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Thread: Navigation and Sprites

  1. #1
    Junior Member
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    Navigation and Sprites

    Thanks to this forum I have learned quite a bit during the last few weeks. I originally had a very large movie of around 100 scenes. It was suggested that I should use sprites in a single scene to display the changing text while I kept the graphics constant. More efficient. I have a menu panel at the left and clicking on the text in the menu panel brings up the appropriate text in a sprite. Great.

    Originally I had "previous" and "next" buttons in each scene and they sent you to the next or previous scenes. Easy. With the sprite approach they are superfluous. However I have too many lots of text to list in a menu so some menu items must have multiple scenes. In effect I want previous and next buttons associated with each (or some) bit(s) of text. Or a bit of text that acts like a hyperlink. Also I used to have a "screen x of y" at the base of each scene but now that I have sprites I can't do that.

    Any suggestions?
    Bruce

  2. #2
    Flashkit historian Frets's Avatar
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    If sprites are masked the all the contents of the sprites
    will only be visible inside the area of the lowermost
    object. If they are not masked then objects will extend
    past that area making the sprite as big as the swf are
    or larger.....


    ergo your sprites can be very big....

    Next hint for you.

    Everything operates on a z order
    Your menu for example can sit on the top or the rest of the objects
    within your scene (so objects within it are clickable.

    Next hint Sprites Can have child sprites.
    If you have a sprite with several scenes and want
    to preserve the background make it the child sprite.
    Although,,,,,,you don't really need to make mulitple
    scenes as you can always use place/remove for objects
    in the timeline.

    Next hints swap depths and _visible
    If you have multiple sprites in a scene level
    The sprites they all exist on separate z levels
    you can move a sprites up or down via swap depths.
    Although this example relates to building a custom cursor
    you can easily change it to swaping depths of two sprites
    http://frets-files.com/html/modules/...hp?cat_id=1#q2
    ala
    Statements>Name=Expr;
    on (release){
    SpriteA.swapDepths.SpriteB;
    }

    _visible
    Targeted Objects (sprites) can be visible via the transform action or not.
    This is great for tabbed panel type of stuff.
    on (release) {
    t_t._visible = True;
    F_S._visible = False;
    nv._visible = False;
    }

    Attached is a crude exapmle of that
    (beta build 2003.12.10)
    Attached Files Attached Files

  3. #3
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    Frets,

    Thanks for the prompt reply. Unfortunately I understood virtually none of it. But I'm prepared to research it. Can you point me towards some tutes that explain z orders, swap depths and _visible?
    Bruce

  4. #4
    Flashkit historian Frets's Avatar
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    Think of the cartesian grid
    x,y,x
    x means a location left or right
    y means a location up or down
    z means front or back

    Take a look at this image
    You'll notice the word One sits on top
    of the word two partially blocking it
    same with Two sitting on top of One
    If you look at the outline panel
    the depth or z order shows that the text one is on
    top.

    The same holds true for sprites in scenes and objects or
    Sprites and objects in other sprites.

    While swap depth isn't availabe with 2.0
    swapdepth (z order) is in max

    visible can work either in the timeline
    as place and remove.

    You can also access it via transform
    and is available in max and 2.0

    In 2.0 your visibility would need to be a sprite
    In other words
    On Event
    Tell Target "MySprite"
    -Transform
    Select visibility
    0 or 1
    0 means the object is invisible
    1 means the object is visible

    In Max
    It's var=expression
    Select your target from the dd menu
    and your transform from the name
    then in the dialog box type
    True or False


    Frets

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