My entry to Bit-101s 25 Lines competition
Wednesday, November 19th, 2008I participated in the original one back at the were-here forums, and couldn't resist giving it a shot this time around as well 
If you don't know, this is what I'm talking about.
In the spirit of my upcoming FITC Talk, I naturally went for a text effect! Click the image to see it in action :
I started with a good 50 lines of code... I'm just getting my head around the tricks involved with using Graphics.drawTriangles(). Took a bit of effort to a) get it to work, b) get it down to 25 lines. Basically the code:
- Creates a textfield
- Grabs a bitmapData of it, this is the "material"
- Creates a cylinder with a loop (vertices, triangles and uv data)
- In an enterframe it:
- Rotates a matrix in y and z
- Transforms that rotation to the "mesh" and it to the perspective projection
- Draws the triangles using the material as a bitmap fill
At the end, I got the line count down to the point where I could even add some glow and z rotation 
The screenshot looks a bit "pixely", and it is, because the font is not embedded.
The 25lines website proclaims : "You probably don't want to share your code prematurely, but that's up to you", well.... Last time I was probably 60th out of 61 entries so I doubt this is gonna kill my chances 
I'll never match up to the math gurus out there, but hey, mine has a joke in it!
The code:
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// 3 free lines! Alter the parameters of the following lines or remove them.
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// Do not substitute other code for the three lines in this section
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[SWF(width=800, height=380, backgroundColor=0x000044, frameRate=31)]
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stage.align = StageAlign.TOP_LEFT;
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stage.scaleMode = StageScaleMode.NO_SCALE;
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// 25 lines begins here!
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var tf:TextField=new TextField();
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tf.defaultTextFormat=new TextFormat("Helvetica",120,0xFFFFFF,true);//Hopefully all machines have Helvetica...
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tf.text="Circular Logic Works Because ";
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tf.autoSize=TextFieldAutoSize.LEFT;
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tf.filters=[new GlowFilter(0x2222BB,.7,12,12,4,3)]
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var material:BitmapData=new BitmapData(tf.width+10,tf.height+10,false,0x000044);
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material.draw(tf,null,null,null,null,true);
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var vertices:Vector.<Number>=new Vector.<Number>(),t_vertices:Vector.<Number>=new Vector.<Number>(),points:Vector.<Number>=new Vector.<Number>(),triangles:Vector.<int>=new Vector.<int>(),uv:Vector.<Number>=new Vector.<Number>(),angle:Number=0,radius:Number=material.width/Math.PI/2,slices:uint=20,x_rot:Number=0,x_rot_speed:Number=1,y_rot:Number=-150,z_rot:Number=0,z_rot_dir:Number=-.1;
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for(var i:int=0;i<=slices;i++){
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vertices.push(radius*Math.cos(angle*(Math.PI/180)),0,radius*Math.sin(angle*(Math.PI/180)),radius*Math.cos(angle*(Math.PI/180)),material.height,radius*Math.sin(angle*(Math.PI/180)));
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uv.push(1-angle/360,0,0,1-angle/360,1,0);
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angle+=(360/slices);
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if(i>1)triangles.push(i*2-4, i*2-2, i*2-3,i*2-3, i*2-2, i*2-1);
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}
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triangles.push(i*2-4, i*2-2, i*2-3,i*2-3, i*2-2, i*2-1);
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addEventListener("enterFrame",function handleEnterFrame(e:Event=null) {
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var transform_matrix:Matrix3D=new Matrix3D();
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transform_matrix.prependTranslation(stage.stageWidth/2,stage.stageHeight/2-material.height/2,0);//maybe better to use a container?
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transform_matrix.prependRotation(y_rot--, Vector3D.Y_AXIS);
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transform_matrix.prependRotation((z_rot+=z_rot_dir), Vector3D.Z_AXIS);
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if(z_rot>20 || z_rot<-20)z_rot_dir*=-1;
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transform_matrix.transformVectors(vertices, t_vertices);
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Utils3D.projectVectors(new Matrix3D(), t_vertices, points, uv);
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graphics.clear();
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graphics.beginBitmapFill(material);
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graphics.drawTriangles(points, triangles, uv, TriangleCulling.POSITIVE);
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});
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// 25 lines ends here!
The source in an easier "cut and paste" format : circular_logic.txt
Again, the html page with the compiled swf in it : 25Lines.html
anyway, fingers crossed! Looking forwards to seeing the other entries
). Seriously, everything works more or less exactly as I wanted / expected, and is a real pleasure to code. Reminds me of of the enthusiasm when I was learning to program with flash5 and 6. 
