Request: AS2 gotoandplay but smooth?

[Mr D]

Well here I am again...begging for advice. Anyways here goes.

In my animations I use a lot of loops and that is by doing "command on the last frame" = gotoandplay("beginning of the loop"). And If I press the button than gotoandplay(frame after the loop). But the problem is that because of this the animation is not smooth and just jumps to the frame I want to continue from. Is there a way how to (by pressing the button) finish the loop that the animation is in and than move on? I do think that this is used in the LoK game but I have no idea how.

Thanks in advance (if anyone is still around tutorial section )

[OwnerOfSuccuby]

There are a lot of ways for doing it. For example - ... but as i understand you need it for animation not for games like ... action game where you run with some guy and try to kill or rape them all ?

If so - for example you have some code on frame X.

You make variable for example Y on the first loop of frame and make it = 0 or for example false.

After you code on Frame X - you write this:

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If (Y==0){gotoAndPlay(Number of frame where it start loop);}
else if (Y==1){{gotoAndPlay(Number of frame you need after press button);}

And on press button for example you make his - you do not wright gotoandPlay in it you wright this:

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on (press) {
Y=1;
//and for example you can make button invisible like this:
ButtonName._visible=false;
//or ButtonName.visible=false; - i little forget AS2 syntaxis some times - ButtonName - is the name of button that you wright on it's name panel or i do not
//know how to say it: "name 2" on my picture
}

http://ownerofsuccuby.narod.ru/Testovie ... Symbol.png

You can ask me if it will be some problems - some of possible questions can be in this topic:
viewtopic.php?f=29&t=2370
If i will not on forum for some time (4 AM now =)) so i am going to sleep soon )

[GoRepeat]

1) Break all your loops into their own movie clips so that the naturally loop without the need of a "gotoAndPlay" command at the end
2) Put them in sequential order in a new movie clip with a stop(); command on each
3) On the last frame of each loop put the code:

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if(this._parent.cont){
     this._parent.cont = false;
     this._parent.nextFrame();
}

4) on a new layer in the new compiled movie clip put the code:

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var cont:boolean = false;
var trig:boolean = false;
onEnterFrame = function(){
     if(Key.isDown(*insertASCIIKeyCodeHere*)){
          trig = true;
     }else{
          if(trig){
               trig = false;
               cont = true;
         }
     }
}

Each loop will play and check on the last frame to see if the key was hit, if so, it will go to the next loop in the sequence, otherwise it will just continue looping.

There are better ways to do it, but that is pretty straight forward and easy. If you have nonsequential loops (the full thing jumps around) then instead of this._parent.nextFrame(), you would put in whatever control for it to detect where it is supposed to be going. Usually a seperate switch function.


The key in the example is set to Spacebar:

Click to Play
(Javascript Required)

example.swf [ 4.96 KiB | Viewed 2799 times ]

[Mr D]

Ok tried it and failed but lets see if I understand this correctly.

1st: the Y has to be 0 .Have no idea how to set it to 0 -_-
2nd: {gotoAndPlay(Number of frame where it start loop);} means I have to pick the number of the frame where the loop starts and not what I named it
3rd: the Code: If (Y==0){gotoAndPlay(N..... has to be on the last frame I want the 1st loop to repeat from.
4th: on (press) { Y=1; .Will change the Y from 0 to 1 and the animation will go past the 1st loop to the 2nd loop without jumping straight there

Do I understand it correctly?
Btw I dont know why I would want the button to be invisible.

EDIT: well this is awkward. I posted this before seeing Gores post, But I did read it now so here are some things. I do not understand the code but I am sure I can easily just duplicate and apply it from the example. But now the problem is that I would be unable to make the flash go to the beginning after all the loops are finished. And I need actual buttons and not just keyboard buttons.

[KaTsuO_O]

In the button:

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on (release) {
proceed = true
}

On the last frame of each loop:

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if (proceed == true) {
proceed = false
} else {
gotoAndPlay("first frame of the loop")
}

You don't need to add "proceed = false" on the first frame, because "proceed" won't be either true or false from the beginning. "proceed = false" resets the variable so that the next loop will loop as well. You don't need a "gotoAndPlay" under "proceed = false" because it will just keep playing in to the next loop, since nothing is stopping it.

[OwnerOfSuccuby]

Try to look this one i take this example ffrom LoK game (Flash CS4):

[GoRepeat]

If you are using buttons it is even easier, like Kat said, just change the code on the button's frame to:

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myButtonName.onRelease = function(){
     cont = true;
}

There ya go. I still disagree with using one massive animation and looping with gotoAndPlay. Trust me, trust me, it will lag things down significantly. One of the biggest performance discoveries I had with Sakyu. Make each loop its own animation then have each on its own stopped frame of a new object and control it from there.

[OwnerOfSuccuby]

By the way - interesting idea. Can you please post some example (*fla and *swf - for example with out real animaton just recktangles) of what you are talking about - becouse i little can not understand you (sorry for my bad englesh again )

[Mr D]

Well the LoK method worked, so I will go with that one for now. Sorry Gore but I am a bit too dense to understand your method (to advanced and I have no real codding education). And I think I do not need to post an example for OwnerOfSuccuby now because the previous LoK flash is exactly what I wanted to achieve (the smooth transition from one loop to other).

Once again thank you for all your help.

[OwnerOfSuccuby]

Mr D sorry but the question about *.Fla was to Gorepete - becouse i have some problem with gotoAndPlay too - a long long LOOOONG time ago i made this animation:

And as you can see it is light version

And if it is light it means that it was full version with more water animation and etc. But it lugs so hard that i have to restrct her

And i try to find solution from that time how to use less COU for thingh like that but can not get idea how to work with objects and do not use to much CPU

[Mr D]

Oh ok. I thought it was a bit odd. Well I hope Gore can help you than

[GoRepeat]

I think when you make one huge animation and use gotoAndPlay, flash has to load the entire movie clip and constantly scan it for the correct labels, which starts to generate lag once it gets big enough. If you make each loop its own movie clip and use a container object to control what is playing, then it only has to load the current loop and doesn't have to worry about scanning through 1000 frames for labels. That is just my theory from my own experience though.

And no worries D - I used to use the same object oriented code too. Recently I have moved towards using AS2 functions instead of putting code directly on objects because it does end up making things cleaner in the long run. It is just an extra step in the language that you have to get used to.

For example, putting:

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onRelease{
     gotoAndStop("Derp");
}

on a button is the same as putting:

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theButton.onRelease = function(){
     gotoAndStop("Derp");
}

on the main timeline. If you have a lot of stuff going on, it lets you consolidate actions and prevents the "where did I put that code?" bug researching dilemmas.