Category Archives: Tutorials

HTML5 Canvas Christmas Tree Drag And Drop Demo And Tutorial

Posted on December 14, 2011 by 8bit_admin

Here is another demo from DevCon5.  Yesterday we showed you an action game, now we will show you something completely different.  A Drag And Drop style decoration application of the type we produced by the dozens ta Mattel throughout the … Continue reading →

Posted in Games, HTML 5 Canvas, HTML5 Canvas Games, Tutorial-HTML5 Canvas, Tutorials | 1 Comment

Road Test: Adobe “Wallaby” Flash->HTML5 Converter Preview Version

Posted on March 9, 2011 by 8bit_admin

A couple days ago, Adobe released a preview version of  ”Wallaby”, their Flash->HTML5 converter.  It’s been a badly kept secret for the past few months that Adobe was working on something like this, but with the release they have finally … Continue reading →

Posted in Flash Game Development, HTML 5 Canvas, Tutorials | 3 Comments

Quick Guide To wmode And Flash Embedding

Posted on February 11, 2011 by 8bit_admin

When embedding Flash .SWFs in HTML, there are several choices you can make for the wmode parameter.  I’ve always been a bit confused about which was which, so I set out to today to pull together as much information as … Continue reading →

Posted in Flash Game Development, Tutorial-Flash, Tutorials | 16 Comments

Game Programming Tool Kit: A Binary Search in AS3

Posted on February 7, 2011 by 8bitjeff

Every game programmer needs a basic set of tools to use in building his/her games. In this series we will cover everything from basic computer science algorithms and simple design patterns to more complex artificial intelligence implementations. If it can … Continue reading →

Posted in Game Programming Tool Kit, Tutorial-Flash, Tutorials | 7 Comments

Shorter, More Game Focused Tutorials Targeting More Technologies Are Coming

Posted on February 5, 2011 by 8bit_admin

OK, now that our HTML5 Canvas book is in production, we are planning a return to game tutorials that have been so popular here.  However, in 2011, people want more than just AS3 tutorials.  Keeping look back at this space … Continue reading →

Posted in Tutorial-Flash, Tutorial-HTML5 Canvas, Tutorials | 5 Comments

Tutorial: Turn Your Flash Game Into A Google Chrome Web App (beta)

Posted on August 19, 2010 by 8bit_admin

While the Google Chrome App Store will not be available until October 2010, you can still package-up your apps and test them as Chrome Web Apps.   Google has some extensive documentation on the subject, but we are going to slice … Continue reading →

Posted in Flash Game Development, Tutorial-Flash, Tutorials | 6 Comments

HTML5 Canvas Resize On The Fly, In An HTML Page

Posted on August 9, 2010 by 8bit_admin

I’ve been playing around a lot with the HTML5 Canvas lately, and I discovered some very interesting things that about the size of Canvas as displayed on an HTML page. The best way to show these is to show a … Continue reading →

Posted in HTML 5 Canvas, Tutorial-HTML5 Canvas, Tutorials | Tagged , , | 9 Comments

Space Gate Enemy Path Tutorial by Barnaby Byrne

Posted on August 6, 2010 by 8bitjeff

Barnaby Byrne (Aka Badger Manufacture) has just released is latest retro inspired Flash Masterpiece, Space Gate, at Odo Games. I was some impressed with the games and the intricate enemy patterns within that I asked if he would be kind … Continue reading →

Posted in Tutorial-Flash, Tutorials | Tagged , | 10 Comments

Tutorial Mess : Please Help

Posted on July 22, 2010 by 8bit_admin

In our recent move, there was simply no good way way to move over all of our tutorials.  We altered the format so many times in 3.5 years, that moving them to something structured like Word Press was a huge … Continue reading →

Posted in Tutorials | 2 Comments

HTML 5 Canvas: Using Processing.js To Develop Canvas Apps

Posted on May 18, 2010 by 8bit_admin

This weekend, a friend of mine named Mike Foti noticed my pained expressions when I was talking about the HTML 5 Canvas, and he decided to help salve some of my injuries from my first few tests by pointing me … Continue reading →

Posted in HTML 5 Canvas, Tutorial-HTML5 Canvas, Tutorials | 2 Comments

HTML 5 Canvas: Creating Gaudy Text Animations…Just Like Flash! (sort of)

Posted on May 15, 2010 by 8bit_admin

Since I have not posted anything about the Canvas in a few weeks I wanted to show some of the experiments I’ve been working on. Everyone knows that animating text in Flash is very easy and has been around since … Continue reading →

Posted in Tutorial-HTML5 Canvas, Tutorials | 2 Comments

Tutorial: Exploring the AS3 Bitmap Class Lesson 3 – Scale from the center with a Matrix.

Posted on May 1, 2010 by 8bitjeff

Tutorial: Exploring the AS3 Bitmap Class Lesson 3 – Scale from the center with a Matrix. In this third lesson we will explore a method of scaling the object from Lesson 1 and Lesson 2 using a Matrix operation. Like … Continue reading →

Posted in Tutorial-Flash, Tutorials | 1 Comment

Tutorial: Exploring the AS3 Bitmap Class Lesson 2 – Rotation with and without a Matrix

Posted on April 14, 2010 by 8bit_admin

Tutorial: Exploring the AS3 Bitmap Class Lesson 2 – Rotation and with and without a Matrix. In this second lesson we will explore a couple different methods for rotating the Bitmap object from Lesson 1. We will first try simply … Continue reading →

Posted in Tutorial-Flash, Tutorials | 3 Comments

Tutorial: Exploring the AS3 Bitmap Class Lesson 1 – Creating a basic dynamic tile sheet.

