Where can I preview Bezier curves [SOLVED]

[X10 0 Likes (Newbie)]

I've started to use Bezier curves in a few flash animations via the Bezier and BezierThrough plugins (thanks Jack!), but I'm finding it difficult to create points and see what I'm working with.

The Plugin Explorer is useful to a degree, but it only goes to a maximum of ~350 on the x axis and ~400 on the y axis, and it also starts at a fixed point, so it's no good to generate sample code for when the stage is, for example, 600 x 600.

 

I've searched the Interwebs for a useful tool to do this, but I can't seem to find anything that allows you to preview a curve that gives you bezier x,y co-ordinates.

So I'm wondering if anyone has a solution or example they have come across?

 

Many thanks!

[Zync 0 Likes (Newbie)]

Hey ya X10,

 

A technique I use when I want to setup an animation with bezier curves but don't want to keep retyping numbers all the time is to setup a few 'dummy' movieclips on the stage.

You can name them p1, p2, p3, p4 etc for however many you need.

Then reference the x and y coordinates of each Movieclip as points in your bezier curve.

That way you can simply move the movieclips around the stage and it will allow you to dramatically speed up your preview when you are testing your movie without retyping x and y values.

 

Hope that helps.

[X10 0 Likes (Newbie)]

Hi Zync, thanks for that. It's a pretty good halfway house and would speed up co-ordinate typing time.

 

The problem really lies with not being able to see the path, which is where a lot of the time is spent with tweaking as slight changes in co-ordinates can drastically change parts of the path. Is there any way to get the path to be drawn, in much the same way as in Jack's plugin explorer?

 

X10

[Carl 11,109 Likes (Superhero)]

this will draw the curve

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1495&p=5418&hilit=bezier+curve+plugin+explorer#p13136

 

perhaps you could use zync's idea and make the dummy clips draggable and run a routine that updates the path when the points move.

[X10 0 Likes (Newbie)]

Hey Carl,

Thanks for the pointer to the post, I think this in conjunction with Zync's idea will put me on the right track, appreciate the help both.

X10

[Carl 11,109 Likes (Superhero)]

I messed around with this a few days ago VERY quickly:

 

view: http://snorkl.tv/dev/bezierDemo/

 

the code is really rough, a real hack-job from that other post.

 

it should serve your purposes as a starting point or just something to play with.

 

you can get the fla here:

 

http://snorkl.tv/dev/bezierDemo/bezierDemo.zip

 

it isn't nearly as refined as the plugin explorer, but you can make the stage as big as you want.

 

to add remove points, you will need to

1:manually add / remove "point" movie clips (the boxes)

2:update this array:

 

var point_mcs:Array = [mc1, mc2, mc3, mc4, mc5];

[X10 0 Likes (Newbie)]

HI Carl,

Thank you so much for this! Your dedication to helping expand people's knowledge on these forums is greatly appreciated.

 

I'm going over your code as I type!

 

Thank you again.

 

X10

[niklasinla 1 Likes (Newbie)]

Check the PluginExplorer-v11.swf in the download. It's in the AS3 in a folder called demo_swfs. Some goodies in there to generate code.

 

NIklas

[Amnesicat 6 Likes (Newbie)]

Hi Carl,

 

The bezier demo you created above is really quite a handy visualization tool. Do you happen to have a v12 fla copy? Or is it possible to get a hold of the fla for the v12 plugin explorer so I can expand the dimensions to suit my needs?, as the type, curviness and timeResolution values would be extremely useful as well.

 

I'd appreciate any help. Keep up the great work.

 

Thanks,
Alan
 

[Carl 11,109 Likes (Superhero)]

attached is the bezier line-drawing demo converted to v12.

bezierDemo_v12.zip

[Amnesicat 6 Likes (Newbie)]

Thanks a million, Carl. This will save me a lot of time and guess work