Lame question about stage clipping

Hi there,

First of all, I must say this is a very useful forum and browsing thru the threads helped me a lot. This is the 1st time I post here. I couldn’t find the answer to my question, maybe one knows an easy solution.

The problem is, I have some sprites on my stage, and I want them to clip once they’re out of the area (should be 550x400 in my case). I am using Flex, so I thought the compiler option -default-size 550 400 must be enough. After this, I’ve tried trace(stage.stageWidth) and the result is 1600.

Something tells me that I’m maybe totally wrong assuming that I need to manipulate the stage object. I have a complex solution (draw to a back buffer and flip it on each new frame) but thought maybe someone could show me the easier & more correct way.

Here it goes: how do I make my sprites & everything clip outside the 550x400 area?

Thank you in advance