Creating Scrolling Terrain - Page 3

Terrain Data

On the following page are some terrain data. Each alpha/numeric character represents a specific square of terrain. If you look on the pasteboard on the main timeline of the "FLA" you will see a whole bunch of different terrain pieces. Each one is a movie clip named with a single character... the "terrain controller" checks the text variables below to see what terrain it shold display. It then grabs the movie clip with the same name as the character it finds in the terrain data, duplicates it, and puts it in the correct spot at the top of the scrolling area.

The variable "last_terrain" is used by the terrain controller so it knows when to either (stop) or (as in this sample) start over at the beginning again. You can see how easy it would be to add in new objects that you create, edit existing terrain, or make the terrain wider or narrower. The more terrain you have on your screen the slower it will scroll. The more complicated your terrain is the slower it will scroll.

Editing Hint: You can make your original text in a text editing program that will allow you to set the font to "Courier" or some other fixed-width font. That way, letters like "i" and "x" will be the same width, making the whole 9 character (or however many you have) line up correctly, and easier to edit.