Adobe Flash 11 Stage3D (Molehill) Game Programming Beginners Guide Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Preface
Chapter 1: Let's Make a Game Using Molehill!
Chapter 2: Blueprint of a Molehill
Chapter 3: Fire up the Engines!
Chapter 4: Basic Shaders: I can see Something!
Chapter 5: Building a 3D World
Chapter 6: Textures: Making Things Look Pretty
Chapter 7: Timers, Inputs, and Entities: Gameplay Goodness!
Chapter 8: Eye-Candy Aplenty!
Chapter 9: A World Filled with Action
Chapter 10: 3... 2... 1... ACTION!
Appendix A: AGAL Operand Reference
Appendix B: Pop Quiz Answers
Index

• Preface

• Chapter 1: Let's Make a Game Using Molehill!
• Your epic adventure awaits!
• What is Molehill?
• What Molehill is NOT
• What you need to know already
• Basic 3D terminology
• Common 3D content terms
• Mesh
• Polygon
• Vertex
• Texture
• Shaders
• Vertex program
• Fragment program
• 3D Content level one achieved!
• Common 3D coding terms
• Vectors
• Normals
• Matrices
• 3D Coding level one achieved!
• Summary
• Level 1 achieved!

• Chapter 2: Blueprint of a Molehill
• The old fashioned way
• The Molehill way: Stage3D
• Using 2D Flash text and sprites
• Why is Stage3D so fast?
• The structure of a Molehill application
• Stage
• Stage3D
• Context3D
• VertexBuffer3D
• IndexBuffer3D
• Program3D
• Flowchart of a Molehill program
• Time for action – things we do once, during the setup
• Time for action – things we do over and over again
• Summary
• Level 2 achieved!

• Chapter 3: Fire up the Engines!
• Step 1: Downloading Flash 11 (Molehill) from Adobe
• Time for action – getting the plugin
• Time for action - getting the Flash 11 profile for CS5
• Time for action – upgrading Flex
• Time for action – upgrading the Flex playerglobal.swc
• Time for action – using SWF Version 13 when compiling in Flex
• Time for action – updating your template HTML file
• Stage3D is now set up!
• Step 2: Start coding
• Time for action – creating an empty project
• Time for action – importing Stage3D-specific classes
• Time for action – initializing Molehill
• Time for action – defining some variables
• Time for action – embedding a texture
• Time for action – defining the geometry of your 3D mesh
• Time for action – starting your engines
• Time for action – adding to the onContext3DCreate function
• Time for action – uploading our data
• Time for action – setting up the camera
• Time for action – let's animate
• Time for action – setting the render state and drawing the mesh
• Quest complete – time to reap the rewards
• Congratulations!
• The entire source code
• Summary
• Level 3 achieved!

• Chapter 4: Basic Shaders: I can see Something!
• AGAL: Adobe Graphics Assembly Language
• What does one line of AGAL look like?
• What is a register?
• What is a component?
• Working with four components at the same time
• Different registers for different jobs
• Vertex attribute registers: va0..va7
• Constant registers: vc0..vc127 and fc0..fc27
• Temporary registers: vt0..vt7 and ft0..ft7
• Output registers: op and oc
• Varying registers: v0..v7
• Texture samplers: fs0..fs7
• A basic AGAL shader example
• The vertex program
• Time for action – writing your first vertex program
• The fragment program
• Time for action – writing your first fragment program
• Compiling the AGAL source code
• Time for action – compiling AGAL
• Time to Render!
• Time for action – rendering
• Creating a shader demo
• Adding an FPS counter
• Time for action – creating the FPS GUI
• Time for action – adding the GUI to our inits
• Time for action – adding multiple shaders to the demo
• Time for action – initializing the shaders
• Time for action – animating the shaders
• Time for action – uploading data to Stage3D
• Quest complete—time to reap the rewards
• Congratulations!
• Summary
• Level 4 achieved!