Posted on April 12, 2010 by 8bit_admin

Tutorial: Exploring the AS3 Bitmap Class Lesson 1 – Creating a basic dynamic tile sheet. We talk a lot about Blitting and BitmapData on this site, but we rarely take a step back and look at the container class for … Continue reading →

Posted in Tutorial-Flash, Tutorials | 1 Comment

Exploring The HTML 5 Canvas For Flash Developers #2: Tracking The Mouse To Draw On The Screen

Posted on April 11, 2010 by 8bit_admin

After a week where confusion about the future of the Flash platform has been piled on to developers by moves outside their control, we present the second in our series of HTML 5 Canvas for Flash Developers.  We call these … Continue reading →

Posted in Tutorial-HTML5 Canvas, Tutorials | 1 Comment

Tutorial: AS3: How to Blit an animation from a tile sheet embedded at compile time

Posted on March 3, 2010 by 8bit_admin

Tutorial: AS3: How to Blit an animation from a tile sheet embedded at compile time Today we are going to look at how to use a tile sheet embedded into an AS3 project at compile time.We will cover the embedding, … Continue reading →

Posted in Tutorial-Flash, Tutorials | 7 Comments

HTML 5 Canvas For Flash Developers #1: What The #@*! Is The HTML 5 Canvas?

Posted on February 23, 2010 by 8bit_admin

In this set of tutorials, we will explore how the HTML Canvas relates to Flash developers. So, the first question to answer about the HTML 5 Canvas appears to be this: “What The #@*! Is The HTML 5 Canvas?“ The … Continue reading →

Posted in Tutorial-HTML5 Canvas, Tutorials | 3 Comments

Tutorial (AS3): Using Fonts Embedded At Compile-Time

Posted on February 15, 2010 by 8bit_admin

Tutorial (AS3): Using Fonts Embedded At Compile-Time I am continuing to explore the use of external assets embedded at compile time in AS3. Today we will look at how to embed and use a font in this manner. The Embed … Continue reading →

Posted in Tutorial-Flash, Tutorials | 1 Comment

AS3 Tutorial: Controlling the Main Timeline of a SWF Embedded at Compile-Time

Posted on February 9, 2010 by 8bit_admin

AS3 Tutorial: Controlling the Main Timeline of a SWF Embedded at Compile-Time Today I was working a a new piece of the Essential Flash Games framework that allows sponsor swf files to be embedded at compile time and displayed before … Continue reading →

Posted in Tutorial-Flash, Tutorials | 4 Comments

AS2->AS3: Making A Click And Stick Christmas Tree Designer In AS2 and AS3

Posted on December 2, 2009 by 8bit_admin

In my last tutorial I focused on the differences in managing the mouse in AS2 and AS3 and how to create a click and drag effect in AS2 and AS3. This tutorial will take the code in those tutorials further … Continue reading →

Posted in Tutorial-Flash, Tutorials | Leave a comment

AS2->AS3: A Simple Drag And Drop Game plus Hiding/Showing/Changing The Mouse Pointer

Posted on December 1, 2009 by 8bit_admin

One of the things designers love to do in the Flash IDE is change the mouse pointer. This was a pretty simple task in AS2, but in AS3 there are few complications. The following short tutorial describes how to hide/show/change … Continue reading →

Posted in Tutorial-Flash, Tutorials | Leave a comment

Tutorial: Using The Open Source CamStudio to Record Flash Game Play Animations

Posted on November 6, 2009 by 8bit_admin

We have found the need to take screen animations of our games lately, but were at a loss on how to do it cheaply and easily.  That was until last week, when we found CamStudio, an Open Source utility for … Continue reading →

Posted in Tutorials | 2 Comments

Clayton Grey’s Blit Layer Erase Speed Test

Posted on August 3, 2009 by 8bit_admin

Clayton Grey’s Blit Layer Erase Speed Test A super diligent and incredibly intelligent (aren’t you all) 8bitrocket reader (and now contributor), Clayton Grey has been running some tests on blitting entire screen-sized portions of BitmapData to clear the screen and … Continue reading →

Posted in Tutorial-Flash, Tutorials | Leave a comment

Tutorial: Clearing a blit canvas by erasing only the portions that have changed (using damage maps or a dirty rect).

Posted on May 3, 2009 by 8bit_admin

Tutorial: Clearing a blit canvas by erasing only the portions that have changed. This is commonly called damage mapping or  dirty rect processing. (Squize called this a Damage Map. I have heard that before but didn’t know that it was … Continue reading →

Posted in Tutorial-Flash, Tutorials | 1 Comment

Tutorial: Using Bit Wise Operations To Create A Repeatable Sequence Of Multiple Level Designs In Code

Posted on April 28, 2009 by 8bit_admin

When creating my game for the Urban Squall 4K Competition a couple months back, I decided to go back and try to remake an old game that was written in ActionScript 1, and bring it into the modern era. Since … Continue reading →

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