smart.rockets

3 Comments

1. unknown
   Posted August 17, 2006 at 1:55 pm | Permalink

   haaa.. this is really fun to
   haaa.. this is really fun to watch.. and it would make a good screen-saver: back from the coffee break and see how smart the rockets became..

2. unknown
   Posted August 23, 2006 at 11:34 am | Permalink

   Source code
   Quick question about the source code: While I'd love to see it all, what I really want to know is how you drew the paths of each rocket. I'm willing to wade thru the source if that's easier for you.

3. unknown
   Posted August 23, 2006 at 12:08 pm | Permalink

   There are two parts to the
   There are two parts to the path-drawing:

   1) Actually drawing the rocket paths, using the drawing API
   2) Dumping the paths to a bitmap object periodically to prevent memory drain
   3) Slowly changing the colour of the paths to get some distinction between generations.

   1: In order for the rockets to draw their paths, they simply draw a line using the drawing API from their last known position to their current position. All of the rocket paths are drawn to the same MC, named ‘thecanvas_mc’. This code is, of course, called once per frame.

   
   _root.thecanvas_mc.moveTo(lastx, lasty);
   _root.thecanvas_mc.lineTo(_x, _y);
   lastx = _x;
   lasty = _y;
   

   2: With 25 rockets drawing a line once per frame, the sheer number of lines rises very quicky. Within a second, we have 750 lines. This will get out of control fast, draggin down the speed of our program. To remedy this, we ‘dump’ the line data from thecanvas_mc into a BitmapData object. This BitmapData object is rendered to screen.

   I am using an instance of my Canvas Class, which is available here.

   
   //setup:
   var can = new Canvas(_root);

   //drawing:
   doDraw = function() {
   can.etch(thecanvas_mc);
   thecanvas_mc.clear();
   };

   setInterval(doDraw, 100);
   

   3: To create a color gradient in the lines that are drawn, I simply adjust the values of R,G & B in the lines that are being drawn:

   
   //setup:
   r = 0;
   g = 0;
   b = 0;
   rv = Math.random() / 10;
   gv = Math.random() /10;
   bv = Math.random() /10;

   //drawing:
   doDraw = function() {
   can.etch(thecanvas_mc);
   thecanvas_mc.clear();

   r += rv;
   g += gv;
   b += bv;

   var c = argbtohex(25,r,g,b);
   thecanvas_mc.lineStyle(1, c, 10);
   };
   

   Hopefully this helps. If you still want to see the whole source, let me know.

   -Jer