Flash Snow 3.0, Page 2

In the previous page, you created the snow effect. In this page, you will learn why your code works the way it does.

The Init Function
Let's start with the init function whose main responsibility is to setup all of the snowflakes. Let's take it a few lines at a time:

width = 300;

// pixels

height = 200;

// pixels

The width and height variables specify the area your snow effect will be displayed in. Normally, your width and height values will be the same as the width and height of your movie's stage.

max_snowsize = 10;

// pixels

snowflakes = 50;

// quantity

The max_snowsize variable specifies the scale value used in determining the width and height of your snowflake. The larger the value, the larger your snowflake.

The snowflakes variable determines the number of snowflakes that appear on your screen at any given time. If you increase this value, more snowflakes will appear on your screen, but system performance may also decrease.

for (i=0; i<snowflakes; i++) {

t = attachMovie("snow", "snow"+i, i);

t._alpha = 20+Math.random()*60;

t._x = -(width/2)+Math.random()*(1.5*width);

t._y = -(height/2)+Math.random()*(1.5*height);

t._xscale = t._yscale=50+Math.random()*(max_snowsize*10);

t.k = 1+Math.random()*2;

t.wind = -1.5+Math.random()*(1.4*3);

t.onEnterFrame = mover;

}

Our snowflake properties are specified inside this for loop. The for loop's range is from 0 to the number specified by the snowflakes variable.

t = attachMovie("snow", "snow"+i, i);

The variable t references the movie clip returned by attachMovie. The attachMovie function takes in three arguments: movie clip identifier from the library, new movie clip name, and the new movie clip's depth. 

The argument "snow" lets you retrieve the snow movie clip you created earlier. The value for snow is the not the name of the object from your Library, but instead it is the name you entered in the Linkage Properties dialog window earlier.

The new movie clip name is going to be "snow"+i. The value of i cycles from 0 to the number stored by the snowflakes variable. Your new movies will, therefore, have names such as snow0, snow1, snow2, etc.

t._alpha = 20+Math.random()*60;

t._x = -(width/2)+Math.random()*(1.5*width);

t._y = -(height/2)+Math.random()*(1.5*height);

t._xscale = t._yscale=50+Math.random()*(max_snowsize*10);

The above four lines set the alpha, x, y, xscale, and yscale properties of the t movie clip. The statements are fairly self-explanatory so I will not go into great detail explaining them. Just be sure to note how the variables we declared are used. I use Math.random() to try to ensure that the snowflakes look different. After all, no two snowflakes are created equal :P

t.k = 1+Math.random()*2;

t.wind = -1.5+Math.random()*(1.4*3);

These two lines specify more properties of our snow movie clip. I did not include them in the above group of four lines because they do not call built in movie clip object properties. Instead, they declare and instantiate the user-created variables k and wind.

The value k references the speed at which our snowflakes hit the ground, and the value for wind stores the speed at which the snowflakes oscillate horizontally. Remember, in Flash, you do not have to explicitly declare variables prior to using them.

t.onEnterFrame = mover;

In the final line of our init function, I set the t movie clip's onEnterFrame handler to the value of the mover function.

init();

What good is a function if it isn't called? At the very bottom of all of your code, I make a call to our init function.

To summarize, the init function is responsible for displaying the snowflakes on the screen and assigning properties to each of them such as their initial x and y positions, alpha, scale, vertical speed, and horizontal speed.

Mover Function
The mover function is responsible for moving the snowflakes. It is quite straightforward, and Kirupa summarized most of how it works in his earlier iteration of this tutorial: http://www.kirupa.com/developer/mx2004/snow2.htm

The main thing about the mover function you need to remember is that is called by the onEnterFrame event handler of each snow movie clip. If your frame rate is 25, the mover function is called 25 times each second. The mover function uses the this variable to reference the properties of that particular snowflake.

If you have any questions, feel free to post them on the kirupaForums.

Sam Kellett Cannedlaughter

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