Shadow Drag effect in AS2?

[Archbob]

Hi,
Is there a tutorial somewhere that shows you how to do a shadow drag effect in AS2? Like when a character moves, it looks like there's shadows of him moving behind him?

Basically I need a drop shadow following a moving object in AS2.

[stevehungry]

cant you use the drop shadow filter in flash? or why not attach a shadow movieclip to the back of the character and increase the shadows movement to the same as the player and then have a variable so if the charatcer is moving it will start to bob up and down a little bit, if its not moving then the shadow would remain still..thats just an idea. i wouldnt know where to begin if you want to introduce things like sun direction and shade and things like that.

[Genesis F5]

edit: stevehungry beat me to it

Flash has native drop shadow capabilities for basic shadows. You just have to select your movie clip and select the "filters" tab. From the, press the "+" symbol to add a drop shadow. From the properties, you can adjust distance, angle, transparency, etc.

If you're looking for more complex shadows (3D shadows on a 2D plane), you'll need a combination of AS and animation.

[Archbob]

Thanks guys,
I got this so far by using the filters thing in flash(arrows to move):

http://www.flashgamesnexus.com/testb...dowshooter.swf


But its not really what I want. I want it where when you move a shadow follows you around but vanishes when you quit moving. Kind of like in this game:

http://armorgames.com/play/2963/dodge

Where the little sparks follow you around when you move, except I kind of want it to be a shadow following you around. Is there a tutorial of how to do that in AS2 anywhere?

[Genesis F5]

OK, yes, that is like a contrail effect. It's basically done by repeatedly creating an instance of either the image its trailing or a specially designed shadow / trail. When you create the instance, it's given the x, y, and rotational attributes of the main movie clip.

To fade it out, you can then either attach a listener to it or add it to a que accessed by a central listener and reduce it's alpha level to a certain value and then remove the instance when it has reached that level.

[Archbob]

Is there an example or tutorial of how to do this somewhere on FK or anywhere online? I'm not sure how to go about it.

[Archbob]

I figured it out. Probably will do it in AS3 though, the smoke trails on a lot of clips probably will lag in AS2