Flash GUI Component

Behold the power of flashy flash

Version history
Version 1.5 - 2005-09-05
- commented out the gameswf::clear() to get rid of exit crash bug
- updated with CVS from 5th of September 2005
- added anti alias switch

Version 1.4 - 2005-04-23
- resizing the component now reinitializes the movie to keep it from going blank
- added gotoFrame method that moves to the numbered frame
- added gotoNamedFrame method that moves to the named frame
- added callMethod method to call functionality inside flash movies
- reorganized files, so its easier to merge gameswf and base files
- Updated GameSWF files with CVS version of GameSWF from 23rd April 2005

Version 1.3 - 2005-03-02
- Fixed bug with mouse press being handled wrongly, resulting in having to double click on buttons
- Updated GameSWF files with CVS version of GameSWF from 2nd March 2005

Version 1.2 - 2005-02-08
- Fix to the command callback. Should work now
- Added stopMovie command
- Added restartMovie command
- Added stubbed out sound support
- Added setting/getting flash variables
- Fixed bug with mouse coordinates when rescaling the gui

Version 1.1 - 2004-02-05
- Little restructuring of file to be more readable
- Implemented mErrorDisplayed variable, so errors are only shown once instead of spamming the console
- Extended the loadMovie() method to take optional looping and alpha values to save some typing
- Implemented sending keyboard input to the flash movie

Version 1.0 - 2004-02-04
- First public release

What is this?
This is a GUI component that allows you to display SWF flash movies. It is based on GameSWF.

GameSWF is a public domain implementation of the SWF format, and can (and has been) used in commercial products without royalty payments. Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, so check up yourself.

The point of using flash for things like menus, text renderers or movies is, that it has fantastic editor support and every multimedia artist out there knows it. Its very easy to make eye candy for your games - and the text scales with resolution ;-)

It does _not_ support sound. Please use the TGE sound player for that.
It does however have callbacks for action script, so you can hook your flash up to the engine. This is untested though.
It also sends mouse movement and click events to the flash, so that you can trigger buttons and similar inside the flash

Screenshots and movies
The screenshot shows a flash movie with almost 100% transparent background.

A movie showing that buttons and some animation routines work is here
www.codejar.com/tge_flash/flash_demo.wmv

Download
The file is too large for uploading here, so grab the zip containing the code + a few demo flash movies from
www.codejar.com/tge_flash/torque_gameswf.zip

Patching the Engine using STL_fix
GameSWF uses STL. So much, that there was need for an easier solution than recoding it all.

To the rescue is a unreleased (yet) resource from Dean Calver (thanks a lot!!!) that patches the engine to allow usage of STL together with still running the TGE memory manager.

In the zip file there is a stl_fix.h. Please copy this to your engine/core folder and add to the project.

Whenever you have some code that uses STL, include this stl_fix.h (and most likely also platform/platform.h) BEFORE the STL includes, and everything works like a charm.

But there are also changes to the engine to make this work. Please follow the steps outlined below.

Open platform/platform.h

Find this in line 396

extern void* FN_CDECL operator new(dsize_t size, const char*, const U32);
extern void* FN_CDECL operator new[](dsize_t size, const char*, const U32);
extern void  FN_CDECL operator delete(void* ptr);
extern void  FN_CDECL operator delete[](void* ptr);
#define new new(__FILE__, __LINE__)

and change to this

extern void* FN_CDECL operator new(dsize_t size);
extern void* FN_CDECL operator new[](dsize_t size);
extern void  FN_CDECL operator delete(void* ptr);
extern void  FN_CDECL operator delete[](void* ptr);
extern void dPopMemManFileLine( const char*&, U32& );
extern int dPushMemManFileLine( const char*, const U32 );
#define new dPushMemManFileLine( __FILE__, __LINE__ ) ? 0 : new

Open the file platform/platformMemory.cc

Find this in line 1080

#if !defined(TORQUE_DISABLE_MEMORY_MANAGER)

