[AS3][Help] Noob'ish Questions

[as3newb]

Instead of starting a new thread for each quesiton I'm just going to add them here (and others can too) in hope that eventually there will be some useful info.

Q) Some game objects I need to apply realtime fx like roations, scaling, additive blending, etc. I think I have 2 options, use Sprite() or Draw(). Which renders faster? If they both use the same pipeline I think Draw() might be better but might come at an expense of more code to support it.

Q) I realize Draw() has the capability to scale, rotate, blend, etc. But I can't find any good tutorials how to use this method. Can someone point me to a good tutorial on using Draw()? Ultimately I would like to Draw() and have it center on all scaling and rotation values.

Q) Matrix. Seems like you can do alot with this. I "think" this how alot of warping fx I'm seeing are done. Can someone point to a good tutorial to learn how to use these matrix's? I'm hoping you can xskew and yskew as well using the matrix.

Q) Loader. I'm embedding all of my data. Can you still do a loader screen or is the only option a black screen until everything is loaded?

Thanks.

[as3newb]

Q) Stage Quality. I see we have a Stage.Quality property we can set at design time. Does anyone ever use that? I noticed with low quality I'm able to render 4 times as many Sprite() objects with little loss in overall quality. Is it fair practice to have high quality at title screens, etc, then perhaps go into low or medium at game time?

[pseudobot]

Q) Stage Quality. I see we have a Stage.Quality property we can set at design time. Does anyone ever use that? I noticed with low quality I'm able to render 4 times as many Sprite() objects with little loss in overall quality. Is it fair practice to have high quality at title screens, etc, then perhaps go into low or medium at game time?

Again, this info may not be relevant, as Im using Flash 8 but:
You would usually set the _quality down to medium, as long as their is no real need in very high quality graphics most of the time, and it makes gaming on a slower machine more pleasant. Additionally, a lot of developers let the user change the quality to fit the speed of their computer.

I have never done the "on title screen have high quality and on game have low quality" thing, but it definetly sounds like a good idea.

[Incrue]

About matrix
http://www.senocular.com/flash/tutor...ansformmatrix/

[TOdorus]

About quality settings: http://help.adobe.com/en_US/AS3LCR/F...e.html#quality

Quality doesn't realy affect bitmaps as much as it does vectorgraphics. I did find in my own experimenting with blitting (learned a new word there), that it's best to set the authortime quality to "best" and at runtime set it to "low". I don't really understand why, but for some reason the quality at authortime defines how good your bitmaps will look.

[renderhjs]

just start programming,- the things you ask are minor details compared to whats next. Most of them can be fixed or improved afterwards- that is if it does not already runs fast enough.

[Squize]

With quality, set it to low straight away. You'll notice going from high to low causes the whole screen to move 1px left and 1px up, which is very noticeable in a game.
There's no need to change settings, just drop it to low straight away ( If you do need to change it, can't think why, just ensure that you've doing it on a frame will a totally blank screen, ie during a fade which has gone to 0 ).

Loader. I'm embedding all of my data < Yes you can still have a preloader.

I've got to agree with Render here mate, it could be time to look at game logic rather than the nuts and bolts behind the scene.
By default your first Flash game, even if it's completed, isn't going to be great. Just get it done, the amount of things you'll learn by actually coding it will outweigh anything and everything you can ask here.

Squize.

[as3newb]

Hi squize, thanks for the confirmation on quality. wow..if I leave it at low that's a great performance booster! As far as coding the game itself, logic is the fun part. But first I had to come to grips with a basic render pipeline and luckily I have something done which should get me by for my first few simple games.

I have to say, AS3 is turning out to be one of the funnest languages I've ever coded in and I'm just scratching the surface!

[as3newb]

Q) Flash Performance For Games: I've noticed wildly varying performance from computer to computer. System A may lag like crazy, while system B performs flawlessly. Do flash developers even worry about this? Is there really anything we can do?

[mr_malee]

yes we worry, and no we can't do much.

Its usually a browser issue. One day, Microsoft, Apple, Mozilla and Adobe will all come together an agree on something and fix the issues. This however will not happen in our lifetimes.

[as3newb]

err..$hit.. thanks Mr.Malee. What makes it worse is when it runs fine on some low end crap pc and a high end pc lags/stutters like crazy.