please post here.

thanks inadvance
Harish

Store And Retrieve Array Of Custom Class Objects From Shared Objects.
Hi,

I am stuck up with a problem in ActionScript 2. I am using Flash MX 2004 on windows XP.

I have created 3 custom classes say Parent, Child, and GrandChild. Parent class contains in it an array of its Child objects. Similarly each Child object contains in it an array of GrandChild objects. Also I do have one global array of all the Parent objects.

I want to store this array to the shared objects on specific events(say exiting the session) and then reload them from the shared object(on next session startup). I am able to store the global array to the shared object but when I try to retrieve the same array from shared object, I could not do it. The retrieved array is not of my custom class type [Parent].

Help needed to solve this problem urgently. Does anybody have idea how to do it??

Thanks in advance.

Cheers,
Naishadh Sevalia

Objects Talking To Objects, Parent/child Communication, Scope
I've been using AS3 at an intermediate level, and am getting deeper
into classes. I'm loving classes! I'm just cloudy on a few general
concepts.

It's easy for me to create a child object from a parent object, like a
ship in space for example (not working with ships right now but seems
fun to talk about). I can then navigate the ship from the parent
object.

What happens if the ship's engine temperature reaches critical? Is it
wise to dispatch a ship event that tells space that my ship is nearly
scrap? Or do I periodically query the temperature amount of the ship
from space? To me an event sounds like the solution, but I remember
hearing somewhere that parent objects should only talk to child
objects, not the other way around. Is this true?

Could I trouble someone for a basic example of how you would make this
communication work best?

Thanks for the assist. I'll post if I find anything interesting in
the meantime.

How Do I Reference Objects Inside Of Exported Library Objects ?
Hi,

I am having trouble figuring out what seems to be a simple fix? I have created a movieClip in Flash that contains 3 button clips. I want all to be accessible to actionscript, so I gave the movieClip and the 3 buttons a Linkage Identifier. I deleted them from the stage.

In actionscript, I have instantiated the movieClip and, thankfully, the buttons inside went along.

The trouble I'm having is figuring out how to target those buttons. Since they're on the stage already, I shouldn't have to create a new instance right? When I trace the buttons I get an undefined return in the out put.

Anybody know this one??

Thanks for the help!

Brian

Depth And Dynamic Objects/Attaching Scripts To Objects
I am having some problems with my Flash MMORPG created in Actionscript 3.0 that I am working on, not really errors, but more how to do something, in theory. I have 2 problems. First, my game is at a 45 degree angle, so it requires some depth handling(like one object is over another object when it should be behind that object). I am not sure how to go about this. I was thinking that each object's depth should be it's y position if it's origin was at it's feet. But that idea didn't go well, because the depth is limited by the number of children. What is the average way to do this? Next, I am trying to make dynamic objects, so that all I would do is copy and paste an object, or create a new class of it and it would work. What I mean is, the character checks a collision for each object, but if I copy the object with the same name, it doesn't work. In AS3 you can't attach scripts to objects anymore, so I am running into a lot of problems with that. How would I go about fixing this? Thank you in advance.

Aligning Variable Sized Objects And Objects Inside Them
Hi,

How do I align a movieclip, which width and height is user-defined, inside another object (this one is static, though). Top-left alignment is easy, x=0 and y=0, but what about center, center left, bottom left, etc? Math(.round) i suppose, but how?

and

I want an object (static) inside the movieclip (user-defined) to stay aligned to, for instance, the top right corner, similiar to the minimize, maximize and close buttons at the top right of your browser..

The height and width data is pre-defined by the user in another file... But that does probably not make any difference...

If anyone could help me with this, I'd appreciate it alot!

Thanks!,
Peter

Best Way To Hide On Stage Objects When Other Objects Need To Be Shown?
A typical nubee question..What is the best way to hide objects on sage when a button from navigation is clicked and in response other information or objects need to be shown instead of the one previously on stage?

How To Output Both AS Objects And Drawn Objects On Pages?
Using Flash 8;

Hello,

I am building a site entirely in actionscript and the "shell" of the site, the pages, text, static images, come up and work fine, no problems.

