??? Whatever new features are in F9 i'm sure will have lots of usefullness for games!, but if it makes you happier.....yes, what new features in F9 will be usefull for game making in Flash, happy?
I hope it includes a non-shapeflag hitTest for two different objects
"I'd only told them the truth. Was that so selfish? Our integrity sells for so little, but it is all we really have. It is the very last inch of us, but within that inch, we are free."
exactly, what is Flash 9 going to have thats going to make life better/easier for making games? what cool features will it have that allows us to make new cool games?
I´m not sure whether you ask what new features as3 will bring or if you ask what new features the flash 9 ide (authoring tool) will bring.
Because for as3 you can go check out the language specifications,download the flex 9 ide alpha for free or flex 2 builder and try for yourself right now.
To sum some of the new things AS3 brings up:
-Drastically better code execution speed thanks to things like runtime persistent data types (leading to less ram usage in many cases),JIT compiling etc.
-changed structure/setup for handling graphical objects (like mcs) :there´s a displaylist (like a tree structure) now and one can remove things from a displayobjectcontainer in the displaylist (without destroying the object/its state) and reparent em to other displayobjectcontainers at runtime,traverse nicely through the displaylist etc.
-automatic depth managment when instantiating graphical objects
-more graphic object types (so you can use the one you need,again a big ram saver,if you don´t need a timeline for example you instantiate a sprite instead of a movieclip,so movieclip isn´t the most used graphical object for code controlled projects anymore)
i could go on and on,there´s really lots of changes and additions in the language,but these alone should give you an idea that one can do more things at way more performance now with the language upgrade,no matter if for games or other things.
Regarding the flash 9 ide ( = dev tool),what´s known so far is that it will have remade, easier to use and easier to skin components (grant skinner is working on),it´ll have sweet photoshop file import feature and it´ll allow showing the code output for tweens made in the authoring tool (robert penner is working on that).
Way more isn´t publically known about it yet.
I´m not sure whether you ask what new features as3 will bring or if you ask what new features the flash 9 ide (authoring tool) will bring.
Because for as3 you can go check out the language specifications,download the flex 9 ide alpha for free or flex 2 builder and try for yourself right now.
To sum some of the new things AS3 brings up:
-Drastically better code execution speed thanks to things like runtime persistent data types (leading to less ram usage in many cases),JIT compiling etc.
-changed structure/setup for handling graphical objects (like mcs) :there´s a displaylist (like a tree structure) now and one can remove things from a displayobjectcontainer in the displaylist (without destroying the object/its state) and reparent em to other displayobjectcontainers at runtime,traverse nicely through the displaylist etc.
-automatic depth managment when instantiating graphical objects
-more graphic object types (so you can use the one you need,again a big ram saver,if you don´t need a timeline for example you instantiate a sprite instead of a movieclip,so movieclip isn´t the most used graphical object for code controlled projects anymore)
i could go on and on,there´s really lots of changes and additions in the language,but these alone should give you an idea that one can do more things at way more performance now with the language upgrade,no matter if for games or other things.
Regarding the flash 9 ide ( = dev tool),what´s known so far is that it will have remade, easier to use and easier to skin components (grant skinner is working on),it´ll have sweet photoshop file import feature and it´ll allow showing the code output for tweens made in the authoring tool (robert penner is working on that).
Way more isn´t publically known about it yet.
I think the new display structure is going to be VERY useful for game makers in Flash. But does the display list also include the sprites? or is it just for MCs?
Of course the other important aspect of game making in Flash is security, but perhaps thats something that will never be solved.
For me I would like to see some way to dynamically load animation, such as animated .gif's.
And will it be possible to duplicated loaded movies...again that would allow .swfs to be used as animation files.
oh, and some basic 3D functions would be useful, allow polys to be textured and moved in 3d inside built into the player. But maybe thats Flash 10!
Mate,for your AS3 related questions you should really visit the as3 forum. Unless you code on a game and have questions regarding the game code.
To answer your questions though :
The displaylist is for all graphical objects,so you add something to it to display it. (to be more precise you need to add displayobjects to displayobjectcontainers,so for example sprite and mc are displayobjectcontainers and can contain other displayobjecttypes (or same ones,too)
Regarding security one can tackle things in new ways on several ends with as3 there, but yup,as long as the swf file format specs are open and also the file not compiled to way more close to machine code format on export,there´ll always be the problem of decompilation. I often hear people moaning about that; you have to be aware that other languages with similar setup have the same issue though (like one can also decompile java things in similar manner).