• Chapter 5: Building a 3D World
• Creating vertex buffers
• Importing 3D models into Flash
• Time for action – coding the Stage3dObjParser class
• Time for action – creating the class constructor function
• Time for action – coding the parsing functions
• Time for action – processing the data
• Time for action – coding some handy utility functions
• Our mesh parsing class is complete!
• The render loop
• Time for action – starting the render loop
• Time for action – adding the score to the GUI
• Time for action – upgrading your init routines
• Time for action – parsing our mesh data
• Time for action – animating the scene
• Quest complete—time to reap the rewards
• Folder structure
• Summary
• Level 5 achieved!

• Chapter 6: Textures: Making Things Look Pretty
• Time for a plan: creating a "real" game
• Using textures in Stage3D
• Power-of-two
• UV coordinates
• Transparent textures
• Animating UV coordinates in a shader
• Time for action – updating UV coordinates each frame
• Texture atlases
• Animated textures
• Manipulating texture data
• Render states
• Backface culling
• Time for action – rendering a mesh's backfaces
• Depth testing
• Time for action – making a mesh not affect the zbuffer
• Blend modes
• Time for action – rendering an opaque mesh
• Time for action – rendering a mesh with transparent regions
• Time for action – rendering a mesh so it lightens the scene
• Increasing your performance
• Opaque is faster
• Avoiding overdraw
• Avoiding state changes
• Use simple shaders
• Draw fewer meshes
• Adding texture effects to our demo
• Time for action – embedding the new art
• Time for action – adding the variables we need
• Time for action – upgrading the GUI
• Time for action – listening for key presses
• Time for action – upgrading our render loop
• Time for action – upgrading the renderTerrain function
• Time for action – upgrading our Stage3D inits
• Time for action – simplifying the initShaders function
• Time for action – parsing the new meshes
• Time for action – rendering different meshes as appropriate
• Time for action – switching textures
• Time for action – switching blend modes
• Your demo has been upgraded!
• Summary
• Level 6 achieved!

• Chapter 7: Timers, Inputs, and Entities: Gameplay Goodness!
• Our current quest
• Keeping it simple
• Making it reusable
• Making our game more interactive
• Adding a HUD overlay graphic
• Time for action – adding a GUI overlay
• Keeping track of time: a game timer class
• Time for action – creating the game timer class
• Time for action – adding the GameTimer class constructor
• Time for action – implementing the tick function
• A game input class
• Time for action – creating the GameInput class
• Time for action – coding the GameInput class constructor
• Time for action – detecting mouse movement
• Time for action – detecting the keyboard input
• Time for action – detecting key release events
• Time for action – detecting the input focus
• An abstract entity class
• Time for action – creating the Stage3dEntity class
• Time for action – creating the Stage3dEntity class constructor
• Hiding complex code by using get and set functions
• Time for action – getting and setting the transform
• Time for action – getting and setting the entity position
• Time for action – getting and setting the entity rotation
• Time for action – getting and setting the entity's scale
• Time for action – updating the transform or values on demand
• Time for action – creating the movement utility functions
• Time for action – implementing vector utility functions
• Time for action – adding some handy entity utility functions
• Time for action – cloning an entity
• Time for action – rendering an entity
• Design art for our new improved game world
• Upgrading our game
• Time for action – importing our new classes
• Time for action – adding new variables to our game
• Time for action – embedding the new art
• Time for action – upgrading the game inits
• Time for action – upgrading the GUI
• Time for action – simplifying the shaders
• Time for action – using the new textures
• Time for action – spawning some game entities
• Time for action – upgrading the render function
• Time for action – creating a simulation step function
• Time for action – creating a heartbeat function
• Time for action – upgrading the enterFrame function
• Let's see all this in action!
• Summary
• Level 7 achieved!

