1. Flash Animation: Character Shading

    Posted on: September 19, 2008

    Adding some shading to characters and objects is a good way to add some depth to your flash animations. The following tip may be an obvious one, but if it’s new to you it may be one of the handiest tips you ever get.

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  2. Subway’s at Night

    Posted on:

    I smell oranges.
    This can only mean one thing.

    Tigers.
    Large cats that hunt by night.
    It worries me, but I can’t do anything.

    I am a bird.


  3. Javascript: Get variables from querystring

    Posted on:

    Problem:

    You need to grab some information from the querystring of a URL using only javascript.

    Solution:

    Use some code I found!
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  4. Save images from Flash to your server using ASP.NET webservices

    Posted on: September 11, 2008

    Problem:

    You want to save an image from Flash to a server using Actionscript 3.0 and ASP.NET.

    Solution:

    Read this article!
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  5. Joke: What would it be like to have thirty dogs?

    Posted on: August 5, 2008

    Question: What do you think it would be like to have thirty dogs?

    Answer: Ruff!

    Only you would bark that answer at the person before they really had any time to think about it.

    I made that up a couple weeks ago, I thought it was pretty funny. Tell everybody.


  6. Actionscript 3.0: Scale Object from Center Point

    Posted on: July 31, 2008

    Note: This is almost exactly the same solution I posted earlier for rotating an object around its center point (Actionscript 3.0: Rotate Around Center Point). I thought I’d post this slightly altered solution for people who need it.

    Problem:

    You need to scale a movieclip/sprite from its center point, but its registration point is at (0,0) and you can’t and/or don’t feel like putting this object in the center of a container movieclip and rotating that

    Solution:

    TCBWMO (Take care of business with the matrix object).
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  7. Flash/Actionscript: Innaccurate math results

    Posted on: July 21, 2008

    Problem:

    You’re working some math equations with Actionscript and tracing the results when you notice some results are off by a very small value.
    output:
    2
    2.1
    2.2
    2.3
    2.4
    2.5000000001
    2.6
    2.7000000001
    2.8
    2.9
    3
    

    Solution:

    This is called a floating point error and is apparently a normal computing error that affects all aspects of computing, not just flash. You can fix this by running the values through the correctFloatingPointError function I’ve posted below.
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  8. Using the free Flex 3 SDK with Flash Develop

    Posted on:

    Recently I got back into Flash and began to learn Actionscript 3.0. Things have definitely come a long way in the last few years, and I’ve become interested in Adobe’s quest to turn the Flash format into a full fledged rich internet application framework of sorts. I’m surprised, and personally impressed on how far all this has come. Here’s a couple things I’ve come to realize (or knew about, but never dived into) in the last year or so:

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  9. Actionscript 3.0: Rotate Around Center Point

    Posted on:

    Problem:

    You need to rotate a movieclip/sprite around it’s center point, but its registration point is at (0,0) and you can’t and/or don’t feel like putting this object in the center of a container movieclip and rotating that.

    Solution:

    Use the transform matrix and show it who’s boss.

    If you want to get this done simply and quickly, you can use this rotateAroundCenter function:

     private function rotateAroundCenter (ob:*, angleDegrees:Number, ptRotationPoint:Point) {
          var m:Matrix=ob.transform.matrix;
          m.tx -= ptRotationPoint.x;
          m.ty -= ptRotationPoint.y;
          m.rotate (angleDegrees*(Math.PI/180));
          m.tx += ptRotationPoint.x;
          m.ty += ptRotationPoint.y;
          ob.transform.matrix=m;
     }
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  10. Flash CS3: Images look jagged when rotating, scaling, etc…

    Posted on: June 12, 2008

    Problem:

    Bitmap images in Flash look like crap when animated to rotate or scale.

    Solution:

    Right-click on the image in the library, select Properties and check Allow Smoothing

    Here’s a screenshot:

    Flash CS3 Allow Smoothing for Bitmaps