Also that the swf file format specs etc are made publically accessible has been more benefitial to all develpers imho than it has caused problems. Sure,there are those downsisdes we all know,but all those nice swf related apps (zinc for example) wouldn´t have been possible without the file specs publically available just like flash probably wouldn´t have been accepted by the industry half as much as it is now if it was a closed adobe only product even more than it is now.
Regarding loading in gif animations: well,you can load in way more formats if you wish to in form of a bytestream with as3 and then handle it on your own but to get back to the animated gif example you could easily load in a spritesheet (image containing several state/frame image sections in it) and then handle the animation codeside with more control on it.
Regarding duplicating mcs with loaded content: the loading handling aswell as handling graphical objects is done a bit different now as i summed up shortly in bits already,so yeah,you have more control on what to do with loaded in elements now,too.
Regarding 3d: yeah,it would be nice if there was a set of well made 3d classes built in but at least there´s more performance now so doing basic 3d things isn´t only good for experimental demos anymore
(and yep,there´s more than just rumors there´s work beeing done to bring graphic card support in f10 on more platforms)
(and yep,there´s more than just rumors there´s work beeing done to bring graphic card support in f10 on more platforms)
Really???....now that would be some sweet news!! ....it's good to know that there is work being done on that.....can you point out some sources if any available, that talk about that?.....just curious
Really???....now that would be some sweet news!! ....it's good to know that there is work being done on that.....can you point out some sources if any available, that talk about that?.....just curious
paul.
sorry mate,i don´t have a specific link at hand for that,i read many blogs (also ones of mm/adobe people) and hints regarding that topic were given on several posts around.
Its clear with the recent history of flash player development though that adobe is trying to give the fplayer as much performance as possible (and assigned by browser/hardware) without bloating the player size and/or making the system unstable. A good example for that is the f8 player making use of opengl to display its content in certain conditions on macs (yeah,i found the post on that again at least: http://www.kaourantin.net/2005/07/wh...c-perform.html ). How much they achieve on linux and windows (and maybe even more than now on mac,too) time (and releases ) will tell of course but yup,there´s some efforts beeing done
I suggest you check the posts on blogs like the one of tinic for regular and more in depth background info on the dev of flash player.
I personally would like to see the program UI be enhanced, such as the library, filing is so much simpler in many other lessly used programs, and things like the swapbitmap/moviclip popup boxes should be resizable and anchorable, lots of things are problematic or to tedious to do in Flash simply because the UI is lacking alot of neccessary tuning.
And OMG, ad some <sup></sup> abilities, i mean i can underline in AS and not on panel, and I can <sup> on panel but not in AS, what is the deal, i am sure we all hate these.
There is a whole list of things I have going in my personal folder, but those are just the few I think of now.
I am going to look at those links renderjhs, thanks for posting them.
Edit (dang you render there just to our forums =) I thought you had some good links there lol)
Last edited by everfornever; 10-24-2006 at 07:13 PM.
everfornever, besides the last line your post here was somewhat not related at all to the thread topic. The thread topic was B. asking about what new features come with f9;it was not a "let´s start our wishlits for f9" type of thread. If you have such wishes either enter them at the wishform on the adobe site ( http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/...?name=wishform ) or start a thread in the coffee lounge with that topic.
^^ripx,i´m not sure i get what you mean (btw,hello Stranger,long time no see,nice to see you around again )
Did you ask how many of us have played around with f9 (and then tried a hello world example) already? Yeah,i did
Though the first thing i did (after reading a bit in the docs) was to check how i could add compiler arguments to change the bg color to not show that standard flex look
were did you get flash 9? are speaking just of AS3?or is there a beta somewhere?
With flash people often say flash [versionnumber] when talking about the ide but also when talking about the player. Please clarify about what you talk in the future,makes it easier for all
The flash 9 player is meanwhile available in final stable version for a good while as the standard player download on the adobe site. (An updated beta version with some fixes and even a new feature (fullscreen mode) can be downloaded at adobe labs though).
The flash 9 ide ( = flash authoring tool) can be downloaded in alpha form on adobe labs,too ( http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flash9as3preview/ ).
If you are a registered user of flash 8 your version will be unrestricted,otherwise its a trial version (with full functionality of the alpha,just time restricted).
Flash 9 IDE alpha basically is just the flash 8 authoring tool with the option to work with as3 and export flash 9 swf files. (it also has some other slight differences but i won´t go into much more detail now unless someone is interested )
Note that as always the flash ide is not the ideal solution for coding as its code editor is lacking in many areas,with the flash 9 ide alpha that is even more the case as it comes without features like code assist,code format or dictionary.
