I did a little experimenting with the BitmapData class, and came up with this.
I found this effect from a gallery somewhere, and thought it would be cool to try my hand at it, for learning purposes.

Click on the image below to see the effect.

What’s happening is, I get the size of the image, divide it by the size of the “pixels” I want, then create an array of Rectangles positioned in a grid over the image.
I then fill each Rectangle with the color of the pixel in it’s center by using the getPixel() and fillRect() methods of the BitmapData class.
Here is the central function doing the pixelating.
[sourcecode language='js']
private function pixelate(bitmap:Bitmap, strength:Number):void {
var _x:int = 0; // position of the rectangle
var _y:int = 0;
if (strength > 1){
_strength = 1;
}
var _strength:Number = strength; // multiplier for size of “pixels”

var _w:Number = bitmap.bitmapData.width * _strength; //size of “pixels”
var _h:Number = bitmap.bitmapData.height * _strength;

var nH:int = Math.ceil(bitmap.bitmapData.width / _w); // number of rectangles needed horizontally
var nV:int = Math.ceil(bitmap.bitmapData.height / _h);// number of rectangles needed vertically

var rectangles:Array = []; // Rectangles array

//create rectangles
for (var i:int = 0; i < nV; i ++){
var targH:Number = _h;
if (i >= nV - 1){
targH = bitmap.bitmapData.height - _y;
}
for (var j:int = 0; j < nH; j ++){
var targW:Number = _w;
if (j >= nH - 1){
targW = bitmap.bitmapData.width - _x;
}
rectangles.push(new Rectangle(_x, _y, targW, targH));
_x += _w;
}
_x = 0;
_y += _h;

}
//fill in rectangles
for (i = 0; i < rectangles.length; i++){

var rect:Rectangle = rectangles[i];
var pix:uint = _states[0].getPixel((rect.x + rect.width / 2), (rect.y + rect.height / 2));
bitmap.bitmapData.fillRect(rect, pix);
}

saveCurrentState(bitmap.bitmapData);

}
[/sourcecode]

Now for the reverting to the original image part, I had to improvise. Since I overwrote the BitmapData with a bunch of filled rectangles, I couldn’t do much with it.
So I used an array which stores each “state” the BitmapData is in. And I could just retrieve the BitmapData in the array and copy it into the original BitmapData.
[sourcecode language='js']
private function saveCurrentState(bitmapData:BitmapData):void {
_states.push(bitmapData.clone());
}
private function revertToState(stage:int):void {
try{
bmData.copyPixels(_states[stage], bmData.rect, new Point(bmData.rect.x, bmData.rect.y));
}catch (e:Error){
throw new Error(”Invalid state. “);
}
}
[/sourcecode]
To create the animation, I just called the pixelate() function through a Timer at 300 milliseconds.

I use StumbleUpon a lot. Everytime I am bored, I just click away on that little icon to just see what I stumble on. But apart from having random interesting pages ranging anywhere from sex book reviews to funny pics to Flash tutorials, I don’t have any control with what I will get. I think that’s one of the best features of this cool plugin.

Only recently have I discovered that SU has a “Stumble with query” feature. You type in the search query you want, and just stumble away. You might end up with something you had no luck googling, or just end up with something interesting, and still within your search terms.

To start “query stumbling”, just click the ‘All’ dropdown menu on the StumbleUpon toolbar, and click ‘Search’. Enter your search terms, and click on ‘Stumble!’.

Here’s a screenshot. Notice I’ve already started stumbling for “actionscript”.

I was just getting the hang of creating liquid layouts in AS2.0 a few months ago, and boy, is it quite a concept to grasp. Now I have to relearn everything I learned using AS3.0.Thankfully, once I understand the concept, all I have to do now is do it with unfamiliar syntax.

In this little tutorial, I’ll show AS2 and AS3 code showing the same end result. This is just very basic, just showing the differences between the two (which isn’t much), and to show how to get started with creating liquid layouts.

By the way, liquid layouts are layouts that change dynamically according the stage’s size. Not unlike liquid in a container, which takes the container’s size and shape, thus the name.

The movie shows 4 boxes I drew on four sides of the stage, changing position according to the stage’s size. Obviously, you could also adjust other properties of the MovieClip, like scale, alpha, rotation, etc.

