accad 756 final

accad 756 final assignment
Due: Dec. 10
Josh Schoenwald

progression of project... [click on movie first to interact]

final1 || final2 || final3 || final4 || final5 || final6 || final7 || final8 || final9 || final10 || final11 || final12 || final13

j o u r n a l

Date Progress Problems Encountered

Dec. 9 Today's tasks include fixing the ship 'reapperance' problem, the map-clickable problem, add sound, and add some sort of endgame. After 6 hours of working, the ship still reappears. I haven't worked much on the map-clickable problem, since I was working on the endgame. I got the endgame working, so now when you win the game, there's a big text message to tell you so. The music is another issue that I'm still grappling with. I went to the lab and got some assistance from pete, who helped me with a workaround for the ship reappearing issue...nothing perfect, but acceptable. I think the problem lies in Flash's implementation of some properties, namely "visible" that aren't quite as absolute as they should be. For instance, if a movie clip is on the stage at a ceration location, no matter the animation that might move the location of the clip, when the frame on which the clip resides is loaded, the clip is placed back in the first position. This is probably a 'feature' that is more appreciated for those Flash programmers not attempting to implement an interactive game with multiple frames in a single scene. I was able to fix my map-clickable problem, it was an error in where I was checking the current frame. By this time I figured out that "_currentframe" can be used to get the current frame, so I put in a simple if statement that precludes the action of moving items into use if you are on the mapscreen (i.e. on frame 2 or 1). As far as the sound issue, I've given up. The biggest problem came with the reappearing ship, a problem I wasn't able to completely fix, but a decent workaround was found. The other big problem was getting the sound to work. I wanted there to be a sound playing in the background throughout the game. Then when you win the game, I wanted another sound to play. After hours of consulting Flash's References about sound objects, I had some success, but one of the sounds kept being activated whenever I went to a certaion frame, no matter if the sound was told to stop(). I tried everything I could think of, and I still had sounds overlapping and starting at odd times. After consulting with Martin, who had the same issues, I decided the payoff was not worth the effort.

Dec. 8 Tonight I fixed the inventory problem, using states I was able to work with the items to get the desired interaction. Thanks to an email response from pete, I fixed the acceleration problem. A weird effect though; it seems the problem stemmed from the key listener being called multiple times, which compounded the times that the updateGame function was called, thus moving Guyflash more than he should. When I changed the goto frame so that clicking on an island goes to frame 2 instead of frame 1, where the listener is, it wasn't happy. Turns out it wouldn't recognize the code unless there was a keyframe on the frame that I went to. That was fixed by creating an identical copy of the key movements code on frames 2 and 1, so that when the files goes back to frame 2 it recognizes the code with a specific keyframe there. Once I got the interactions to work, I started creating the actual gameplay, with objects and relationships between the objects. This proved to be relatively simple, there were some minor setbacks with certain objects being clickable, but I got through them. I also added some text fields that show up if you mouseover and click certain items, giving some hints about what to do. The biggest problem arising from tonight's effort was the ship graphic, which has code telling it to animate and 'disappear.' Every time I return to the screen with the ship, the ship appears again, even if it has already 'disappeared' previously. I tried everything I could think of to fix this, but nothing worked. There was also a problem with being able to click on items when on the map screen; namely that you shouldn't be able to click on them when you're in the map screen. But it's late, so I'm going to bed.

Dec. 7 I was able to get around the placing problem by changing the interaction. Originally I was going to have it set up so that if you click on an object it goes to the inventory. Then, another click puts it back onto the map, where it would stay unless picked up again. Doing this required knowing which frame the playhead was on when the item was used, so that the visibility can be set for it to only appear on that level. At the time I struggled with this I didn't know about the "_currentframe" property. So I changed the interaction so that if an item is clicked on when it's in the inventory, it goes to Guyflash's hand and he carries it around. This presented a new problem, in that now I had to move the object with Guyflash if he was carrying it. Having problems getting the objects that are picked up to move when Guyflash moves, withOUT them moving when they're in the inventory. And, still having the 'acceleration' problem.....emailed peter about this.

