Questions re: Falling Snow Tutorial

I’m a true beginner in Flash MX, so my questions should bring a chuckle to many of you here…(learning it has been a HUGELY frustrating experience).
Two questions re: “Falling Snow” tutorial found in the Special Effects area:
To my surprise I was actually able to complete this tutorial–I finally figured out you have to be in “Expert Mode” in order to get the script in there; however, it would not allow me to paste the script in the window, I had to type it all in by hand, which is very tedious work.

  1. Any ideas/suggestioins on how to get the copy and paste thing to work?
  2. Since all the +, =, {, ;,}'s are Greek to me, how do I get the snow to move from the bottom of the screen to the top (the reverse of the tutorial script that runs from top to bottom)? I assume it has to do with the x and y positions, but since I don’t understand the language I’m afraid to alter the script myself.

Hello,

Well first all to translate the Greek language the open and close braces “{ }” contain block of code that are gouped together for the purpose that they belong to the same function or the same if, for, switch, or other flow control statements.

The usual arithmatic operators are the same as you know them such as +, -, =, *, % but their are some new conventions that you need to know such as the += or -= where these implies that the value on the left is added/subtracted from the value on the right and the result is saved in the variable on the left.

Ex. a += b is a = a + b

Considering the thing you want to do with the snow movement the axis of movement in the flash is different than the one you know. Since on the y-axis going up is going into a larger NEGATIVE value and going down is going more POSITIVE values.

so to have the snow going up rather than going down you have to change the this._yscale += speed into a -=. Just that.

Hope that i was helpfull.

Adham :crazy:

Hello Adham.
Thank you for the response to my question. Unfortunately, I’m still having trouble. I changed Line 15 (in MY Actions window), i.e., onClipEvent (enterFrame) block of code from “this._y += i;” to “this._y -=i;”
With this change it DOES reverse, however, the snow only moves up the screen once, but will not repeat. I’ve tried many other combination of scripting changes with this change but nothing I do will make it continue to play more than once. Would you be kind enough to delineate what else I should change to make it repeat? BTW, did I tell you I’m blonde? :<) …maybe this explains it, or the fact that I’m mathmatically challenged.
Regards, macmar

Hello blondie then :hair:

Your problem is simple if you go to the end of the code in the onClipEvent (enterFrame) function, you’ll observe an if condition that says.
if (this._y > movieHeight) { this._y = -5; }

the snow ball is repeated in this case because its y position is increasing at every frame until it is greater than movieHeight.

But since you want snow to go up (!!!) then your movie’s y position is decreasing and will never become greater than the movieHeight and as a result it will only pass once on the stage.

To solve the problem just change the condition to:
if(this._y < 0) { this._y = any_y_coordinate_want or random_maybe;}

This solves the problem.

Glad to help you.
Bye

Adham :crazy:

Hello Adham,
Again, thank you for helping me.
I made the script change you suggested in the previous thread, but the snow still only moves up the screen once then with this script one row of snow stays horizontally at the top of the screen.
In your pevious thread YOU said the condition said: " if (this._y > movieHeight) "
The TUTORIAL SCRIPT actually says: " if (this._y>=movieHeight) " NOTE-there is an = before movieHeight and no space between y>. Would either/both differences affect the " if(this._y < 0) { this._y = any_y_coordinate_want or random_maybe;} " script you told me to use?
Ba-bye, Blondie :<)

Maybe this will help you…

http://www.kirupaforum.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=14111

Hello lostinbeta,

It works, THANK YOU. I didn’t make the k i switch like the other guy on the thread did, but I changed the if_(this.y>=movieHeight)
_ this.y=-5;
_}

To if_(this.y<=0)
_this.y=_movieHeight;
}

It still didn’t works so I changed the this._y += i; to this._y -= i;
and it works perfectly.
I like your logo thingy–I want to steal it ;<). I went to your web and took a quick look. When I have more time I’m going back…hope you have some tutorials there.
I have to say that learning Flash MX has been a ***** (sorry about the language, but I can’t find a nicer word for this app.). I’m a PhotoShop person, never got out of there to my Illustrator very much so I never learned the vector stuff. Besides learning Flash, I have that d— Toolbox to contend with.
Anyway, thanks again–you nailed it.
Regards, macmar

Hello,

Sorry i could not help :frowning:

but glad that you solve the problem

still don’t know why you want snow to go up ??? :stunned:

Bye

Adham :crazy:

I appreciate the time you took with me, we all learn this way. And one day that snow coming down will become bubbles going up (hopefully). I see they censored my word in the previous thread…what if I wanted to talk about my female dog??? I guess I would be censored. Have a good one! macmar

No problem man. Just glad I could help.

And thanks for the compliment on my logo/site :slight_smile: I only have one Flash tutorial up there, it is on Flash clocks. It can stand some optimization as I wrote it the day after I started learning Actionscript. But I will get to that when I add some more date and time tutorials. I have a few tutorials here at kirupa.com though.

And yes… fowl words are blocked out for obvious reasons.

I don’t consider the word I used obscene/fowl/****ographic/lewd/indecent. If someone here does, they have a perverted mind. macmar

If this weren’t so funny it would be sad and very scarey…lostinbeta, you can be called a pimp and it’s OK. That word has many more negative implications than the word I got bleeped for. Censorship is a slippery slope–it depends on an individual’s own subjective opinion. 'Nuf said.

Your right, it is subjective on opinion. And Kirupa is the one to choose the words that get bleeped.

It isn’t exactly like he goes through the dictionary picking out words to bleep out. If he comes across any that he finds offensive enough, then he blocks it. And the word you used was inappropriate.