However, I'm having troubles trying to implement Kirupa's "XML_Flash Photo Gallery", for one of my pages, link here:

http://www.kirupa.com/developer/mx20...otogallery.htm.

I'm running into troubles because my pages are entirely actionscript and this tutorial uses objects which were drawn by the drawing tool.

I have been trying to get both actionscript and drawn objects to work together and cannot get it right!!

Questions:

1) In terms of layering or frames, What is the best way to output on your pages both "objects drawn by the Flash drawing tools" and "actionscript objects"?

Is this better handled using frames or layers? Should I place my actionscript on the first few frames, then my "drawn objects" on the later frames? Or use layers and have my AS code above or below the manually drawn objects?

For example:

I have my actionscript on layer 1. Then use drawing tools to draw a box on layer 2.

When published, I want the "manually drawn box" and "the actionscript drawn objects" to both be viewable on the pages. Do I place the "drawn" layer above or below the

actionscript layer? Or should this be handled by frames?

I have tried both and neither seem to work for me. When I do one or the other, it works, meaning, all drawn objects, obviously things are viewable, then if

I use all actionscript, things are viewable, but when I try to combine both, the manually drawn objects do not show up.

The actionscript objects show up correctly, but I cannot see the objects I have directly drawn on-stage.

In my actionscript, I use, "_root.getNextHighestLevel()", for each of the objects, this works fine for all the actionscript objects. However, I did nothing

for the objects drawn using the tools, should I attach the same "_root.getNextHighestLevel()" to those objects drawn on-stage?

Or,

2) Should I try to draw Kirupa's objects on my pages using actionscript?

Thanks, any help is great!!

Dave.

Help: Stage Objects Get In Front Of Script Objects?
This is getting me mad...

addChild(my_script_object);

I can't see it...

If I try trace(numChildren) I get 10, so then I try addChildAt(my_script_object,9) and still cant' see it.

If I delete all the objects in stage then I finally see it.... If I delete one by one I find my_script_objects gets beneath a bitmap placed by hand by the designer.

Any ideas?

TIA

[MX04] "Drawing" Line Effect Using Drawing API
So i've got a basic drawing using the drawing API ala:
myLine = this.createEmptyMovieClip("newLine", 1);
myLine.lineStyle(3, 0x000000, 100);
myLine.moveTo(0,0);
myLine.lineTo(100,0);
myLine.lineTo(100,100);...etc

Now is there a way to have flash animate the drawing of the lines like a map from an Indiana Jones movie?

Thanks!

Drawing Api Drawing Saving
ok - say i have made a swf where you can draw, with possible color change and different brush size, and i want to somehow save my drawing (in a database)
so i figured every little line that is drawn on enter frame has 6 values - start x, start y, end x, end y, color and size.
approximately - first 4 are 3 numbers, color is 6 numbers and size is 2 numbers length, so its 4*3+6+2=20 numbers for one little line
the framerate of the movie is 100fp/s so getting the maximum smoothness of the drawing, so one little line is drawn in 1/100 of a second, and in a second i have to save 20*100=2000 numbers.
a symbol is 8 bytes, so 2000*8=16000 bytes (/1024~15,5kb) - in a second!
so if you draw for a minute - its 16000*60=960'000 bytes (/1024~937,5kb~1mb) in a minute!

and my question is how to save a drawing to a database different way then im thinking, to me this seems the only way...

1mb per minute of drawing seems kinda lame for me and noone will want to wait till it loads up

Drawing API - A Line Drawing Itself
I can draw a simple line with the drawing API and I'm able to place it on the stage where I want to but I'm trying to have the line draw itself between x=0 y=0 and x=600 y=400.

Any pointers on how to take that on?

t/y

About Referencing Objects And Copying Objects
This is for AS1

hi,

i should know this but i got lost for a bit, can someone make this clear:

i have the following:

code: myobject=new Object()
myobject.var="hello"
getvar=myobject.var

In this case, get var has a reference for myobject.var, or it has just copied de value? mean if i update myobject.var to "good bye" get vatr will be that, too, or will stay as "hello".

If it's just a reference, how can make it a different variable, i mean, assign the value of myobject.var to getvar and loose any relationship between myobject.var and getvar, so if i update one, the other doesn't.

Anyone?

