Comments on: Flash Hyperspace Star Field Tutorial

By: Dominique

Dominique — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 13:15:06 +0000

Hi, I hope someone is still on looking on this page.
Anyway I am making a flash game and it features a similiar kind of starfield generator that is being made in a container and then loaded onto the stage. However the problem is that whenever your are game over or go to any other frame for that matter. The star field is still there and isnt removed from the stage even though the next frame doesnt have that code. So why is it still there and moving? Ive tried to fix it, but I cant seem to find an answer on that problem. Also when I press my restart button after game over you go back to the stage but then the old starfield that was there is sitting still in the background and a new starfield is then moving.

The starfield is made in such a matter that it moves when the player moves it’s ship.

I hope anyone kinda understands my problem and could help me with it.
btw this is really a good tutorial for a star field.

By: Tilqo

Tilqo — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 05:41:36 +0000

Hey!

I’ve come across your tutorial and i must say it’s great! Everything works beautifully. But i went a step further. I wanted to ad two more shapes to the warp motion. Let’s say a triangle and a square. I tried that with a multiple AS files (with changed names for MovieClips) and i tried to triple the code in one AS (each code for each MovieClip). Every code had a line for it’s own universe MovieClip. Nothing worked. Infect, the original star field doesn’t work then ether. :\

I’m not a code master. I do animation, but in this situation animating star field by hand would be a pain in the… So i used my “logic” at this and i guess i made a mistake somewhere.
Do you have any idea how could i approach this problem?

Thank you for your time.
Tilen (Slovenia)

By: Paul David Fisher

Paul David Fisher — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 13:44:36 +0000

Thank you so much for the starfield tutorial (I mean thanks for providing the code).
Just added a couple things and voila!:http://wildfire.gigya.com/facebook/preview.aspx?fb_sig_api_key=f7667e9ebccf2157d6f15f991a5e3ce9&wid=383174191&p=bHQ9MTI4MDc1NjMzNzQwMyZwdD%2AxMjgwNzU2MzQwNzk5JnA9Njk2MDUxJmQ9Jm49ZmFjZWJvb2smZz%2AyJm89NWJjYjlkZmZlYjQ1NDU5MmExM2IwOTgyMWM5MTA1ZWImb2Y9MA%3D%3D&s=1

By: mattc

Mon, 21 Jun 2010 14:48:46 +0000

At the top of the AddStar function you'll see this line:

	var curStar:MovieClip = universe_mc.attachMovie("star", "star_"+i, i);

This is where it attaches a new star to the universe_mc MovieClip and is the reason that this only works if the clip is named universe_mc. I'm guessing that the stars are being generated about 200 px off to the right of the stage because your universe_mc is not located at the extreme left edge of the screen, but instead starts about 200 px over to the right. If you move it to the left edge of the stage it should work. As for doing two starfields simultaneously, that's a little trickier. I'll send you an email so we can go over it offline.

By: van

van — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 20:40:38 +0000

mattc, thanks a million for this. I searched far and wide and this is the only starfield tut out there that both works and makes sense.

I had the same problem as leah and CyrilB. It seems that if you create a MC it doesn’t work at all unless you name the instance ‘universe_mc’ as well. This produces stars, but they’re generated about 200 pixels off to the right of the stage, so most of them never make it to the stage and live their short lives without ever being seen. Only the lucky few make it a few pixels onto the stage before petering out.

I’ve looked at the code and traced some things but can’t figure this out. I’d really like to run two starfields simultaneously so….any ideas?

Thanks,
Van

By: Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 02:58:18 +0000

“Space the final frontier…”

By: mattc

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 13:49:37 +0000

It sounds like the code isn't finding the universe_mc MovieClip. Try adding a trace statement to your code to make sure the universe_mc is a valid object. Something like trace('universe_mc = ' + universe_mc); My guess is that it will show up as null. Go ahead and contact me offline and I'll see if I can help you get it working.

By: CyrilB

CyrilB — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 06:10:31 +0000

Hello.
First, excuse me for my english.
I’ve the same problem than Leah but, even following your tips, i can’t make it work.
I’ve created a layer in wich i’ve inserted a movieclip named universe_mc ; i’ve tested it inserting an action in the movieclip (with #include “StarField.as” or the complete script (excepting the line this.createEmptyMovieClip(“universe_mc”, 10);).
In this state, no stars appears.
Could you help me ?
Thanks

By: Leah

Leah — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 18:33:45 +0000

Thanks for ur help

By: mattc

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 21:06:57 +0000

The reason the stars are showing up on top of everything is because we are creating the universe_mc dynamically and adding it to the stage. To keep the stars isolated to a specific layer, you'll need to place a MovieClip in that layer and name it universe_mc and remove the following lines of the code:

// create a container for all of our new stars
this.createEmptyMovieClip("universe_mc", 10);

Any layers above the layer you have the universe_mc on will show up over the stars. You can use this method to mask the star layer as well. If you are still having problems, feel free to contact me offline.