Categories
AS3 Flash Open source / Freeware Tools of the trade

FlashDevelop 3.0.0 released

My favorite open source project ever, FlashDevelop has released: FlashDevelop 3.0.0 RTM (English, 4MB) .

I started with coding in the Flash IDE, when I realized that there are better programs to code in I started working with SE|PY (ActionScript 2 only). I really loved that program, but it never made it to ActionScript 3 and so I tried FlashDevelop. I have never regretted it, it a beautiful piece of work and I can’t work without it.
So if your pockets aren’t deep, and want to become a better AS2/AS3 programmer. you should try this program.

The only sad thing is that it’s Windows only.

Categories
AS3 Flash

AS3 Flash Physics Engine Box2D

I was looking for a physics engine for Flash so I started looking for one… there are a lot of engines…
I won’t mention them all, there are enough people who did that already (here, here, here and here)

If the list is that big, how to choose?
Well I also want to use it with papervision3d so I googled on that and if someone checked out a couple of engines (this guy checked out 3).
And in one of my rss feeds there is a guy who builds games, and now it writing tutorials for box2d 😉

So I decided on box2d.

Box2D is an open source physics engine written primarily for games. As the name suggests, Box2D is a purely 2D engine. However, Box2D has grown beyond it’s humble box simulating roots, and can now handle convex polygons and other shapes coming soon.

Box2D is written in C++, but there is a port to as3: AS3 Flash Physics Engine Box2DFlashAS3 2.0.1.

[swf]http://box2dflash.sourceforge.net/PhysTest201.swf, 520, 292[/swf]

Box2DFlashAS3 is an open source port of Erin Catto‘s powerful c++ physics library Box2D.

There is not a lot of information about Box2DFlashAS3 and tutorials are even harder to find.
So here some useful links:

Emanuele Feronato (an Italian PROgrammer) has written an extremely useful tutorial: box2d tutorial for the absolute beginners/. This one is a very good starting point!

I will write about the problems that I encounter with Box2D, I hope that will help you in your quest to understand box3DFlash.


Because I’m quite lazy, I didn’t mention all the as3 physics engines but you can: just make a comment about any engine and perhaps why you are working with that engine…