Is Starling a good choice for a simple 2d 360 panorama for iPad?

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Is Starling a good choice for a simple 2d 360 panorama for iPad?

(27 posts) (7 voices)

Started 1 year ago by om11
Latest reply from om11

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om11

Senior Bird
Joined: Dec '11
Posts: 64

Hey all,

I am currently blitting 5 images that are 1150x636. I have a hitarea over the bitmap and as the user drags I update the blit between the appropriate images. It works "ok". It's much better than just trying to use some kind of startDrag() approach on a huge sprite.

On the iPad2 the blitting is much smoother and acceptible. On the ipad1 it's a bit boggy. I'm looking for an alternative to straight up hand coded blitting. Is Starling 2d a good choice for something like this?

What I will need to simulate is when the user slides their finger across the screen they simply pan a very large image until eventually it loops, like a 360 panorama. I need no '3d look' to it, this is straight up panning either a single large image or several slices of that large image.

Should I look into using Starling for something like this? Will it achieve any better performance than ENTER_FRAME blitting from images in a Vector in memory?

Thanks for any tips!

Posted 1 year ago #
esDot

Senior Bird
Joined: Sep '11
Posts: 177

Definately, for one thing you are moving all processing from the cpu to gpu, which will be much better on batterylife.

Posted 1 year ago #
om11

Senior Bird
Joined: Dec '11
Posts: 64

Smoothness is definitely my goal.

Thanks for the shot of confidence in using this library.

Will there be a blitting-esque technique I will still need to do using this software or does it have something in the way of handling what I'm trying to do? For example the Greensock blitting software has a wrap feature which auto-wraps a set of images like a panorama.

Basically, what advice would you give in the classes and libraries to look in to start doing this sort of task? I just want the user to feel like they can continuously slide to the side and eventually after the 360 degree mark have it loop seamlessly. Any advice is appreciated!

Posted 1 year ago #
Daniel

Primary Feather
Joined: Jan '10
Posts: 2,444

I'm currently working hard to get as much performance out of Starling as possible, especially for mobile devices -- so you should definitely try it out for your task! =)

If you want a texture to wrap around, that's easy to do in Starling. Textures have a "repeat" property. Set that to true. Then, images have methods for texture coordinate manipulation. Texture coordinates are in the range 0-1 if you want to display the complete texture. If you scale them to, say, 0 - 0.1, the texture will repeat 10 times in each direction.

Try that out, it's rather easy to do! (At least if I understood your question right! )

Posted 1 year ago #
om11

Senior Bird
Joined: Dec '11
Posts: 64

Thanks for your response!

I would love to get up and running with Starling. I've downloaded the source and looked at the tutorials but everyone uses Flash Builder. I use Flash CS5.5 Pro IDE. Do you have any resources on getting Starling to work in this context?

I don't even have the flex SDK installed. I downloaded 4.6.0 and put just the core.swc in a 4.6.0 folder as during an attempt at doing the tutorial it asked me where Flex was. That seemed to solve it but some basic things in the tutorial like: addChild ( new Stats() );. It tells it it's an unknown class.

Do you have any resources for getting Starling working in Flash CS5.5? I'd love to give it a shot.

I did remove the simple FPS meter just to try the tutorial and a screen came up and reported rendering in Directx, but unfortunately the quad did not appear. Clearly I'm missing some linkages. Selecting Flash 10.2 from the list instead of AIR for iOS or even AIR2.6 (which has 3.1 overlayed over it) just produces more errors.

Posted 1 year ago #
esDot

Senior Bird
Joined: Sep '11
Posts: 177

It's gonna be tricky, basically you need to figure out how to run the latest versions of AIR/Flash Player in Flash pro. This doesn't really have anything to do with starling specifically. I'm sure google can help, I haven't done it myself...

But really, what better time to ditch flash pro. You can still use it with Flash Builder to create and manage your assets, but your workflow and efficiency will be about 100x better with a proper debugger and profiling tools.

