Draw Methods

AlphaMania supports a number of drawing methods that work with different effects. These are powerful ways of exploiting special effects.

Normal - Here a yellow and gold triangle sits on the blue tiled background. The triangle is using the 'normal' drawing method, and has the swirl effect applied to it. It appears much as you would expect.

Reveal - In this sample the same triangle from above is onstage, but its drawMethod is set to reveal - meaning, it reveals another castmember. In our cast we have a regular bitmap castmember drawing of an eye, and that castmember is what this triangle is revealing. Again, the swirl effect is being used. The red circle is simply a Director paint castmember that the triangle moves over.

Apply - Here again, the same triangle is being used, and this time it is using the apply drawMethod - meaning the effects on the triangle are 'applied' to the stage. In this example, to help you see the triangle, we are using the swirl effect and the hsb effect to colorize it. Anything on the stage that this sprite passes over will be affected by these effects - notice what happens to our red circle (a paint castmember) when the triangle passes over it.

Reusable Cast Members - this is our cast window from this movie. One triangle, some drawMethods, and some special effects are combined efficiently to create dazzling multimedia, with a minimum bandwidth.

Want More?

If you have more questions about drawing methods, and perhaps would like to manipulate them yourself, try downloading the Effector Sets and try out the 'Methods and Modes.dir' Director file, which is included with them.