Daniel Cohen talks shop
Announcing Box2D Flex framework
Prefix
In a previous post demonstrating box2d integration with flex I made a promise (mainly to myself) to share the demo code. When I started to review with sharing in mind it looked cumbersome and overly verbose. So I started cranking on it fixing and straightening the code & architecture and step by step I realized that I’m creating a small Integration layer rather then a POC.
Announcing Box2DFlex
Box2DFlex framework allows you easely integrate box2d into flex framework using mxml. The framewok helps easy integration with flex and exposes box2d world for advanced manipulation.
- extends SkinnableContainer uses flex component lifecycle model
- uses regular MXML and AS flex components
- supports complex shaped flex components (convex and concave) conversion to b2d shapes.
- allows multiple worlds side by side
Getting Started
In order to play with Box2dFlex you will need flash builder 4 and Box2DFlex source which is hosted on GitHub.
and in four simple steps you should
- download the source code
- inport the Box2DFlex and Demos projects into flash builder 4
- compile
- Play with the eamples in Box2Demos project
Building Your Own b2d World
- download the framework
- create a new project
- add refrence to <Box2DFlex dir>/Box2dFlexLib/bin/Box2DFlexLib.swc
- in your MXML add a new SkinnablePhysicsContainer
- set the container’s yGravity property to 10 and autoStartPhysicsEngine to true (yGravity=”10 autoStartPhysicsEngine=”true”)
- if you want your world to contains walls use setBoundries=”true” attribute
- place a button inside SkinnablePhysicsContainer and set it’s properties (width / height / label)
- run the project
Wow! This is great! I’ve been trying like crazy to find the best way to integrate these actionscript physics engines into Flex. All of my attempts have left much to be desired and until now I was thinking I was the only one trying to get something like this working. (especially given the lack of work being done on the other projects like APE, FOAM, Fisix, etc). Nice to know others are still interesting in getting physics in Flex!