Managing flash animations for a game

Question

Ok, I've been writing C# for a while, but I'm new to ActionScript, so this is a question about best practices.

We're developing a simple match game, where the user selects tiles and tries to match various numbers - sort of like memory - and when the match is made we want a series of animations to take place, and when they're done, remove the tile and add a new one.

So basically it's:

1. User clicks the MC
2. Animation 1 on the MC starts
3. Animation 1 ends
4. Remove the MC from the stage
5. Add a new MC
6. Start the animation on the new MC

The problem I run into is that I don't want to make the same timeline motion tween on each and every tile, when the animation is all the same. It's just the picture in the tile that's different.

The other method I've come up with is to just apply the tweens in code on the main stage. Then I attach an event handler for MOTION_FINISH, and in that handler I trigger the next animation and listen for that to finish etc. This works too, but not only do I have to do all the tweening in code, I have a seperate event handler for each stage of the animation.

So is there a more structured way of chaining these animations together?

Answer 1

Definitely have a look at the greensock Tweening library. Especially TweenLite and TimelineLite. It's a really great tweening library and will definitely make tasks like the one you're facing a lot easier.

Answer 2

So there seem like two good ways to solve this. The first is to take Bummzack's advice and use TweenLite to programmatically advance your movie clip. When the tween finishes you can then remove the clip and carry on. The second approach I've used is to add an event to the final frame in your movie clip. Usually I will fire an EVENT_COMPLETE event in the final frame. The game would then add the movie clip, start playing it, and listen for the complete event.

Answer 3

Timeline animation is fun and quick to create. As you mentioned only the image(s) in the tile changes. I would create a tile (with animation) on a the timeline and load the image(s) into it. Use frame labels and base your logic on the current frame label.