We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason if we dig deep in our history and doctrine and remember that we are not descended from fearful men not from men who feared to write, to associate, to speak and to defend the causes that were for the moment unpopular.
This is a tutorial on how to make a very simple AS3 (CS4) preloader for your Flash movies. This tutorial assumes you are a beginner at Flash.
1) Create a new flash document and a draw rectangle on the stage. This will be our preloader bar.
2) Select it, then click Modify in the top menu and then Convert to symbol
3) Give it any name you like and make sure that the Type is selected to Movie Clip. Also make sure you select the middle left box on the registration point as we want it to expand from left to right. Click OK to save.
click to enlarge
4) Underneath the preloader bar you just drew, insert a dynamic text field.
5) Give the preloader bar an instance name of “loaderBar” and give the text field an instance name of “loaderText”
6) Make a new layer above the current one and label it “actionscript”. You can also give the bottom layer a name such as “bar” if you want.
Click on the first frame of the actionscript layer and open the actions window. (Click Window and then Actions in the top menu)
7) Insert the following code:
stop();
import flash.display.*;
this.stop();
this.loaderInfo.addEventListener (ProgressEvent.PROGRESS, PRELOADER);
function PRELOADER(event:ProgressEvent):void {
var percent:Number=event.bytesLoaded/event.bytesTotal*100;
loaderBar.scaleX=pcent/100;
loaderText.text=int(percent)+”%”;
if(percent==100){
this.gotoAndStop(2);
}
}
Make a new blank frame at frame two of the layer with the preloader bar you drew and import a picture so we have something to load.
9) Click Control and then Test Movie and… it won’t work properly. As you are loading this file from your computer, it will load instantaneously. We need to slow down the load rate for us to check it works.
10) Click on View in the top menu and then Simulate download. You should now see your preloader bar slowly expand with the progress in a percentage underneath. If you are still having problems you can adjust the download simulation rate in View and then Download settings
Download the example file here
NOTES
If you have an animation that plays from frame 2 onwards you can change the line “this.gotoAndStop(2);” to “this.gotoAndPlay(2);”
Please leave your questions, comments and responses to this article. Please let me know of any mistakes, inaccuracies or problems with this tutorial and I’ll try to fix it. Enjoy!
I read a great one today on twitface (oh you kow what I mean). “The king of pop is not dead, Mark King of Level 42 is alive and well”. But that hasn’t got much to do with todays post.
Recently I have been wondering about what direction to take my Learn Japanese podcast. At least I know crappy, semi pornographic anime isn’t my thing.I started my Learn Japanese podcast to be a resource for those wanting to study the language and learn about Japan and it’s culture. However, I get the feeling that most people are more into the podcast for the entertainment value. And that’s fine with me because it means I can turn up the goofing around and turn down the overly serious gramar lessons. Plus, I never really learned to speak Japanese from text books, more from falling off bar stools in izakayas across Tokyo. So one way we depart from the normal language podcast is the Fun Friday episodes we (try to) put out every week. They feature, news, views, Japanese bands and general banter related to life in Japan. We just put up the latest episode which features music from Natccu and Yugo Sato two awesome acts from Japan. Incidentally I was introduced to Yugo by a good friend and general music know-it-all who runs the Tokyo Werewolf website which covers the underground music scene in Japan. Ethan is a talented guy, someone, give him a job, please!
In the future I’d like to concentrate more on the music scene here and interview artists and play their music on Fun Fridays. You never know, we might even learn some Japanese accidentally during the process.
Another project I am working on is a new website called Blow Your Speakers. I am doing this with a good friend, DJ, master brewer and all round talented fellow called Stone. We dig around dusty records, make mix tapes and stick them on the site. This site is dedicated to Stone’s talent for finding awesome music and me pretending to be a DJ when really I am an HDJ, hard disk jockey.
So check out Blow Your Speakers and our latest mix tape.
The picture above is of my trusty iPod digital recorder and a Ramune flavored Kit Kat. If you want to find out more you’ll just have to listen to the latest Fun Friday.
While crusing BackLinkWatch to find out who is linking to my sites, I found a link to my site Learn Japanese Pod at News From South under the title “Other geeks” which made me chuckle.
Not only that, the guy who runs the site is a pro Flash developer. He says “My body lives in Brazil, my mind lives in Japan, and the guitar is my instrument”. That’s very interesting because my body is in Japan, my mind is in Brazil and I play the guitar too.
News From South is a cool site, check it out.
Hello Geeks. Flash geeks to be precise. Today I attended Spark which is a monthly meeting for like minded flash programmers to share, learn and hang out in Tokyo. I was introduced to the group by my good friend Mariroom who is involved with Adobe Japan and Flash.
The reason I wanted to get the word out about this group is to build some bridges between the Japanese and English speaking communities involved with flash and tech in general. Some of the members are eager to learn English and I’m sure there are plenty of people abroad wondering what some the latest Flash programmers and designers are doing in Tokyo these days.
I believe Colin Moock did a skype conference with the Spark members before I turned up. If you don’t know who he is, he’s like the Darth Vader of Flash Programming. I mean that in a nice way.
Check out their main site here: SPARK
Hopefully I’ll be hanging out with some of those guys and gals again and seeing if we can’t come up with some interesting projects perhaps involving flash and some kind of language exchange.
After the meeting, I got back on my Specialized Rockhopper and somehow cycled home without getting killed on the crazy roads and sidewalks of Tokyo…
I’m pretty excited to annouce a new website my unstoppable friend Stone and myself are releasing. It’s called Blow Your Speakers and features mash ups, DJ mixes and original compositions all from Tokyo. This will be our digital musical playground and hope to be putting up music for your listening pleasure.
For the time being, armed only with some turn tables and the last of our pay checks, Stone and myself will be hunter vinyl gathering in the concrete jungle and record stores of Tokyo to bring you some of the freshest beats, jazz, funk, soul, reggae, rap and more.
Also, if you are a DJ, musician, composer or a general funkster we will be happy to take submissions so you can shamelessly promote your musical activities and genius to the world
For our first contribution, Mix Tape Zero is up containing some very funky and soulful music mash ups.
Enjoy!
This is an awesome little mashup I have been grooving to recently. I am inspired to do some of my own. Will post them here.
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Mardi Gras from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.
This incredible video uses a blurred foreground and background to fool your brain into thinking what it is seeing is tiny. This video was made by Keith Loutit.