Removing children individually

programming flash
1

Hi!

I’ve been sitting with this code for way too long now and need some new perspective to help.
Watch out for a huuuge lump of code below :diss:

I’m trying to make an animation that with a few bouncy balls that on collision spawns 1 extra ball, and this i’ve managed and contained so no more balls are spawned when the population reaches 20, however i need to find a way to remove the balls, i’ve tried arrays, removeChild and pretty much all that i can think of, but no luck so far (i guess im not that familliar with Action scripting yet)

Below is my mess of a code for collision control, and yes it is a mess for now and i intend to clean it up as soon as i can find a way to remove the balls individually…

package
{
 import flash.display.MovieClip;
 import flash.display.Stage;
 import flash.events.Event;
 import flash.events.KeyboardEvent;
 
 public class BallCollision extends MovieClip
 {
  private var mcBallContainer:MovieClip;
  public var bacteria:Array = new Array();
  public var nNumBalls:Number = 5;
  public var nNumSpawned:Number = 5;
  private var collision:uint= 0;
  public var myString:String= String(nNumSpawned);
 
  private var nStageWidth:Number = 500;
  private var nStageHeight:Number = 400;
 
  public function BallCollision ( ) : void
  {
 
   mcBallContainer = new MovieClip ( ) ;
   mcBallContainer.x = mcBallContainer.y = 0;
   stage.addChild(mcBallContainer);
 
   this.addEventListener ( Event.ENTER_FRAME, enterFrameHandler );
 
   for ( var i = 0; i < nNumBalls; i++ )
   {
    var mcBall:Ball = new Ball ( Math.floor ( ( Math.random() * 12 ) - 4 ), Math.floor ( ( Math.random() * 12 ) - 4 ) );
    mcBall.x = Math.random() * nStageWidth;
    mcBall.y = Math.random() * nStageHeight;
    mcBallContainer.addChild ( mcBall );
 
   }
  }
 
  private function enterFrameHandler ( E:Event ) : void
  {
   for ( var i = 0; i < mcBallContainer.numChildren; i++ )
   {
    var mcBall1:* = mcBallContainer.getChildAt( i );
 
    for ( var j = i + 1; j < mcBallContainer.numChildren; j++ )
    {
     var mcBall2:* = mcBallContainer.getChildAt( j );
 
     var nDistX:Number = Math.abs ( mcBall1.x - mcBall2.x );
     var nDistY:Number = Math.abs ( mcBall1.y - mcBall2.y );
     var nDistance:Number = Math.sqrt ( nDistX * nDistX + nDistY * nDistY );
 
     //TRIPLE IF BELOW = PROBLEM_1
     if ( nDistance < 20)
     {
      solveBalls ( mcBall1, mcBall2 );
      collision += 1;
      collision_txt.text = String(collision);
 
      if (nNumSpawned < 20){
      var mcBall:Ball = new Ball ( Math.floor ( ( Math.random() * 12 ) - 4 ), Math.floor ( ( Math.random() * 12 ) - 4 ) );
    mcBall.x = Math.random() * nStageWidth;
    mcBall.y = Math.random() * nStageHeight;
    mcBallContainer.addChild ( mcBall );
    bacteria.push(mcBall);
    nNumSpawned ++;
    population_txt.text = nNumSpawned.toString();
    trace (nNumSpawned);
    trace (mcBallContainer.numChildren);
 
    //REMOVES ALL CHILDREN? = PROBLEM_2
    if (mcBallContainer.numChildren == 20){
     trace ("Population Cap Reached");
     bacteria.splice(Ball, 1);
     trace (bacteria);
     // code below Removes all "bouncy monsters"
     //stage.removeChild(mcBallContainer);
     // code below does absolutley nothing
      //mcBallContainer.removeChild ( mcBall );
 
 
    }
 
      }
     }
    }
   }
  }
 
  private function solveBalls ( MCBallA:MovieClip, MCBallB:MovieClip ) : void
  {
   var nX1:Number = MCBallA.x;
   var nY1:Number = MCBallA.y;
   var nDistX:Number = MCBallB.x - nX1;
   var nDistY:Number = MCBallB.y - nY1;
 
   var nDistance:Number = Math.sqrt ( nDistX * nDistX + nDistY * nDistY );
   var nRadiusA:Number = MCBallA.width/2;
   var nRadiusB:Number = MCBallB.width/2;
 
 
   var nNormalX:Number = nDistX/nDistance;
   var nNormalY:Number = nDistY/nDistance;
 
   var nMidpointX:Number = ( nX1 + MCBallB.x )/2;
   var nMidpointY:Number = ( nY1 + MCBallB.y )/2;
 
   MCBallA.x = nMidpointX - nNormalX * nRadiusA;
   MCBallA.y = nMidpointY - nNormalY * nRadiusA;
   MCBallB.x = nMidpointX + nNormalX * nRadiusB;
   MCBallB.y = nMidpointY + nNormalY * nRadiusB;
 
   var nVector:Number = ( ( MCBallA.nSpeedX - MCBallB.nSpeedX ) * nNormalX )+ ( ( MCBallA.nSpeedY - MCBallB.nSpeedY ) * nNormalY );
   var nVelX:Number = nVector * nNormalX;
   var nVelY:Number = nVector * nNormalY;
 
   MCBallA.nSpeedX -= nVelX;
   MCBallA.nSpeedY -= nVelY;
   MCBallB.nSpeedX += nVelX;
   MCBallB.nSpeedY += nVelY;
  }
 }
}

If i run

trace (bacteria);
i get the following:
[object Ball],[object Ball],[object Ball],[object Ball],[object Ball],[object Ball],[object Ball],[object Ball],[object Ball],[object Ball],[object Ball],[object Ball],[object Ball],[object Ball],[object Ball],[object Ball],[object Ball],[object Ball]
now that should be all of the balls on the stage, however i cannot find a way to remove them one by one…

Sorry for that massive post, but i’m just way in over my head right now and need some perspective…