First, the AS2.0 code:
[sourcecode language='jscript']Stage.scaleMode = “noScale”;
Stage.align = “TL”;

setStage();

var stageListener:Object = new Object();

Stage.addListener(stageListener);
stageListener.onResize = function() {
setStage();
};

function setStage() {
var WIDTH:Number = Stage.width;
var HEIGHT:Number = Stage.height;

box1._x = WIDTH-box1._width;
box1._y = HEIGHT/2-(box1._height/2);
box2._x = WIDTH/2 - (box2._width/2);
box2._y = 0;
box3._x = 0;
box3._y = box1._y;
box4._x = box2._x;
box4._y = HEIGHT - box4._height;
}[/sourcecode]

AS3.0:

[sourcecode language='jscript']
stage.scaleMode = StageScaleMode.NO_SCALE;
stage.align = StageAlign.TOP_LEFT;

setStage();

stage.addEventListener(Event.RESIZE, stageResize);

function setStage():void{
var WIDTH:Number = stage.stageWidth;
var HEIGHT:Number = stage.stageHeight;
box1.x = WIDTH - box1.width;
box1.y = HEIGHT/2 - (box1.height/2);
box2.x = WIDTH / 2 - (box2.width/2);
box2.y = 0;
box3.x = 0;
box3.y = box1.y;
box4.x = box2.x;
box4.y = HEIGHT - (box4.height);
}

function stageResize(e:Event):void{
setStage();
}
[/sourcecode]
So, there isn’t really much difference between the two. AS3 is easier to understand because of its better event handling methods.

A little explanation for the 2 codes above, since they are quite similar. The first 2 lines are very important. Basically, they are telling the player to not do anything to objects on the stage when the stage is resized, because we want to control everything that happens when the stage is resized by code. Without those lines, the movie won’t work as expected.

The setStage() function is pretty self explanatory, it is where we do all the positioning of the movieclips. I like to put all of the code that does the positioning, resizing, etc. work in a function (preferably rolled into one), so I could call it at least once anytime I want. This is useful when initializing the movie, where all the movieclips might not be in their right place. And it is easier to put into the listener function too. You could also do it in the listener function, but I don’t recommend it.

We then call the setStage() function at least once, to position our movieclips where they should be, because when I created them in Flash, they are pretty much all over the place. If we don’t call that function, then they’ll only fall into place when we start resizing the stage.

And now to the part where the two codes are most different. Adding listeners to the stage. In AS3, it is quite straightforward. We add a listener, in this case stageResize() and listen to RESIZE events, to the stage object, which does nothing but call setStage(). You could also add other functions in there if you want to do something else when the stage resizes. In AS2, we have to create a listener object, tell that object to listen for the resizing event and execute the setStage() function. Again, you could add other functions in there.

So, there you have it. A basic Flash liquid layout. I hope this helps anyone who is having a hard time understanding this concept (I know I did). Now, this tutorial only showed changing the position of movieclips, by assigning values to them. But you could also change their position and/or size by percentages. Like 30% of the stage (I know this tutorial shows applying 50% of the stage), so you could adjust the visual elements of your movie to fit any size of resolution properly, at a limit of course.

NOTE: Notice the capital ‘S’ in Stage in the AS2 code and the small ’s’ in the AS3 code. Don’t mess those up!

Here are the source files of this tutorial.

AS2 source (Flash 8 )

AS3 source (Flash CS3)

I am in the process of converting from AS2 to AS3 right now, so I am going to try my best to post everything I learn in this blog. It might help others out there who are still also in the process of converting. To those who aren’t, you should.

This time it is about loading external images/swf’s.

In AS3, there are several types of DisplayObjects you could use to display on the stage (thus the name), along with MovieClips, Sprites(simple movieclips), Bitmaps(for bitmap data) and Loaders.
The Loader object is obviously what we would use to load these external visual data.

Basically, the Loader is just like a MovieClip, since they have a common superclass (well actually MovieClip is derived from Sprite, which is a sibling of Loader). It’s a like a MovieClip that could load objects. So, if you are coming from AS2, it would make things easier to think of it as just a MovieClip.

