Career Shift : from Flash websites to AIR apps

I have been developing websites since 2004, I immediately jumped into Flash when I knew about it. This plug-in let me do really amazing things when you compared it with the HTML3-4 limits...

I worked for years as Flash developer along with very few PHP jobs. But Flash was becoming stronger. It was a solid OOP language and very tested plug-in without hardly any flaws.... until Steve Jobbs told otherwise and everyone believed him, they didn't realize it was all a war between Apple and Adobe, and everybody lost. Only the apple man won his own personal fight.

With all of this in mind I tried to make a game in Flash 10. I wanted to add many graphics and effects but I couldn't get anything very complex working due the lack of GPU acceleration. So I left the game in a playable state, but it was too simple. I had to discard the idea of making complex flash games.

Meanwhile Adobe didn't know how to handle the fight with Apple. Nevertheless Adobe released the best update ever made for flash: molehill - Stage3D. It was the beginning of triple A games in Flash. But it was all obscured with the war.

I realized about this and knew I was finally able to make complex games in flash... but flash sites were starting to die, all iProducts didn't accept flash so the world had to adapt to this (instead of the other way).

I didn't see the GPU acceleration happening in mobile phones until very late 2012. By then market almost already shifted back to old HTML. I was sure that didn't like this backwards step. In fact it was a waste of time for me, I lost all interest in the web: coding with JavaScript (no OOP) is a total nightmare when you add browsers variety to the equation.
So I had no choice other than leaving the web scene and move into apps/games.

I wanted to make games, I didn't mind what language so I researched into some of them: coronaSDK, Unity3D, phoneGap. But a friend told me about CitrusEngine framework for flash Stage3D. So I started working heavily for a month or two to get a demo that looked and and was responsive in Flash at very high frame rates... I was impressed as that was exactly what I had in mind a year back...
Only then,  I decided to make a real game. I got in touch with two friends that were able to work with me: Diego Gangl (amazing artist) and Mete Burch (modern musician). I ended up leading a team making the awesome game I always wanted and playable in most Android phones:
Beekyr

I made it in adobe AIR to be able to get to android devices. It was a really good decision. In the other hand it was also difficult to make the app perform well in these low powered devices. I was used to powerful PCs but I had to work hard to optimize everything and learn some very interesting techniques to make it run smooth everywhere.

So now, in 2013, the history carries on as Indie Developer.
I hope I can manage it well and live from making good quality games!

TouchPad class for AS3 + Starling (Rev.2)

A month ago I shared a touch class that was pretty useful to play games in smart-phones but after some testing I realized that didn't work well when moving (with left thumb) + shooting (with right thumb) and pressing them alternatively.

After a bit of thinking, I have improved the class and now it will use always the left thumb to move and the right to shoot keeping the previous functionality. (But you can invert this easily, it have upgrade my class but it is still not public as I want to add more features before posting about it again!)

There is some tap functionality I need to implement, that will be in an future release: Ver.3....

Here it is, enjoy (for AIR or AS3):
(feel free to contribute to the class commenting here or in Starling Forum).



Class: TouchPad.as

package beekyr.controllers
{
    import flash.geom.Point;
    import starling.display.Quad;
    import starling.events.Touch;
    import starling.events.TouchEvent;
    import starling.events.TouchPhase;
    public class TouchPad extends Quad
    {
    /**
     * ...
     * @author Jaime Dominguez for Beekyr (2013)
     * http://www.jaimedominguez.com
     */
       
        private var _moveVector:Point = new Point();
        private var _tapVector:Point = new Point();
        private var _latestVector:TouchData = new TouchData();
        private var _sensitivity:Number;
        private var _touching:Boolean;
        private var _dualTouching:Boolean;
        private const TAP_SENSITIVITY:Number = 2;
        private var _tap:Boolean;
        private var _justTapped:Boolean;
       
       
        public function TouchPad(width:int, height:int, sensitivity:Number = 1) {
           
            super(width,height,0xff0000);
            _latestVector = new TouchData();
            _moveVector = new Point();
            _sensitivity = sensitivity;
            _touching = false;
            alpha = 0.05;
            addEventListener(TouchEvent.TOUCH , _handleTouch);
        }
       
        public function getLatestMovement():TouchData     {
            _latestVector._vX = _moveVector.x * _sensitivity;
            _latestVector._vY = _moveVector.y * _sensitivity;
            _latestVector.touching = _touching;
            _latestVector.dualTouching = _dualTouching;
            _latestVector.tap = _tap;
            resetValues();
            return _latestVector;
        }
       
        private function resetValues():void
        {
            _moveVector.x = 0 ;
            _moveVector.y = 0 ;
           
