ACTIONSCRIPT 3 Developer’s Guide en

ACTIONSCRIPT 3.0 DEVELOPER’S GUIDE
Using the drawing API
Animating with the drawing API
Flash Player 9 and later, Adobe AIR 1.0 and later
One advantage of creating content with the drawing API is that you are not limited to positioning your content once.
What you draw can be modified by maintaining and modifying the variables you use to draw. You can convey
animation by changing variables and redrawing, either over a period of frames or with a timer.
For example, the following code changes the display with each passing frame (by listening to the Event.ENTER_FRAME
event), incrementing the current degree count, and directs the graphics object to clear and redraw with the updated
position.
stage.frameRate = 31;
var currentDegrees:Number = 0;
var radius:Number = 40;
var satelliteRadius:Number = 6;
var container:Sprite = new Sprite();
container.x = stage.stageWidth / 2;
container.y = stage.stageHeight / 2;
addChild(container);
var satellite:Shape = new Shape();
container.addChild(satellite);
addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, doEveryFrame);
function doEveryFrame(event:Event):void
{
currentDegrees += 4;
var radians:Number = getRadians(currentDegrees);
var posX:Number = Math.sin(radians) * radius;
var posY:Number = Math.cos(radians) * radius;
satellite.graphics.clear();
satellite.graphics.beginFill(0);
satellite.graphics.drawCircle(posX, posY, satelliteRadius);
}
function getRadians(degrees:Number):Number
{
return degrees * Math.PI / 180;
}
To produce a significantly different result, you can experiment by modifying the initial seed variables at the beginning
of the code, currentDegrees, radius, and satelliteRadius. For example, try shrinking the radius variable and/or
increasing the totalSatellites variable. This is only one example of how the drawing API can create a visual display
whose complexity conceals the simplicity of its creation.
Last updated 6/6/2012
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