Dec. 6 I got all the objects on 2 layers, a "front layer" and a "behind layer" to help with the depth effects. Now when the character is 'behind' an object, that object's opacity on the layer above the character is turned on and the other one is turned off. Vice versa when the character is in front of an object. I also began working on the inventory -- where guyflash can pick up an item and have it move into his inventory, and then be able to use it at another location. I created an "inventory" layer where all the "pick-up-able" items are stored, above the layers for all the backgrounds, except the map screen which I stuck on its own layer. When an object is naturally existing on a layer, its visibility is turned on, and on all other layers the visibility is turned off, unless the item is selected, in which case it's always visible. Having problems with how to PLACE the item .... when I "use" it on another layer, currently it reverts to the "not picked up" mode and then disappears from that layer, unless it was the layer that it originated from. Still haven't fixed this yet. Also still having the 'acceleration' problem..

Dec. 3 Got help from pete to fix the problem where guyflash doesn't animate on every frame, turns out there was a problem with which code elements existed on which frames. Also got the animation to work, although now there is a problem where the character speeds up as he goes between frames....a problem I noticed martin was having and now it's bothering me as well. Pete gave me a few suggestions, which i'll try later on. I also began experimenting with depth of objects -- getting it set up so the character can walk "around" objects and appear behind them when he is further back in the frame. Still having issues with character speeding up, also not having luck with the depth of objects.

Dec. 2 Moved all the objects to a single layer, and movd all the backgrounds to a single layer to clean up my workspace. Completed all the backgrounds and island atmospheres, created the main character, Guyflash Cheapfood. Had problems where character doesn't move when in certain frames, and walking animation doesn't seem to work.

Nov. 26 I got help from peter and was able to fix the problems I have thus far. I resolved the frame issue and also a problem I had regarding the "onMouseUp" and "onRelease" commands, which apparently I was using incorrectly. Pete also helped me understand some fundamental practices to make my life easier in terms of dealing with movie clips. Specifically, he suggested I embed all (or as much as I can) of the code specific to a certain item *within* the movie clip for that item, which will tidy up my code. He also suggested that instead of having layers for each island's art and background, to have a single "background" layer and an "art" layer and to have certain things visible at different frames, which will also clean things up. Not too many problems...all the ones I have up to this point were answered.

Nov. 25 I created most of my backgrounds, after peter dealt the crushing blow that I couldn't use any copyrighted material. Damn. So I have my islands pretty much laid out. I have a pretty good idea about the story for the game, I just hope I haven't buried myself with work. My backgrounds are pretty much completed, so I need to create my characters, and then get to doing the actual code writing. heheh. I had some issues working with frames in flash. The idea I had was to have the backgrounds for each island occuring in different frames, so by clicking on each one you could "jump" to the island and move around the environment. The problem I had was figuring out how to ge some clips to appear on certain frames and not others....this seems like a trivial matter with the flash interface, but the correct path as yet escapes me.

Nov. 19 I started by adapting my work for task 12. I wanted to create objects that could be "picked up" per se and held in an inventory at the bottom of the screen. I worked to get this functionality and also to change the behavior of the movement. I task 12 I had the background moving in relation to the stage, not the main character. I did this so that only a portion of the entire map would be visible at a given time. While this worked for task 12, it won't really work for my final, so I wanted get the character to be the one that moves, not the background. I didn't have any trouble switching the background and character so the character was the one moving. That was a simple case of switching which movie clips were being moved. The idea of an inventory was a much more difficult task. I could get the item (when the character got near it) to move to a specified spot on the screen, namely the inventory reservoir I had created at the bottom of the screen. I had trouble getting that object to move precisely when a certain key was pressed. There seemed to be something wrong with the code I was using to listen for specific key movements. This functionality has been tabled for the time being so that I can develop my story, characters, and backgrounds.