@Daniel - I was gonna suggest one massive texture, wrapped, but it sounds like his would be >5000px wide, would that still work?? Does starling automatically split these to 2048 behind the scenes?

Posted 1 year ago #
esDot

Senior Bird
Joined: Sep '11
Posts: 177

Just to clarify, my normal workflow is like this:
1. Use Flash Pro to create all assets, movieclips, animations etc
2. Setup FLA to export a SWC
3. Have a FB Project, which imports the swc.

The FB project now has full reference to anything "exported for actionscript" in your FLA.

You can easily create classes to wrap your exported assets, and you're off to the races...

Posted 1 year ago #
om11

Senior Bird
Joined: Dec '11
Posts: 64

Oy.. So I need to buy a $700 app to continue with this I see. I guess there's a good reason why everyone always makes tutorials in Flash Builder.

Are we essentially downgrading Flash CS5.5 IDE to something of a "photoshop for flash builder"?

Posted 1 year ago #
paha

Competent Bird
Joined: Oct '11
Posts: 21

Its perfectly possible to set up Flash IDE to compile and debug to latest player versions. I think there's instructions on this forum too.

I use Flash IDE together with Flash Develop and find it suitable for my workflow.

Posted 1 year ago #
sHTiF

Moderating Owl
Joined: Oct '11
Posts: 827

om11 since when is FB $700 app? Unless you need profiling which i doubt. Not to mention that there are free alternatives like FlashDevelop and FDT.

And yep Flash IDE is more like support application nowadays even though quite a lot of people still use it for development or atleast compiling.

Posted 1 year ago #
om11

Senior Bird
Joined: Dec '11
Posts: 64

FB on Adobe.com (if you never purchased it before) is $699. At least says this store page.

I have AIR 3.1 overlayed (still on 2.6, man they need to fix this cruft). I have FP11 installed and I can target it on export. I know I can overlay but this is getting really tedious and when it comes to desiring to do things like using native extensions (or more to the point, making them) its difficult to impossible. All tutorials say open flash builder and make a flex library project. I only have a flex project in FlashDevelop, not Flash CS5.5.

I tried the flash develop SWC exporter. It continuously gives me errors about not finding basic flash classes when I try to use that .dll plugin to export. I reinstalled and told it to reinstall the latest AIR and Flex SDK automatically. Still got errors. It downloaded AIR3.0 though, which 3.1 is out so that's a little odd.

It all comes down to $700 isn't that expensive when you consider I wasted $800 in company time today trying to use FDT Free with Eclipse, failed, tried to get FlashDevelop latest RC2 to export a SWC and failed, etc. All tutorials seem to prefer Flash Builder.

I guess it's time for me to grow up.

Posted 1 year ago #
sHTiF

Moderating Owl
Joined: Oct '11
Posts: 827

FB Standard costs $249 where Premium is $699 I have bought both and not once for various members of our Flash team. I myself prefer Flash Builder over FDT or Flash Develop since its Adobe product not that it would be immersely better. I still use Flash Develop for haXe projects.

"It all comes down to $700 isn't that expensive when you consider I wasted $800 in company time today trying to use FDT Free with Eclipse, failed, tried to get FlashDevelop latest RC2 to export a SWC and failed, etc. All tutorials seem to prefer Flash Builder.

I guess it's time for me to grow up."

Seems like you need to learn using different tools, I know a lot of people which are probably like you. Feeling safe using one tool all the years and once they need to use something different they are like fish out of the water, god forbit they had to use command line tools to do something they would probably run screaming the other direction.

Maybe I am wrong, but one thing is certain you need to grow up indeed, or do you think that all the people will now start using Flash IDE to create tutorials just so you are happy? I have nothing against tutorials in Flash IDE and certainly don't complain once I see one even though I use Flash CS very rarely and only for assets management, its simply not tool for programmers.

By the way FDT is indeed quite complex to get familiar with, they got all these cool settings one can use but its all but straightforward for a new user.

Posted 1 year ago #
om11

Senior Bird
Joined: Dec '11
Posts: 64

Fairly scathing critique, no?