            _tap = false;
        }
       
        public function setWidth(w:Number):void {
            width = w;
        }
       
        public function setHeight(h:Number):void {
            height = h;
        }
       
        public function updateSensitivity(s:Number):void {
            _sensitivity = s;
        }
       
        private function _handleTouch(e:TouchEvent):void {
            e.stopImmediatePropagation()
            var touchArray:Vector. = e.getTouches(this);
            //var _wasDualTouch:Boolean = _dualTouching;
           
            _dualTouching = false;
            dispatchEventWith(TouchPhase.BEGAN);
            if (touchArray.length>0){
                var touch:Touch = touchArray[0];
                if (touchArray.length>1){
                    _dualTouching = true;
                   //If you want to move with the right thumb then edit the next line.
                    if (touchArray[0].getLocation(this).x > touchArray[1].getLocation(this).x) {
                        touch = touchArray[1];
                    }
                }
               
                switch (touch.phase){
                    case TouchPhase.BEGAN:
                        _justTapped = true;
                        storeThisPos(touch);
                    break;
                   
                    case TouchPhase.ENDED:
                        //checkForTap();
                        //stopMovement();
                        _tap = _justTapped;
                        _touching = false;
                    break;
                   
                    case TouchPhase.MOVED:
                        _justTapped = false;
                        getMovementVector(touch);
                    break;
                }
           
               
            }
           
        }
   
               
        private function getMovementVector(touch:Touch):void
        {
            _moveVector = touch.getMovement(this);
       
        }
       
        private function storeThisPos(touch:Touch):void
        {
            _touching = true;
            _tapVector = touch.getMovement(this);
        }
   
    }

}

Class:  TouchData.as 

package beekyr.controllers
{
    /**
     * ...
     * @author Jaime Dominguez
     */
    public class TouchData
    {
        public var _vX:Number;
        public var _vY:Number;

        public var touching:Boolean;
        public var dualTouching:Boolean;
        public var tap:Boolean;
           
        public function TouchData()
        {
           
        }
       
    }

}

Used in Beekyr for Android.

TouchPad class for AS3+Starling.

When I started developing games for Android I had to work pretty hard to invent a good controller, It has been created to meet the needs of my shooter game Beekyr. But Im sure it will work in other kinds of games.

I couldn't find anything that was good enough so I made one that works very well...

UPDATE, VER2: Allows two fingers and works better than this version. VIEW UPDATE HERE!

At the moment only allows one finger, if you want to extend this class feel free to do so!

package beekyr.controllers
{
    import flash.geom.Point;
    import starling.display.Quad;
    import starling.events.Touch;
    import starling.events.TouchEvent;
    import starling.events.TouchPhase;
    public class TouchPad extends Quad
    {
    /**
     * ...
     * @author Jaime Dominguez for Beekyr : 2013
     * http://www.jaimedominguez.com
     */
       
        private var _moveVector:Point = new Point();
        private var _latestVector:Object = new Object();
        private var _sensitivity:Number;
        private var _touching:Boolean;
       
        public function TouchPad(width:int, height:int, sensitivity:Number = 1) {
            super(width,height,0xff0000);

            _moveVector = new Point();
            _sensitivity = sensitivity;
            _touching = false;
            alpha = 0;
            addEventListener(TouchEvent.TOUCH , _handleTouch);
        }
       
        public function getLatestMovement():Object     {
            _latestVector._vX = _moveVector.x * _sensitivity;
            _latestVector._vY = _moveVector.y * _sensitivity;
            _latestVector.touching = _touching;
            _moveVector.x = 0 ;
            _moveVector.y = 0 ;
            return _latestVector;
   
        }
       
        public function setWidth(w:Number):void {
            width = w;
        }
       
        public function setHeight(h:Number):void {
            height = h;
        }
       
        public function updateSensitivity(s:Number):void {
            _sensitivity = s;
        }
       
        private function _handleTouch(e:TouchEvent):void {
            e.stopImmediatePropagation()
            var touchArray:Vector. = e.getTouches(this);
           
            if (touchArray.length>0){
           
                var touch:Touch = touchArray[0];

                    switch (touch.phase)
                    {
                        case TouchPhase.BEGAN:
                            storeThisPos(touch);
                        break;
                       
                        case TouchPhase.ENDED:
                            stopMovement();
                        break;
                       
                        case TouchPhase.MOVED:
                            getMovementVector(touch);
                        break;
                       
