FlashDevelop (AS3)

Hi, I am using just the FlashDevelop IDE and am trying to make animation but, can’t seem to find any tutorials or guides using just the IDE. What I want to do is create a object, demolish the object and re-create a new object on a timer. To make it appear it is animating. So basically my questions are:

1) Can Flashdevelop alone make animation? (No Extensions)

2) How to make animation?

3) Can you use .gifs in this IDE

FlashDevelop is a code editor. It edits .as files and some other text based formats. You need to make your assets in another editor (e.g. Paint.net, GIMP etc).

You can include assets in the library in FD and embed them in your project (search for FlashDevelop and embed).

To animate an object you need to import each frame and manage the animation on ENTER_FRAME events. You can probably find some code to do this with a search (I have a class to do it but I haven’t published that at the moment).

Thanks, yes I was going to make the images in Paint.net One more thing maybe I should of lead off with that. How do I make it go to the next frame? I can not find any online tutorials without them using Flash Pro.

Your best bet to animate objects in FlashDevelop is to make use of sprite sheets, not GIFs. You’ll also need to learn how to render individual tiles from the sprite sheet to the canvas. The technique to do this is called blitting. There’s a good tutorial on blitting for AS3 at 8bitrocket.com, but I suggest you google “AS3 blitting” for more info.

As for how to make a sprite sheet, you’ll first need to learn how to draw. If you can already do flipbook animations, then you have what it takes to make sprite sheets. Otherwise, I suggest partnering with an artist who knows how.

Edit: You wrote the above post as I was typing my reply, so I didn’t see it until after I had saved my post. I would surmise that you already know how to draw, which is great. The tutorial that I mentioned earlier will probably answer your question on how to do frames.