My boat is more of the jack of all trades, master of none. In my day it's very often I'll handle some aspect of several different projects ranging from optimizing a HTML5/CSS3/jquerymobile site. Then work on a flash multimedia CD (yes our customers still require these) built years ago back in AS2. Then hop to tweaking lighting in a 3dsmax vray scene before prerendering the light calcs, then hope in after effects and adjust the lighting on the scene using them. After some random PHP library will need a tweak to handle a new field for an order form, database adjustments included. That'll require more graphics so hit up photoshop and illustrator (damn smart objects). I might jump back to a desktop RIA built in AS3 and Zinc4 to add a quick feature. Then finish writing a xml schema for an estimate on a new project. Then get a batch of movies encoding for the next project. Finally adding a bit more time on a music mix in sound booth. I also do obj-c and cocoa for native development although it's my weakest point at the moment.

Command line? I grew up in BSD, redhat and MS-DOS 3+. I do plenty of command line movie encoding for my popcorn hour C200. All those tools are command-line with at least two dozen options. Hell back in the 80s I used to hex edit command.com just to change "bad command or file name" to something more saucy like "wrong command asshole" just for fun.

Flash Builder is just one more tool in the dozens I use already. That's where it becomes a pain to learn yet one more thing. Luckily I love to learn and I'm perfectly willing to do it.

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction. I will be getting FB as this business is all about time. We sell our skills based on time. Luckily most the projects are easy and expensive. Only now as we start getting more mobile jobs am I seeking out the best route.

Lastly, the tool certainly does not make the professional. I can write MVC PHP in anything from notepad to eclipse and be just as happy, for a random example. This post serves the evidence I'm recognizing I cannot proceed with current tools. This isn't me shutting the doors on learning but just the opposite. I greatly appreciate wrappers like Starling because I do openGL ES in obj-c/cocoa when UIKit or Core Animation won't handle the effect I need in an app. openGL is not fun. It doesn't scare me, starting my programming 25 years ago in x86 asm, but frameworks are much appreciated. Time is money..

Posted 1 year ago #
sHTiF

Moderating Owl
Joined: Oct '11
Posts: 827

Nice to see fellow assembler coder. And glad that you decided to go for the FB its really a mature tool that some of us can't even imagine working without.

The command line stuff I said was simply because if you really wanted to you can do everything you mentioned solely using command line.

Posted 1 year ago #
davidk

Competent Bird
Joined: Nov '11
Posts: 39

Lol... om11... I can totally relate

Posted 1 year ago #
om11

Senior Bird
Joined: Dec '11
Posts: 64

I realize FB is a nicety that simply does all the command line stuff for you. That's why I eventually purchased Slysoft AnyDVD HD. It uses freeware libraries and is nothing more than a constantly updated blu-ray decryptor and freeware library utilizer with a friendly GUI. I push one button and now my 3 year olds newest blu-ray is on his popcorn hour so he can watch it 900 times without me fishing out a blu-ray.

I haven't purchased FB yet, actually opting not to utilize a built in iOS function for a custom made function, nor update this panorama just yet to starling. There's always version 2 for apps, might as well get paid for it.

Though this has been a very informative thread for me. Thanks again for pushing me to Flash Builder. I will indeed get it, just after Jan 1st, so it goes on next years tax breaks ;).

Posted 1 year ago #
beppe

Hatchling
Joined: Dec '11
Posts: 4

Try to use debug player (ctrl + shift + enter).

It's sad the "build on only one tool deploy everywhere" direction taken by flash tools.
Everybody working on a project should be able to do some changes and testing, not only programmers.

Posted 1 year ago #
paha

Competent Bird
Joined: Oct '11
Posts: 21

@om11

Regarding SWC exporting in Flash Develop, did you use this:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/exportswc/

I personally find Flash Develop good for AS3 projects. Its code completion works really nice and it feels snappier. The updated targets are already in dev version, so I expect them soon.

For Flex FB is propably safer bet.