                    }
               
            };
           
        }
       
        private function stopMovement():void
        {
             _moveVector = new Point();
             _moveVector.x = 0;
             _moveVector.y = 0;
             _touching = false;
        }
       
        private function stopMovementVector():void {
            _moveVector = new Point(0, 0);
        }
               
        private function getMovementVector(touch:Touch):void
        {
            _moveVector = touch.getMovement(this);
        }
       
        private function storeThisPos(touch:Touch):void
        {
            _touching = true;
        }
   
    }

}

With this class initialized at start of the game. Then you need to collect the values in each loop of the game with:

_speed = _game._touchPad.getLatestMovement();

IT will return a vector of the lastest movement.

You can adjust the sensitivity too with:

public function updateSensitivity(s:Number):void {
            _sensitivity = s;
        }

 

PHP security.

I recently discovered a blog post that I had written back in 2008 but it is still relevant today So I have decided to release it now in 2013.

This was the original post:


I have been recently reading a book about security. And I thought it was good to share all this new knowledge with the rest of the world.

There may be lots of practices that I'll miss but this text intends to be tips to be considered while programming any PHP app. :


Filter all the data you manage:

Golden rule:
All data you receive on your PHP scripts is invalid until is filtered and validated.



Use SSL every time you send sensitive data. Such login details or credit card data.


Differentiate your variables between verified and unverified. Create an empty array where you can copy all clean variables. This way will be a good thing to do verify that you are using the correct valid variables:

$cleanVars = array();

//if a variable is validated successfully you copy the value into the new array:

switch ($_POST['colorEyes']){

case 'brown':
case 'blue':
case 'green':

$cleanVar['colorEyes'] = $_POST['colorEyes']

}

Once you have filtered all the data:

Use htmlentities() to escape HTML code and html_entity_decode() to decode it.

To send strings into SQL queries use: mysql_real_escape_string().

Ask for re-login some times for specially delicate movements such password reset or contact details among others.

To check if a string is alphanumeric use: ctype_alnum()

When receiving a file name link as string you don't want the hackers to be using relative or full paths, you want just file names and deal with the directories on the script. Erase all possibility of path edition on the variables using the function basename()



Include files:
Set the includes outside root directory.
They can be anywhere and make sure that only the server and only your internal user is able to access them no one else need them. Use .htacess for this matter.

Credentials such password and username for databases should be stored in a file named db.inc
Make sure that inc is treated like a php file and if u want to deny all access to INC files u can configure Apache htaccess to deny all requests to that file extension by normal users:

<Files ~ "\.inc(.php)?$">
Order allow,deny
Deny from all
Satisfy All
</Files>


Dangerous functions:

Try to avoid using the next functions:
eval , exec, shell exec, passthru, system, popen, preg_replace, proc_open, file_get_contents, readfile, file, ini_restore, symlink, fsockopen, escapeshellcmd

Then disable them on Apache with disable_functions. If some of the functions above has to be used then be very careful how you use them...


Apache security:

Have a look at the php.ini and have a look at these apache directives:

allow_url_fopen
disable_functions
display_errors
enable_dl
error_reporting
file_uploads
log_errors
magic_quotes_gpc
memory_limit
open_basedir
register_globals
safe_mode (not used anymore?)

They are all gathered in this php.net page, (you have to scroll down, it is not very well structured)...

Some Apache security.

I recently discovered a blog post that I had written back in 2008 but it is still relevant today. So I have decided to release it now in 2013.

Apache Security

I have been receiving attacks from someone using zombie computers and banning IPs on Apache.
That didn't stop the attacker as he was able to use different IPS for the same attack. So I decided to fix the problem from the root problem.

I checked apache.log and I saw that the attacker was trying to erase some internal Windows files using a PHP file he uploaded by him self using some kind of vulnerability of the XAMPP default settings.

The biggest problem was that I didn't have a password set for phpMyAdmin software so it was like a big hole in the security.

Now I know what to do:
Go to myphpadmin folder and in config.ini
find the next line and set it to authenticate using http and not automatic!

$cfg['Servers'][$i]['auth_type'] = 'http';

Another good thing for security is to disable directory listings. So when a user tries to open a folder, Apache doesn't show the files on the folder...

on .htacess add the following line:

Options -Indexes

Improving JSFL performance

I'm currently working with JSFL.

What is JSFL? JavaScript for FLash . It's a scripting language that allows to automatize some tasks interacting with Flash GUI to store or edit data.... like here: It stores the keyframe's properties of specific Movieclips.

