Some flash coding questions

Specific Q&A about the new Flash export
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benny
Posts: 8
Joined: Tue Apr 10, 2007 9:53 am
Location: Gemany

Hi Thomas,

first of all I want to send you my deep respect for your great product, especially the flash-pack "extension".

As far as I see there is no other "working" spherical panorama solution for flash on the market yet. All other "attempts" are tries but no products (excluding flashvr, but this is not spherical and the used slices-technic offers poor quality only).

Congratulations !!

I'm testing to integrate the latest full version (1.6) and I'm trying to integrate the panos into an self made vt-tour flash-frontend, which is based on several other MCs (map, controlers, poi-data). Most of the stuff works perfectly, but I found some pitfalls concerning flash code integration and hope you can help me out:

p1) It seams to be impossible to mask the loaded swf pano. I tried several ways (dynamic with setMask(), static with mcs including mask layers) but the all failed whereas they work for e.g. jpgs. Do you have any idea whats behind that? I guess you use an displacementMapFilter for the distortion. Can this be the reason? BTW the approach to lay something over the edges on a hight displaylevel does not work for me, as this area needs to be displayed transparent in the browser.

p2) There is another strange thing about the display of a loaded pano.swf. I can not hide it by using <mc>._visible = false or <mc>._alpha = 0. Is this related to the p1 issue?

p3) The <mc>.pano.autorotate and <mc>.pano.autorotate_delay seams to be "static" and do not work outside a listenerObject onLoadStart-Eventmethod. Is this right or do I miss something? A setAutorotate() Methode would be great !

p4) Autorotate seams to work only if the mouse is over the pano. Can this be changed, so the rotation also works if the mouse is outside the pano area?


I also have some minor requests:

r1) Could you please public a complete API manual. I know about the "API sticker" but it is incomplete as I found several other API calls in the forum you posted by time. I know by myself how boring it is to keep dev-manuals up to date, but its the only interface to the outside and therefor it is extremely important for developers which intend to use your product.

r2) An simultaneous flash AND qt export would be great.


All in all it's a pleasure to work with your stuff. Extremely well done!

For me this thing has the potential to change the whole panorama-display-over-the-internet scene, at least the low- and mid-quality sector. For high-quality QT might be still the first choice.

Greetings to Vienna!
Benny

P.S. Sorry fo the long post
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thomas
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Location: Vienna, Austria
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And here are my answers:

p1+p2) You have to mask the drawing movie clip of the pano. This is called <mc>.cv so <mc>.cv.setMask() should do the trick.

p3) The static properties are only used during startup to set the values before the pano starts. After that you can use
<mc>.pano.setAutorotate(speed(float),delay(float),returntoHorizon(float),onlyinfocus(bool));
where speed=0 stops the rotation.

p4) This is the checkbox "autorotate - only in focus". You can disable it in the GUI or with the above call (last parameter)

r1) I will put together a HTML document in the next weeks

r2) I am working on this

btw: We can also talk about this while having a beer... I know some other panographers from Vienna and we meet occasionally. :D
MfG, Thomas
benny
Posts: 8
Joined: Tue Apr 10, 2007 9:53 am
Location: Gemany

Hi Thomas,

thanks for you reply!

Your answers p1-4) helped a lot and I'm just implemting them.

Good to know that there is a API doc on the way. Can't wait to see how many "undocumented" methods there are. BTW the setAutorotate() methode is brilliant, should have tried it by my own and see that it is already there.

Thanks for your inventention and be sure I will join you as soon as I have a little more time. It's very busy at the moment but if everything works fine I should come to Vienna this sommer anyway and will contact you for a beer.

See you soon ...

Benny
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Brian
Posts: 36
Joined: Thu Mar 08, 2007 7:19 pm
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Contact:

Benny,

I wish I had had the foresight and knowledge to ask Thomas the questions you asked. I agree totally about these interesting API based methods (like "This is called <mc>.cv so <mc>.cv.setMask()" which would have saved me a lot of time in setting up masks to window my panos nicely. But then I learnt a lot doing it!

I don't know why your page surround had to be transparent, but I used depths etc to get my other page furniture to show around the pano window, but I'm sure from your comments and your other helpful posts that you have thought carefully about all this.

I also agree - having used fireworks, java applets / javascript and Dreamweaver/html before for virtual tours, as well as horrible iPIX, that Thomas's pano2qtvr is a really flexible and interesting method to use and fits my wish to stay within the Flash environment (I can only learn so many new tricks at once) for my work.

So - the point of this post was to thank you for your questions (and to Thomas for his answers); I'll certainly look out for your posts in the future. It's great to see good questions that are so helpful in eliciting such useful answers,

Best regards,

Brian
landrvr1
Posts: 19
Joined: Fri Jun 08, 2007 4:09 pm

Okay, I've got the setMask to work - sort of. Here's my code:

Code: Select all

this.attachMovie("VR","VR",10);

this.attachMovie("mask_mc","mask_mc",20);

VR.setMask(mask_mc);
For some reason, however the mask works at the top and sides of the pano, but the bottom still shows the raw jagged pano edges!?

Any clues as to what might be wrong?
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Brian
Posts: 36
Joined: Thu Mar 08, 2007 7:19 pm
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
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Dear landrvr1

I'm sorry you don't seem to have had a reply to your post on masks. I for one have had other things to do over the last month or so, but am getting abck into the swing.

If it would work, it would be a much simpler method than I use to create a surround for the pano by drawing rectangles. I tried before to do what you have done, but maybe I didn't get the levels right. I'll have a go at your approach.

I can't see why the bottom of the pano would fail to take the mask - I assume the mask is a rectangle? Or maybe you resolved the problem yourself?

If you haven't yet, do try version 6.5 that Thomas just released. I found his previous version 6.3 and 6,4 handled the size and position of the pano differently from version 5, and that resulted in my panos being in the wrong place and size. When I tried to move it, I got jagged edges here and there, and even when I could get rid of them, it didn't work for version 5 panos. The new version seems to clear that up. It might just be that your pano isn't where you think it is when you apply the mask?

Best regards,

Brian
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