Posted 1 year ago #
om11

Senior Bird
Joined: Dec '11
Posts: 64

@beppe ~ What do you mean try debug player? That's what I was saying I cannot get to work. I have AIR3.1 and FP11 in Flash. I tried the tutorial on this site and it tells me the rendering is Directx but I don't see the quad in the tutorial. Unfortunately I just don't know what I'm doing wrong. The tutorial is written for Flash Builder, which is why I came here to seek out what might be the issue in the IDE with I ctrl+shift+enter test it. It just doesn't work.

@paha ~ Yes that's what I am using. I installed that and I have the button to export to SWC but I get errors that it cannot find any of the flash classes (wth?). I never get these errors just doing normal everyday as3. I ctrl+enter from flash builder (from a flash ide project) and it connects to flash and correctly remote debugs, etc. Code completion works perfectly fine for as3. Yet when using ExportSWC it just gives me a huge list of errors about not being able to find every as3 class, etc.

Posted 1 year ago #
paha

Competent Bird
Joined: Oct '11
Posts: 21

@om11: To use FP11 debug player with the IDE, you must replace the old debug player which is found in <your Flash IDE Folder>/Players/Debug/FlashPlayerDebugger.exe with the new one.

You have to also add a correct target XML file in /Common/Configuration/Players/FlashPlayer11.xml and new playerglobal.swc to folder /Common/Configuration/ActionScript3.0/FP11/

Now you should be able to target FP11 and start debug session from IDE.

For most examples to work you need to create FLA file with the main AS file as its root class.

Posted 1 year ago #
om11

Senior Bird
Joined: Dec '11
Posts: 64

Thank you paha, I will try this! I will be getting FB Q1 next year but I'd really love to start toying with Starling before that. I appreciate the info!

Here's a link with a MXP from Adobe to do it quick and clean. I already have done this BTW:
http://blogs.adobe.com/rgalvan/2011/11/adding-fp11-support-to-flash-pro-cs5-and-cs5-5.html

Posted 1 year ago #
paha

Competent Bird
Joined: Oct '11
Posts: 21

Ok, I haven't read that article before. Maybe the author wasn't aware that the Flash Player 11 Standalone Debugger was released too? :/

Btw. new Flash Develop version is available too:
http://www.flashdevelop.org/community/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=9215

Posted 1 year ago #
om11

Senior Bird
Joined: Dec '11
Posts: 64

Thanks for letting me know about RC3! RC2 just came out, never would have expected it. I see it grabs the latest SDKs so that's nice!

I have the debugger and player .exes installed in my cs5.5 install. Unfortunately after I did that and tried to update the playerglobal.swc to the latest on that 11.1 debugger page I broke flash overall. Now I select FP11 to export and it can't even find Stage3D. I can only use Starling with AIR.. Ugh.

Posted 1 year ago #
om11

Senior Bird
Joined: Dec '11
Posts: 64

ctrl+shift+enter (debugger) does have Stage3D although ctrl+enter (release) does not. Not quite sure as I replaced both EXEs with the latest. At least the debugger works!

Posted 1 year ago #
beppe

Hatchling
Joined: Dec '11
Posts: 4

Yes, that's why I suggested debug player instead of the built in one.

I don't know why at Adobe they didn't think people would not need to upgrade the built in player after new player releases (hoping the reason is not free cs5.6...)

Posted 1 year ago #
om11

Senior Bird
Joined: Dec '11
Posts: 64

Thanks for the suggestion. At least I can experiment with Starling now! Much appreciated!

Posted 1 year ago #
om11

Senior Bird
Joined: Dec '11
Posts: 64

Just an update. Upon printing flash.system.Capabilities.version I can see for CTRL+ENTER it's using version WIN 10,2,153,2. When I do a debug test it's using version WIN 11,1,102,55. That clearly explains why Stage3D is only available in debug testing.

I did overlay release and debug .exes in the Flash CS5.5 Player folder. Does anyone know of another place I might need to overwrite the flash player or which .exe CTRL+ENTER actually launches?

Posted 1 year ago #

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