I have made a levels editor for my game where I can edit the path of enemies too.


I made it using MovieClips where I would detect key frames and store the coordinates in that frame.

I have all Movieclips stored in the library, and the script I generated checks all objects in library to export the relevant data to JSON, but it was taking too long. How long? About 2 mins to process ~10 paths in a 6 core 3.4GHz machine. This is far too long and would make sense the need to optmize code.

I was processing many things but I isolated the problem:  the bottle neck was the keyframes detector function.

function getKeyframes (layer){
   var keyframes = [];
    for(var f in layer.frames){
      if (f==layer.frames[f].startFrame){
            keyframes.push({
            frame:layer.frames[f],
            index:f
         });
      }
   }
    return keyframes;
};

It was taking very long time per MC. I played with code and I finally improved it by changing it to:

function getKeyframes (layer){
   var keyframes = [];
   var layerFrames = layer.frames;
     for(var f in layerFrames){
      if (f==layerFrames[f].startFrame){
            keyframes.push({
           frame:layerFrames[f],
            index:f
         });
      }
   }
    
    return keyframes;
};

After this, the script takes about 2-3 seconds instead of 2 mins.

A note for the reader: I usually optimize all my code but since this JSFL script is only executed every now and then I didn't think it was necessary to optimize it.

I hope it helps to someone!

Thanks for reading!


  

Ending up with AIR + Citrus Engine [Starling+Box2D]

Today I want to talk about how I ended up using Citrus Engine.

So, I wanted to create my first game for phones, game-hubs, and maybe Facebook.  Flash is not the only thing out there and I had to look for new technologies. I don't want to get rusty....

I looked at CoronaSDK, PhoneGap, AIR and Unity3D:

Kerb guys told me Corona was good. But I wasn't happy to tray a product that costs $349/yr,,, what if I don't like it? Not sure what to do. I decided to put it on hold and look more and if nothing good comes I would try Corona.

The idea of developing anything serious with HTML and JavaScript, makes me ill. Instantly discarded.

Unity3D

I have a bunch of friends that use it, some of them like it and some don't.

I like the work flow and the GUI. I was extremely familiar with the syntax (C#) so I liked the idea of developing with Unity...

I looked at the prices... and it says:

"Unity Pro :$1,500 All the high-end features today's professional developers need."

Whoops that's a bit pricey.

If I want to develop flash + android + iOS is $1500 extra per OS (that means $6000). No thanks!

There is a free version. Yay!

But.... If I want to export to flash that will be $400. There is more, If i want to export to Android... another $400.... and same thing with iOS, (another $400). Just great.

I would end up paying $1200, so: not free!

I friend told me to have a go anyway, there were some discounts at the time...

So, I almost started with unity3D but I thought that for my first own commercial game I would like to use a technology that I am conformable with. Is hard enough to build a whole game so imagine with a new technology... I decided that I will come back to this technology, when I have some code to port. So the process will be a lot simpler.

I knew AIR has improved a lot since 2012 with stage3D. I already know how to program Flash so AIR would be like a piece of cake for me. In fact is was the same, the used language is ActionScript3. Only hard bit is to set-up the Smartphone drivers and the rest of the GoogleSDK.

I didn't have to pay extra for anything, you can even do it all for free with AIR-SDK  and FlashDevelop. Or pay a little bit and use the official Adobe's AIR/ Flash Builder

Choice was easy... I decided to have a go with this, and perhaps try Unity3D later....

So, after many many weeks I made a choice!



Someone suggested to have a look at CitrusEngine and more engines. I wanted to start developing and this was the only one I saw that used Stage3D... So I got my hands on it.

At first, I was not happy about using an framework/ engine. Usually, I develop 99% of the code I use. But turned out that was pretty good as simplifies the process of making games. Apparently CE was designed for platformers but I am making a shooter.

I found it hard to start with because the lack of documentation for CitrusEngine + [Starling/Away3D] + [Box2D/Nape/AwayPhysics] back then.

I told Aymeric (main CE developer) that I was getting stuck all the time in very basic aspects of the game design. They started to improve documentation and start-up examples.

Now,  I think CE has improved lots but still a long way to go. The Engine is constantly evolving and once you understand its mechanics, you will be able to use it to create any kind of game. I'm creating a shooter with complex backgrounds and many enemies in screen and performance is still 50FPS... the performance is good!

I know AIR performance will be improved eventually along with all the frameworks under CE. In fact, it's still very active and it has been improved several times in the 3 months I have been using it.

Have a go, try, Citrus Engine!