progression of project... [click on movie first to interact] final1 \|\| final2 \|\| final3 \|\| final4 \|\| final5 \|\| final6 \|\| final7 \|\| final8 \|\| final9 \|\| final10 \|\| final11 \|\| final12 \|\| final13
j o u r n a l
Date	Progress	Problems Encountered
Dec. 9	Today's tasks include fixing the ship 'reapperance' problem, the map-clickable problem, add sound, and add some sort of endgame. After 6 hours of working, the ship still reappears. I haven't worked much on the map-clickable problem, since I was working on the endgame. I got the endgame working, so now when you win the game, there's a big text message to tell you so. The music is another issue that I'm still grappling with. I went to the lab and got some assistance from pete, who helped me with a workaround for the ship reappearing issue...nothing perfect, but acceptable. I think the problem lies in Flash's implementation of some properties, namely "visible" that aren't quite as absolute as they should be. For instance, if a movie clip is on the stage at a ceration location, no matter the animation that might move the location of the clip, when the frame on which the clip resides is loaded, the clip is placed back in the first position. This is probably a 'feature' that is more appreciated for those Flash programmers not attempting to implement an interactive game with multiple frames in a single scene. I was able to fix my map-clickable problem, it was an error in where I was checking the current frame. By this time I figured out that "_currentframe" can be used to get the current frame, so I put in a simple if statement that precludes the action of moving items into use if you are on the mapscreen (i.e. on frame 2 or 1). As far as the sound issue, I've given up.	The biggest problem came with the reappearing ship, a problem I wasn't able to completely fix, but a decent workaround was found. The other big problem was getting the sound to work. I wanted there to be a sound playing in the background throughout the game. Then when you win the game, I wanted another sound to play. After hours of consulting Flash's References about sound objects, I had some success, but one of the sounds kept being activated whenever I went to a certaion frame, no matter if the sound was told to stop(). I tried everything I could think of, and I still had sounds overlapping and starting at odd times. After consulting with Martin, who had the same issues, I decided the payoff was not worth the effort.
Dec. 8	Tonight I fixed the inventory problem, using states I was able to work with the items to get the desired interaction. Thanks to an email response from pete, I fixed the acceleration problem. A weird effect though; it seems the problem stemmed from the key listener being called multiple times, which compounded the times that the updateGame function was called, thus moving Guyflash more than he should. When I changed the goto frame so that clicking on an island goes to frame 2 instead of frame 1, where the listener is, it wasn't happy. Turns out it wouldn't recognize the code unless there was a keyframe on the frame that I went to. That was fixed by creating an identical copy of the key movements code on frames 2 and 1, so that when the files goes back to frame 2 it recognizes the code with a specific keyframe there. Once I got the interactions to work, I started creating the actual gameplay, with objects and relationships between the objects. This proved to be relatively simple, there were some minor setbacks with certain objects being clickable, but I got through them. I also added some text fields that show up if you mouseover and click certain items, giving some hints about what to do.	The biggest problem arising from tonight's effort was the ship graphic, which has code telling it to animate and 'disappear.' Every time I return to the screen with the ship, the ship appears again, even if it has already 'disappeared' previously. I tried everything I could think of to fix this, but nothing worked. There was also a problem with being able to click on items when on the map screen; namely that you shouldn't be able to click on them when you're in the map screen. But it's late, so I'm going to bed.
Dec. 7	I was able to get around the placing problem by changing the interaction. Originally I was going to have it set up so that if you click on an object it goes to the inventory. Then, another click puts it back onto the map, where it would stay unless picked up again. Doing this required knowing which frame the playhead was on when the item was used, so that the visibility can be set for it to only appear on that level. At the time I struggled with this I didn't know about the "_currentframe" property. So I changed the interaction so that if an item is clicked on when it's in the inventory, it goes to Guyflash's hand and he carries it around. This presented a new problem, in that now I had to move the object with Guyflash if he was carrying it.	Having problems getting the objects that are picked up to move when Guyflash moves, withOUT them moving when they're in the inventory. And, still having the 'acceleration' problem.....emailed peter about this.
