Along with Flash Player 11′s new Stage3D class have come hardware-accelerated 2D rendering engines. Impressive results have already been demonstrated by advanced engines like Starling and ND2D. Today’s article shows a simple Stage3D-based sprite class to help learn more about how these engines are implemented and provides a simplified alternative to the more complex 2D engines that still delivers hardware-accelerated performance.
Simple 2D With Stage3D
Jan 23
Serialize Anything: Part 2
Jan 16
One of the new features in Flash Player 11 is a native JSON encoder/decoder class. In the Serialize Anything article, I neglected to add JSON as an option for serializing and deserializing arbitrary objects. In today’s followup we’ll take a look at the performance of the native JSON class and compare it to ByteArray.readObject/writeObject and XML.
Static vs. Non-Static
Jan 11
Tip #8 in my Top 10 Performance Tips For 2012 was to reduce static accesses of variables, functions, etc. in favor of non-static variables and, especially, local variables. I neglected to reference one of my articles and it was pointed out to me that I hadn’t actually written such an article! So today I’ll elaborate on my tip and show why you should prefer non-static and local variables so you can find out just why it deserves its place as a top tip.
It’s a new year and it’s time to make some New Years resolutions for Flash performance. Today’s article is a collection of what i consider 10 top tips for improving the performance of your Flash apps. Read on for the list!
Introduction to AGAL: Part 3
Dec 26
Continuing from last time, in today’s article we’ll discuss the process of building and using basic shaders. This forms the basis of all Flash 11 Stage3D engines, so you’ll be learning how hardware-accelerated 3D shaders are built from the ground up.
Introduction to AGAL: Part 2
Dec 19
To continue the series on Flash 11 Stage3D shader programming, this week we’ll take a look at the data types your shader has available and finally dive into some actual AGAL assembly syntax.
Introduction to AGAL: Part 1
Dec 12
Flash 11′s new Stage3D class introduces a whole new kind of bytecode to Flash: AGAL. Today I’m beginning a series of articles to talk about what AGAL is in the first place, how you can generate its bytecode and, more generally, how these wacky shaders work. Read on for the first article in the series and learn the basics of AGAL.
Simple Stage3D Camera
Dec 5
There are many fine 3D frameworks for the new hardware-accelerated Stage3D class in Flash 11 that are loaded with features. But, if you just want to get some simple 3D up and running or would just prefer to do things yourself, today’s article shows you a simple 3D camera that you can use to view your 3D scenes and models. Read on for the source code and a demo app.
AS3 vs. AS3
Nov 28
One frequent request I get on my AS3 vs. JavaScript series is to test AS3 in more environments. Today I’m doing just that and testing its performance in browsers (plugin and ActiveX control) and standalone/projector mode across Mac OS and Windows operating systems. Does it make any difference? Read on to find out!
Serialize Anything
Nov 21
The ByteArray class, introduced in Flash Player 9, has a pair of very powerful functions alongside all the usual ones like writeInt. It actually allows you to read and write AS3 objects and provides an easy, fast, and compact way to serialize anything without writing any code. Today’s article explores shows you how to harness the power of these functions to improve your data serialization and deserialization.
