ARFlashObject

From Blue Mars Developer Guidebook

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Overview

The ARFlashObject displays Flash from a specified URL (or a local file) and can stream video from within a city. See Flash in Blue Mars for a comparison with other Flash technologies in Blue Mars.

The ARFlashObject entity is found in the Rollupbar's Entity Browser under ActiveX / AR, in the CityEditor. Place it in a level by dragging the entity into the Viewport.

sizing the entity

to change the size of the square screen, select the entity, click Select and Scale (blue/gray square icon at the top of the Viewport) and uniformly Scale by entering a number in X, Y or Z (with lock on) at the bottom of the Perspective window. World coordinates mode (in the Ref Coords System drop-down menu at the top of the Viewport) will display the scaled value.

Properties

AutoPlay

determines whether the movie will automatically play upon spawning in the level. If set to false, the movie can later be triggered to play in the Flow Graph as described below.

Material

The default material is used in most cases. The diffuse texture map is overridden by the content of the entity’s url; other material changes will take effect. To see changes made to the properties of the entity’s material, use the Reload Script button in the RollupBar.

url

specifies the url address of the movie to be played. It is also possible to specify a local .swf in the url Property, by entering a path beginning with Game/...

resolution

specifies the resolution of the movie. To see a changed value take effect in the City Editor, select the ARFlashObject, scroll down in the RollupBar and click Reload Script so the new resolution will be used upon entering Preview Mode.

Flow Graph

Play and Stop functions are exposed in the Flow Graph. One way to bring up the Flow Graph is to select the ARFlashObject entity, scroll down in the RollupBar and click Create in the Flow Graph section (enter a group name, or just hit OK). In the Flow Graph, right-click and select Add Graph Default Entity; trigger play/stop by connecting other entities (e.g., using ARItem output pictured below, ARAvatarTrigger Enter/Leave events, etc.)

play

starts playing the newly supplied string url address. Set this string by using the String:SetString node pictured below.

stop

displays a white screen