Dec. 6	I got all the objects on 2 layers, a "front layer" and a "behind layer" to help with the depth effects. Now when the character is 'behind' an object, that object's opacity on the layer above the character is turned on and the other one is turned off. Vice versa when the character is in front of an object. I also began working on the inventory -- where guyflash can pick up an item and have it move into his inventory, and then be able to use it at another location. I created an "inventory" layer where all the "pick-up-able" items are stored, above the layers for all the backgrounds, except the map screen which I stuck on its own layer. When an object is naturally existing on a layer, its visibility is turned on, and on all other layers the visibility is turned off, unless the item is selected, in which case it's always visible.	Having problems with how to PLACE the item .... when I "use" it on another layer, currently it reverts to the "not picked up" mode and then disappears from that layer, unless it was the layer that it originated from. Still haven't fixed this yet. Also still having the 'acceleration' problem..
Dec. 3	Got help from pete to fix the problem where guyflash doesn't animate on every frame, turns out there was a problem with which code elements existed on which frames. Also got the animation to work, although now there is a problem where the character speeds up as he goes between frames....a problem I noticed martin was having and now it's bothering me as well. Pete gave me a few suggestions, which i'll try later on. I also began experimenting with depth of objects -- getting it set up so the character can walk "around" objects and appear behind them when he is further back in the frame.	Still having issues with character speeding up, also not having luck with the depth of objects.
Dec. 2	Moved all the objects to a single layer, and movd all the backgrounds to a single layer to clean up my workspace. Completed all the backgrounds and island atmospheres, created the main character, Guyflash Cheapfood.	Had problems where character doesn't move when in certain frames, and walking animation doesn't seem to work.
Nov. 26	I got help from peter and was able to fix the problems I have thus far. I resolved the frame issue and also a problem I had regarding the "onMouseUp" and "onRelease" commands, which apparently I was using incorrectly. Pete also helped me understand some fundamental practices to make my life easier in terms of dealing with movie clips. Specifically, he suggested I embed all (or as much as I can) of the code specific to a certain item within the movie clip for that item, which will tidy up my code. He also suggested that instead of having layers for each island's art and background, to have a single "background" layer and an "art" layer and to have certain things visible at different frames, which will also clean things up.	Not too many problems...all the ones I have up to this point were answered.
Nov. 25	I created most of my backgrounds, after peter dealt the crushing blow that I couldn't use any copyrighted material. Damn. So I have my islands pretty much laid out. I have a pretty good idea about the story for the game, I just hope I haven't buried myself with work. My backgrounds are pretty much completed, so I need to create my characters, and then get to doing the actual code writing. heheh.	I had some issues working with frames in flash. The idea I had was to have the backgrounds for each island occuring in different frames, so by clicking on each one you could "jump" to the island and move around the environment. The problem I had was figuring out how to ge some clips to appear on certain frames and not others....this seems like a trivial matter with the flash interface, but the correct path as yet escapes me.
Nov. 19	I started by adapting my work for task 12. I wanted to create objects that could be "picked up" per se and held in an inventory at the bottom of the screen. I worked to get this functionality and also to change the behavior of the movement. I task 12 I had the background moving in relation to the stage, not the main character. I did this so that only a portion of the entire map would be visible at a given time. While this worked for task 12, it won't really work for my final, so I wanted get the character to be the one that moves, not the background.	I didn't have any trouble switching the background and character so the character was the one moving. That was a simple case of switching which movie clips were being moved. The idea of an inventory was a much more difficult task. I could get the item (when the character got near it) to move to a specified spot on the screen, namely the inventory reservoir I had created at the bottom of the screen. I had trouble getting that object to move precisely when a certain key was pressed. There seemed to be something wrong with the code I was using to listen for specific key movements. This functionality has been tabled for the time being so that I can develop my story, characters, and backgrounds.