So, to load an image named “image.jpg”, first you need to create the Loader object. In the first frame of your timeline:

[sourcecode language='js']var loader:Loader = new Loader();[/sourcecode]

Now you need the url of the image to load it. The Loader object has a load() method that takes a URLRequest parameter. It’s just a class that handles url’s very well. Heh, I don’t really know much about it, you could read more of it in documentation.

[sourcecode language='js']var imageUrl:URLRequest = new URLRequest(”image.jpg”);[/sourcecode]

Now that we have our Loader object and our URLRequest, we could now load our image. It’s just simply calling the load() method of Loader and passing our URLRequest as argument.

[sourcecode language='js']loader.load(imageUrl);
addChild(loader);[/sourcecode]

After loading and adding it to the stage, you could do anything with it as you please.

[sourcecode language='js']loader.x = 50;
loader.alpha = .5;[/sourcecode]

Of course, you would want to have preloading for this kind of stuff. And yes, the Loader object generates similar events to the MovieClipLoader object we so loved in AS2. But all this happens very differently in AS3. All the information about the object being loaded is being held by a LoaderInfo object inside the Loader object.

So here is the code that traces the amount of kilobytes loaded adds the Loader object to the stage if loading is completed.

[sourcecode language='js']loader.contentLoaderInfo.addEventListener(ProgressEvent.PROGRESS, loading);
loader.contentLoaderInfo.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, loadComplete);

function loading(e:Event):void{
trace(loader.contentLoaderInfo.bytesLoaded);
}

function loadComplete(e:Event):void{
trace(”loaded”);
addChild(loader);
}[/sourcecode]

Hope this post helps others who are still starting to move to AS3. A lot has changed between the two, but AS3 is definitely the better one.

So in this blog, I’ll be posting things I learn each day (hopefully), about programming, life, etc. The things I post here might not be completely correct or true, but they are what I learned and I post them as I understand them. Corrections would be very much appreciated.
I’ll call it the [Learn] series.

NOTICE: I am telling this as how I understand it from reading other tutorials on the web. This is possibly very inaccurate, but maybe you could understand things you haven’t understood before by reading how I understand it. :-/

Event handling in AS3.0 is very different from AS2.0. One of my most used events is onEnterFrame events.

In AS2.0, animating a simple box to move to the right every frame would look like this:
(please bear with me and the unformatted code)

[sourcecode language='js']box.onEnterFrame = function(){
this._x += 1; //execute this code everytime the box movieclip enters a frame.
}[/sourcecode]
but in AS3.0, it is a little longer, and I may still have to see the real benefits of this. But already, I am liking how easy it is to understand.

[sourcecode language='js']function moveBox(e:Event):void{
this.x += 1;
}
box.addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, moveBox);[/sourcecode]

the addEventListener method tells the box MovieClip to execute the function moveBox, everytime an ENTER_FRAME event is generated(which is all the time).

Notice the moveBox function has an Event parameter. When a function has an Event type parameter, it becomes a listener function. Passing a non-listener function to the addEventListener method causes an error. You could also add the moveBox listener to any other MovieClip you might have on stage, already one of the benefits of the new event handling of AS3.0.

There are a lot more events to discuss, but I hope this helps those who have just started converting to AS3 (like me). I’ll keep on posting more things I learn.

Have you ever need or have been asked to resize several images and had to resort to a photo editing software to individually resize those images? Well, it is an effective way of doing that, but what if you had to resize a hundred of them?

Well, today I had to resize 40 photos, and thought that doing it in Photoshop would be crazy, so I did a little research.

Turns out iPhoto has this function. It is indeed very nice and useful.

First you need to import your photos into iPhoto by going [ File > Import to Library... ], then just select your photos or the folder you have your photos in.

After importing,  your photos will be in the “Library” folder of iPhoto, so you have to search for it and sort them into different sub-folders if you want to. Unfortunately, you cant specify a sub-folder while importing. You have to do it afterwards.

Select the photos you want to resize, then go [ File > Export... ]. You will be presented with a dialog box. Choose a format you want to export to (not Original), and click the “Scale images no larger than: ” radio button. Specify the width or height you want, the aspect ratio will be preserved(!). Then click “OK”. Select the directory you want, wait for a few seconds, and voila! Instant resized images, with preserved ratios, at the specified maximum width or height.

Tip: When your images have different aspect ratios (some of them are much longer than others, or wider), select the ones with similar ratios first, export them, and export the longer/wider ones later.