• Chapter 8: Eye-Candy Aplenty!
• Our current quest
• Designing for performance
• Designing for reusability
• Animating using AGAL
• A basic particle entity class
• Time for action – extending the entity class for particles
• Time for action – adding particle properties
• Time for action – coding the particle class constructor
• Time for action – cloning particles
• Time for action – generating numbers used for animation
• Time for action – simulating the particles
• Time for action – respawning particles
• Time for action – rendering particles
• Keyframed vertex animation shader
• Time for action – creating a keyframed particle vertex program
• Time for action – creating a static particle vertex program
• Time for action – creating a particle fragment program
• Time for action – compiling the particle shader
• A particle system manager class
• Time for action – coding a particle system manager class
• Time for action – defining a type of particle
• Time for action – simulating all particles at once
• Time for action – rendering all particles at once
• Time for action – spawning particles on demand
• Time for action – creating new particles if needed
• Keyframed particle meshes
• Selecting a particle texture
• Time for action – sculpting a single particle
• Time for action – sculpting a group of particles
• Time for action – sculpting the second keyframe
• Incorporating the particle system class in our game
• Time for action – adding particles to your game
• Time for action – preparing a type of particle for use
• Time for action – upgrading the renderScene function
• Time for action – adding particles to the gameStep function
• Time for action – keeping track of particle statistics
• Let's see the new particle system in action!
• Summary
• Level 8 achieved!

• Chapter 9: A World Filled with Action
• Extending the entity class for "actors"
• Time for action – creating a game actor class
• Time for action – extending the actor's properties
• Time for action – coding the GameActor class constructor
• Time for action – creating a step animation function
• Time for action – animating actors
• Implementing artificial intelligence (AI)
• Time for action – using timers
• Time for action – shooting at enemies
• Time for action – cloning an actor
• Time for action – handling an actor's death
• Time for action – respawning an actor
• Collision detection
• Time for action – detecting collisions
• Time for action – detecting sphere-to-sphere collisions
• Time for action – detecting bounding-box collisions
• An "actor reuse pool" system
• Time for action – creating an actor pool
• Time for action – defining a clone parent
• Time for action – animating the entire actor pool
• Time for action – rendering an actor pool
• Time for action – spawning an actor
• Time for action – checking for collisions between actors
• Restricting display to nearby actors for better framerate
• Time for action – hiding actors that are far away
• Time for action – destroying every actor in the pool
• Easy world creation using a map image
• Time for action – implementing a level parser class
• Time for action – spawning actors based on a map image
• Time for action – parsing the map image pixels
• Upgrading the input routines
• Time for action – adding more properties to the input class
• Time for action – handling click events
• Time for action – upgrading the key events
• Summary
• Level 9 achieved!

• Chapter 10: 3... 2... 1... ACTION!
• Our final quest
• Getting to the finish line
• Time for action – drawing a title screen
• Time for action – importing required classes
• Adding new variables to our game
• Time for action – tracking the game state
• Time for action – adding variables for timer-based events
• Time for action – adding movement related variables
• Time for action – keeping track of all entities
• Time for action – upgrading the HUD
• Time for action – defining variables used by Stage3D
• Adding art to our game
• Time for action – embedding our new art assets (AS3 version)
• Time for action – embedding our new art assets (CS5 version)
• Time for action – embedding all the meshes
• Time for action – keeping track of art assets
• Upgrading the final game source code
• Time for action – upgrading the inits
• Time for action – initializing Stage3D
• Time for action – upgrading the initGUI function
• Time for action – upgrading the texture inits
• Time for action – upgrading the shaders
• Time for action – defining new actor types and behaviors
• Time for action – initializing the terrain meshes
• Time for action – initializing the enemies
• Time for action – initializing the bullets
• Time for action – initializing the asteroids
• Time for action – initializing the space stations
• Time for action – initializing the particle models
• Time for action – creating the game level
• Time for action – upgrading the render loop
• Defining gameplay-specific events
• Time for action – tracking game events
• Time for action – handling game over
• Time for action – updating the score display
• Time for action – updating the FPS display
• Time for action – handling collision events
• Time for action – handling the player input
• Time for action – upgrading the gameStep function
• Time for action – upgrading the heartbeat function
• Time for action – upgrading the enterFrame function
• Publish... distribute... profit!
• Summary
• Level 10 achieved. Universe saved!
• Where to go from here?
• A note from the author

• Appendix A: AGAL Operand Reference
• What does one line of AGAL look like?
• Registers available for AGAL programs
• COPYING DATA
• ALGEBRAIC OPERANDS
• MATH OPERANDS
• TRIGONOMETRY OPERANDS
• CONDITIONAL OPERANDS
• VECTOR and MATRIX OPERANDS
• TEXTURE SAMPLING OPERAND

• Appendix B: Pop Quiz Answers

• Index