// Manage our own memory, add overloaded memory operators and functions

void* FN_CDECL operator new(dsize_t size, const char* fileName, const U32 line)
{
   return Memory::alloc(size, false, fileName, line);
}

void* FN_CDECL operator new[](dsize_t size, const char* fileName, const U32 line)
{
   return Memory::alloc(size, true, fileName, line);
}

void* FN_CDECL operator new(dsize_t size)
{
   return Memory::alloc(size, false, NULL, 0);
}

void* FN_CDECL operator new[](dsize_t size)
{
   return Memory::alloc(size, true, NULL, 0);
}

and change to this

#if !defined(TORQUE_DISABLE_MEMORY_MANAGER)

 static const int NUM_NEW_STACK_SIZE = 256;
 static struct { const char* filename; U32 line; } g_NewStackMemDebug[NUM_NEW_STACK_SIZE];
 static int g_CurStack = -1;

int dPushMemManFileLine( const char* filename, U32 line )
{
	if(g_CurStack >= NUM_NEW_STACK_SIZE )
 		return 0;
 
 	g_CurStack++;
 	g_NewStackMemDebug[g_CurStack].filename = filename;
 	g_NewStackMemDebug[g_CurStack].line = line;
 
 	return 0; // needed for the new passthrough trick

}

void dPopMemManFileLine( const char*& filename, U32& line )
{
	if( g_CurStack < 0 )
 	{
 		filename = 0;
 		line = 0;
 		return;
 	} else
 	{
 		filename = g_NewStackMemDebug[g_CurStack].filename;
 		line = g_NewStackMemDebug[g_CurStack].line;
 		g_CurStack--;
 	}
}

// Manage our own memory, add overloaded memory operators and functions

void* FN_CDECL operator new(dsize_t size)
{
	const char* fileName = 0;
 	U32 line;
 	dPopMemManFileLine( fileName, line );
     return Memory::alloc(size, false, fileName, line);
}

void* FN_CDECL operator new[](dsize_t size)
{
	const char* fileName = 0;
 	U32 line;
 	dPopMemManFileLine( fileName, line );
    return Memory::alloc(size, true, fileName, line);
}

Open platformWin32/winMemory.cc

Find this in line 41

void* FN_CDECL operator new(dsize_t, void* ptr)
{
   return (ptr);
}

and change to this

void* FN_CDECL operator new(dsize_t, void* ptr)
{
	const char* fileName = 0;
 	U32 line;
 	dPopMemManFileLine( fileName, line ); // dummy does nothing except keep the stack in order	
   return (ptr);
}

Adding GameSWF and guiFlash to the Engine
Add GameSWF folder and guiFlash.cc (from the zip) to your project somewhere in the engine/ hierachy
Recompile - easy :-)

Please note, that the code is known _not_ to compile in VC6. It is also not tested on Mac or Linux. Please contribute to this resource by getting it to run on those platforms.

How to use
Once added to your GUI, it is very easy to use this resource. The script API is below. In addition there are callback functions in the guiFlash.cc code.

guiFlash.loadMovie("[i]path to flash movie relative to exe file[/i]", [i]optional looping true|false[/i], [i]optional alpha for background[/i]);

Loads a flash movie. The path is relative to the exe file. If the flash file loads other movies, the paths they load are also relative to the exe file.

guiFlash.playMovie();

Plays the currently loaded movie

guiFlash.restartMovie();

Restarts the loaded movie

guiFlash.stopMovie();

Stops the currently playing movie

guiFlash.setBackgroundAlpha([i]alpha value between 0 and 1[/i]);

Sets the background alpha to the specified value

guiFlash.setLooping([i]true|false[/i]);

Set the flash movie to loop instead of stop after the last frame is displayed.

guiFlash.setFlashVariable([i]path to variable[/i], [i]new value[/i]);

Sets a variable in the flash movie to the specified new value

guiFlash.getFlashVariable([i]path to variable[/i]);

Returns the specified variable from the flash movie