Therefore i suggest you get a trial version of flex2 builder on the adobe site (you can get a 30 day trial) and do your code work there and use the flash 9 ide for your graphical work (you want to do in authoring time).
Besides that you could also get the free flashdevelop code editor ( http://www.osflash.org/flashdevelop ) to code in as3 but yeah,that one wasn´t to my liking as much as flex is.
(the good side is that its a robust code editor for free,so if you have no money its a good choice for code work for now,too)
I downloaded the Flex2 IDE trial (11 hours on dial-up lol), i'm just sitting looking at the tutorials now and yes, I did mean, who'd got to see the HelloWorld example actually work lol..I hate learning new things (hence my slowness to take up AS2). Thanks for the nice welcome back I was trecking around Thailand and I should be going back for a year to south east asia and China after I finish my course this year!
Anyway, back to the topic..seems like there are some interesting new things here to look at. I've already seen a C64 emulator written in AS3 running at exceptional speed so it shows that there must be some huge optimizations in there which is why i'm taking the oportunity to learn it straight away. It also shows the potential of this little fella...I noted that on the same C64 project site, dynamic sound is in there, at least I gather it is since they are working on SID emulation
Feels a little restrictive atm in terms of the nature of the OOPness (is that in the dictionary?) but I guess thats where the speed is coming from so can't complain. I wanna master this lil biatch this time around so just a quick question...
has anyone figured out how to display your .as classes in a standalone player from the IDE or do you have to run it from a folder once compiled??
Ok, so I donwloaded flash 9 alpha, I got the full version not trial, but it looks just like flash 8, I mean exactly, so is it to be my understanding the only difference between 8 and 9 is the fact that you can use as3 and post flash 9?
p.s. I published one of my games as flash 9 and it seems to be running better... is this my imagination?
p.s.s. What's this about actionscript 3 does not allow script on button or mc instances?
Last edited by everfornever; 10-24-2006 at 08:30 PM.
haha,this is turning into a "post all your flash9 talk here" thread.
So just a general reminder to all:
Again, in the future *´d prefer it if people posted things in the related forums
But yup,i won´t move this thread now as several people hanging out here seem to be into talking about the topic in here for a bit =).
to Rip: I´m actually into learning new things,"new" as in: something i couldn´t do/use at all before.
I´m more against having to over and over learn how to do the same things in different way now.
With AS3 it convinced me pretty quickly though (way quicker than AS2 could ) because there´s really tons of benefits to it =)
(and it isn´t only relearning to do the same things in different way but also many really new features to learn there).
Regarding game dev the performance boost is of course awesome,but its not just that,i´ve listed some other things which are a great addition in app (and game ) design/dev and we could list such things for a long while now
Yup,i´ve tried the C64 emulator,too (more info on it here: http://www.gotoandplay.it/spotLight/fc64/ ) and its a great example for some things f9/AS3 brings for sure.
Without the huge performance boost that wouldn´t be possible and yup,its not just that,as you said there´s more to sound handling now,basically (as i talked about shortly in a sidenote earlier) one can load in bytestreams,so likewise you could load sounds as bytestreams,you can also likewise create files (or bytestreams flash interpretes as file) at runtime,all wicked stuff.
While talking about sound handling you can also compute the soundspectrum now which you can use to do nice visualizers for example.
Well,our list goes on and on.. =)
Yup,as you said AS3 forces one way more to clean coding manner than older AS versions, but yup,also as you said part of the performance gain comes from that (for example less ram usage in some cases thanks to strict data typing). Also: The one who ever had to edit a way old f5 or f6 fla after several years and went mad because of all the clip actions and generally messy code all around will appreciate at least a bit beeing forced to code a bit cleaner now to have less pain afterwards. All that said if you have a good code editor, like the one of flex, coding is way less painful than for example coding as1 or 2 in f8 ide,so its actually not the most painful thing to get into at all =)
Regarding your question i´m not sure what you mean; where *.as files sit has no effect on the exported swf. The .as files are compiled as part of the code in the exported swf,afterwards you can put the swf where you want.
If you were talking about something else please clarify
Regarding your tripping around: Wow,nice,you get to see the world,good stuff mate =)
I know your post was not for me but I totally see your point about the coding, so AS3 does not support onclip's because it's seen as an inferior way of coding thus is now forcing us to code in frames and thus coding cleaner?
I also notice the components are disabled...
Last edited by everfornever; 10-24-2006 at 08:49 PM.
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Originally Posted by tomsamson
) will tell of course but yup,there´s some efforts beeing done 
