0.15 Animation fundamentals

Table of contents

• Preface
  • General
    • Viewing tip
      • Figures
      • Listings
  • Supplemental material
• General background information
  • A layman's view of the Flash Player
  • Startup considerations
  • Time base considerations
    • Listen for ENTER_FRAME events
    • Listen for TIMER events fired by a Timer object
• Preview
• Discussion and sample code
  • The project named Animation01
  • The project named Animation07
  • The project named Animation01A
• Run the projects
• Resources
• Complete project listings
• Miscellaneous

Preface

General

This tutorial lesson is part of a series of lessons dedicated to object-oriented programming (OOP) with ActionScript.

Several ways to create and launch ActionScript projects

There are several ways to create and launch projects written in theActionScript programming language. Many, but not all of the lessons in this series will use Adobe Flex as the launch pad for the sample ActionScriptprojects.

An earlier lesson titled The Default Application Container provided information on how to get started programming with Adobe's Flex Builder 3. The lesson titled Using Flex 3 in a Flex 4 World was added later to accommodate the release of Flash Builder 4. (See Baldwin's Flex programming website .) You should study those lessons before embarking on the lessons in this series.

Some understanding of Flex MXML will be required

I also recommend that you study all of the lessons on Baldwin's Flex programming website in parallel with your study of these ActionScript lessons. Eventually you will probably need to understand both ActionScript and Flex andthe relationships that exist between them in order to become a successful ActionScript programmer.

Will emphasize ActionScript code

It is often possible to use either ActionScript code or Flex MXML code to achieve the same result. Insofar as this series of lessons is concerned,the emphasis will be on ActionScript code even in those cases where Flex MXML code may be a suitable alternative.

Viewing tip

I recommend that you open another copy of this document in a separate browser window and use the following links to easily find and view the figuresand listings while you are reading about them.

Figures

• Figure 1 . Default frame rate for Flash Player 10.
• Figure 2 . Measured frame rate of Flash Player 10 at ten frames per second.
• Figure 3 . Measured Timer event rate at 30 events per second and 30 frames per second.
• Figure 4 . Measured Timer event rate at 10 events per second and 30 frames per second.
• Figure 5 . Measured Timer event rate at 10 events per second and 10 frames per second.

Listings

• Listing 1 . Beginning of the class named Main.
• Listing 2 . Beginning of the constructor.
• Listing 3 . Register an ENTER_FRAME listener.
• Listing 4 . The event handler method named onEnterFrame.
• Listing 5 . Beginning of the Main class for the project named Animation07.
• Listing 6 . Completion of the constructor for the Main class.
• Listing 7 . The ENTER_FRAME event handler.
• Listing 8 . Beginning of the MoveableImage class for the project named Animation07.
• Listing 9 . Embed the image in the swf file.
• Listing 10 . The constructor for the MoveableImage class. z
• Listing 11 . The moveIt method of the MoveableImage class.
• Listing 12 . New import directives for the project named Animation01A.
• Listing 13 . Instantiation of a new Timer object.
• Listing 14 . Register a TIMER event handler and start the timer.
• Listing 15 . The TIMER event handler.
• Listing 16 . The Main class for the project named TimeBase01.
• Listing 17 . The Main class for the project named TimeBase02.
• Listing 18 . The Main class for the project named Animation01.
• Listing 19 . The Main class for the project named Animation07.
• Listing 20 . The MoveableImage class for the project named Animation07.
• Listing 21 . The Main class for the project named Animation01A.