Mike Chambers

code = joy

Archive for the ‘as3’ tag

New Release of as3corelib Library

with 5 comments

I have just posted a new release (.93) of as3corelib. The corelib project is an ActionScript 3 Library that contains a number of classes and utilities for working with ActionScript? 3.

You can view a complete list of changes in the change list (items 75 – 106).

You can download the updated SWC and source from the project’s download page.

Thanks to Christian Cantrell for helping build the release.

Written by mikechambers

May 28th, 2010 at 12:50 pm

Posted in General

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Case Study : ActionScript 3 Performance Optimization

with 23 comments

Prompted by some of the work from Grant Skinner (in particular his FOTB 2009 session) and Thibault Imbert, I have been doing a lot of research lately into optimizing ActionScript 3 content. Not just how to make it run faster, but how to approach the process of optimization.

I am also starting to work on a small project which works with pixel data from images, and on which I anticipate performance might be an issue when working with larger images. I figured this would be a good opportunity to use some of the early code as a case study. I wanted to post the process and results here.
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Written by mikechambers

October 13th, 2009 at 10:27 am

Posted in ActionScript

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Parsing and displaying BMP files via ActionScript

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I dont have a formal computer science training / education, so I never got the chance to learn about working with low level data structures (bits and bytes). I have wanted to learn this for some time, but had difficulty finding resources for it which didnt assume I had a computer science degree.

Well, yesterday, FITC posted all of the video sessions from FITC Toronto, and I spent some time watching Lee Brimelow’s presentation on working with ByteArrays. It is a really great session, that provides a clear and solid foundation and understanding of working with ByteArrays and bits and bytes.

Anyways, after watching Lee’s session, it all finally clicked for me, and I spent some time last night putting together a simple parser that would dynamically load and display a 24Bit BMP image file within Flash.
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Written by mikechambers

September 17th, 2009 at 2:32 pm

Posted in ActionScript,General

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Relative performance for collision detection techniques in ActionScript 3

with 20 comments

If you have read my blog any this week, you have probably noticed that I have been doing some basic research on collision detection within the Flash Player. As part of this, I have put together a simple test suite, showing the performance of a couple of different techniques for checking for collision. This is by no means meant to be exhaustive (and currently tilts towards boundary collision). However, I wanted to post the results as the current information is useful (if nothing more than to confirm existing assumptions), and perhaps generate more tests an ideas around collision detection.
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Written by mikechambers

June 26th, 2009 at 3:28 pm

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What new game APIs do you want in the Flash Player?

with 92 comments

I have been learning some game development lately, and building my first game (well, at least my first game since Flash 4). I think game development and deployment are some of the real strengths of the Flash player, but ones which we haven’t specifically focused on in a while.

While working on my game, there were a couple of things I needed to do where additional player APIs could have made the development easier (as well as likely speeding up execution). This got me to thinking about other APIs that would be useful for game development. So, what new Flash Player APIs would you like to see that would make game development easier?

Here are a couple from me:
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Written by mikechambers

June 16th, 2009 at 12:03 pm

Posted in ActionScript

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Scripting with ActionScript 3 and Flash CS4

with 4 comments

Written by mikechambers

March 9th, 2009 at 1:41 pm

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Update to JSON support in as3corelib

without comments

Darron Schall has just checked in some changes and bug fixes to the JSON support in as3corelib. Among other things, Darron has added a strict mode which allows you to specify how strict of a conformance to the JSON spec you want the library to follow.
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Written by mikechambers

December 23rd, 2008 at 12:55 pm

Posted in ActionScript

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Growl support for Adobe AIR applications

with 52 comments

One of the top feature requests that end users have been asking for from AIR applications (on Mac) is the ability for those applications to leverage the open source Growl notification framework on Mac. However, this was not previously possible due to how applications are required to communicate with Growl.

I am really excited to announce that Adobe has been working with the Growl team to add support to Growl for Adobe AIR and Flash applications. Among other things, this will enable Adobe AIR applications to leverage the Growl notification framework on Mac. The best part, is that it is implemented in a way that is not just limited to use by Flash and AIR.
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Written by mikechambers

November 13th, 2008 at 10:39 am

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Bash Scripts for working with ActionScript 3 in TextMate

with 10 comments

I have switched over to using TextMate for some of my experimentations with ActionScript. I like how lightweight it is, its extensibility, command completion functionality, and ease of setting up new projects. I find it is perfect for quickly testing new code and ideas.

I have put together a couple of bash scripts, which coupled with the ActionScript 3 and Flex TextMate bundles have made working in TextMate a little easier for me.
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Written by mikechambers

October 9th, 2008 at 11:41 am

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Encapsulating Custom Pixel Bender Filters in ActionScript 3

with 4 comments

If you read my blog regularly (or just today) you should have noticed that I have been playing around with some Pixel Bender filters and ActionScript / Flex (all inspired by Lee Brimelow’s video screencast on creating and using Pixel Bender filters in Flash Player 10.)

Previously, I posted some code showing how to embed a custom Pixel Bender filter within a SWF and then apply the filter to an image. That works well, but the code is not that reusable since the filter loading code is mixed in with the main code.

Below is a simple example that shows how to encapsulate a custom filter inside of an ActionScript 3 class, which you can then use and re-use like any other built in filter.
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Written by mikechambers

September 8th, 2008 at 2:30 pm

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