3D Flower - Page 6

The Variables

1. Now, let's start with the scripting. We need to initialize certain variables and arrays. To the Java or C programmers, the first frame is like a constructor. It only runs once and has all the initializations and methods.
2. First, we need to initialize two variables, points and lines. Points defines the number of points the our 3d Object is made up of. Lines defines the number of lines our object consist of. For our objects, the following lines would be neccessary:
   

   Points = 11;
   Lines = 10;
   

3. Now, a variable named viewport defines the zooming component of the screen. An initial value of 500 would be likely.

   Viewport = 500;
   

4. We will now declare a variable having a formula to convert degrees to radians. We will need this later.

   rad = (3.14*2)/360;
   

5. We need two arrays to contain the properties of our object. One is the line array, containing the properties of the lines. Another is the vertex array, containing the properties of each vertex. So, enter the following lines:

   line = new Array(Lines);
   vertex = new Array(Points);
   

6. Because this movie is just to show off the 3d capabilities of flash, viewing it fullscreen would be more beautiful. So, enter the following line:

   fscommand ("fullScreen", true);
   

7. Next, we need to duplicate the line and the point movieclips. Enter the following lines to do it:

   for (i=0; i != Lines; i++) {
   wire.DuplicateMovieClip("l" add i, i);
   line[i] = eval("l" add i);
   }
   
   for (i=0; i != Points; i++) {
   point.DuplicateMovieClip("v" add i, (Lines*2)+i);
   vertex[i] = eval("v" add i);
   }
   

   Explanation: The 1st for loop loops and duplicates the line movieclip until the number movieclips is equal to the value specified in the Lines variable. The 2nd loop creates n duplicates of the wire movieclip where n denotes the value of the variable of points. You could see that in both the loops, there is an eval function which assigns each duplicated movieclip a slot in the array we created in Step 4. This makes it easier to refer to their properties and the variables contained in them later.