Problem With Class Objects Within Objects
Hi There,
I am having trouble creating an oop grid.
My initial object is "world" shown below which will contain an array of "Row" objects, which in turn contains an array of tile objects.
As i build up the rows and assign the tiles everything seems fine but when i try to retrieve the values the tiles in each row returns the same values from each tile..

class world{

//declare class members
private var goalScore
private var mapPreview
private var title
private var editor
private var createdBy
private var movieBorder
private var instructions
private var rows = new Array()

//Constructor
public function world(Param_goalScore, Param_mapPreview, Param_title, Param_editor, Param_createdBy, Param_movieBorder, Param_instructions){
this.goalScore = Param_goalScore
this.mapPreview = Param_mapPreview
this.title = Param_title
this.editor= Param_editor
this.createdBy= Param_createdBy
this.movieBorder= Param_movieBorder
this.instructions= Param_instructions
}

//Methods
public function createRow(){
if (rows==null){
this.rows[0] = new row()
}else{
this.rows[rows.length] = new row()
}
return this.rows[rows.length-1]
}

}
class row{

//declare class members
public var tiles = new Array()

//Constructor
public function row(){

}

//Methods
function createTile(Param_tileType, Param_completionScore, Param_objectType){
if (tiles==null){
trace("created first tile")
this.tiles[0] = new tile(Param_tileType, Param_completionScore, Param_objectType)
}else{
trace("created tile " + tiles.length +" tiles="+tiles)
this.tiles[this.tiles.length] = new tile(Param_tileType, Param_completionScore, Param_objectType)
}
return this.tiles[this.tiles.length-1]
}

}

class tile{

// declare class members
public var tileType;
public var completionScore;
public var objectType;
public var character;

// Constructor
public function tile(Param_tileType, Param_completionScore, Param_objectType){

tileType = Param_tileType;
completionScore = Param_completionScore;
objectType = Param_objectType;

//movementPreset = Param_movementPreset

//error = Param_error
//errorImage = Param_errorImage

}

// Methods

}

Any advice will be greatly received.

Jason

Mask Objects And Masked Objects
Well.. I don't know if there is already a thread on this subject, but I have this doubt, and I would really like some support.

Been trying to use one mask object to mask several movies, but it doesn't seems to work. Has anyone ever managed to do this?

For example:

Let's say I have three MC - man, woman and baby are their names - and I want to use setMask to mask then so they walk behind the walls of a house, but just show up through the window. I create, then, a mask object - one object with the shape of the window inside it - named it windowMask, put it in _root and added to my actions layer the following lines:

Code:
man.setMask(_root.windowMask);
woman.setMask(_root.windowMask);
baby.setMask(_root.windowMask);
Unfortunately, only the last of them - baby in this case - is masked.

Can't I use one mask object to mask multiple MCs?

Everything works fine if I duplicate the mask MC and set each copy as a mask for each of them.

Code:
man.setMask(_root.windowMask);
woman.setMask(_root.windowMask1);
baby.setMask(_root.windowMask2);
The thing is, what I wrote above is just an example. The real movie has 30 to 40 MC which should be masked by the same mask object and I don't want to have 30 to 40 mask objects dangling around my movie...

Making Objects Go Behind And In Front Other Objects
Say I wanted to tween something so that it like rotates around it.
IE: a moon rotating around a planet, an electron orbiting a nucleus

How would I make the orbiting object go in front and behind the stationary object?

Cant Tell When Merge Drawing Model Vs. Object Drawing Model
I keep drawing shapes on the same layer, overlapping them, and then trying to delete one of the shapes to cut a shape out of the first. This does not work automatically as Help says it does, I have to go to "Modify > Combine Objects > Union" to merge them, THEN I can cut my shape out. When is this supposed to occur "automatically"? How am I supposed to know what mode I'm in?

Cant Tell When Merge Drawing Model Vs. Object Drawing Model
I keep drawing shapes on the same layer, overlapping them, and then trying to
delete one of the shapes to cut a shape out of the first. This does not work
automatically as Help says it does, I have to go to "Modify > Combine Objects >
Union" to merge them, THEN I can cut my shape out. When is this supposed to
occur "automatically"? How am I supposed to know what mode I'm in?