Gotcha!

Large version.

I lied! Here's an update to the slingshot. I've got a decent idea of where I want this headed now, so I plan to get it polished up in the next few days!

The biggest addition here is the addition of the capturing bubble that seeks out berries that have fallen. Once it "sees" one, it rushes to it and grabs it. With berry in tow, it returns it to the center of the screen, drops it off, and a new berry spawns. This will be a huge element in the final product.

Slingshot pt. 2

Well, today has been quite the day. Little annoyances have plagued me throughout the day. I'm sure we've all been assaulted by the terrible images coming in from Haiti. All of my little issues seem so small compared to what they are going through down there. I encourage you to send good thoughts (or better yet, a little spare cash) down south. Our local Fox affiliate has a nice collection of links you can find here.

Right-o, then.



Large version.

As you can see, I've made some progress in this slingshot app. I have an idea of what I plan to do with this, but it might not be fully realized for a short while yet.

Slingshot (WIP)

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I'm not completely done with this one yet, but I did want to upload my progress so far. To fire off a shot, click and hold one of the two yellow dots. Drag back, and release it to fire! You can pack a lot of energy into a shot, so if you pull back too far, you'll likely send it flying insanely fast off the screen.

I'll be touching this up and doing a little more with it in the next few days.

Wind Redux!

Large version.

I decided to go back to the .swf from a couple of posts ago and add a few features. I think that this really shows how this could be formed into a useful application.

Controls are the same, but now rolling over any of the particles with your mouse allows you to see a few scraps of data from it, including:

• the ID (based on when it is added to the stage)
• the type (in this case, based on the color)
• the weight (which determines size and speed)
• the speed on each axis at which the particle is moving

Letter Scramble (WIP)

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Okay, this project is not quite 100% finished, but I'm not sure what else I'm going to do with it.

Not much to say about it. Type something in the white field and then click the grey INPUT button. Once the button is clicked, whatever is in the text field is split up using Flash's .split() ability. Each letter is sent into an array in order. From there, a movie clip is added for each letter. This movie clip has a target letter which is what we want the movie clip to ultimately display.

The randomization is achieved by having an array of possible letters (a-z, and A-Z). Every 2 frames, the text field is filled with a random letter from the array until this swap has happened a set number of times (25*letter position+10). When the set number has been reached, BAM! The field is then filled in with that target letter from earlier.

I plan to flesh this out and maybe even use it in a useful way in the future, so if you have any suggestions, let me know!

EDIT: Linda asked about having all of the letters stop at the same time. Here's a .fla file that contains the code that does that.

Any way the wind blows...

Click and drag the green gem on the above .swf.

Large version here.

I was going to post something about randomizing text with input fields, but this little guy popped into my head on the drive home from work. At my place of work, Oxygen Education, I recently helped a co-worker develop a wind turbine simulator. It was fairly simple, where the _rotation property of a movie clip changed based on where a specific draggable movie clip was.

Well, I decided to take this concept a step further and control an entire ARRAY of movie clips with it. And I thought to myself, I thought "Well, why not allow movement in all directions?"

And so I did. A simple for loop adds the bead movie clips to the stage at random positions. As they are added, an empty variable called "weight" is filled in (which I've set as a number from 1-10). The weight adjusts how large the object is, and also has an effect on the movement speed. You'll notice the larger, and therefore "heavier", beads move a bit slowly. This is accomplished by setting the movement rate to a number multiplied by a decimal (determined by the weight).

So there you have it! Another useless, yet fun to watch, Flash experiment!

Placeholder

Okay, I really don't have anything for you guys today. I have SOME things I could post, but not really the time tonight to fully explain them. So...enjoy this hastily-scrawled vector turtle thingum I found sitting in my "Doodles" folder.