OpenFL 6.0 has just been released. OpenFL is a Haxe based game/media framework that provides a Flash like API. We did a brief tutorial series here on GameFromScratch when OpenFL was known as NME if you are interested in learning more. The 6.0 release brings several new features such as beta support for TileArrays, beta custom shader support, improved blending and colorTransform support, better Stage3D support and more (enabling Away3D and Starling compatibility), DragonBones support and more.
Details from the release blog:
New Features
(Beta) TileArray
We have developed an easy-to-use
DisplayObjectcalledTilemapwhich makes it possible to use batch hardware rendering.Tilemapis similar to a mixture ofBitmapand the display list, but we have received multiple requests to support an alternative API that is less structured.This release includes the (beta) API for
TileArray, for writing tile data more directly:var data = tilemap.getTiles (); data.length = 2; data.position = 0; data.setMatrix (1, 0, 0, 1, 100, 100); data.position = 1; data.setMatrix (1, 0, 0, 1, 200, 200); data.alpha = 0.5; tilemap.setTiles (data);This API has enabled our team to more easily migrate legacy
drawTilesrendering code to the current version of OpenFL.We welcome your feedback, and hope to continue to improve
Tilemap(Beta) Custom Shader Support
OpenFL 4 added initial support for custom shaders, using the filter API.
However, in time we have found that our use of OpenGL framebuffers was too expensive to make shader filters practical for every-day production. We are enabling an alternative approach in OpenFL 6, where
Bitmap,TextField,TilemapandVideoobjects can have a custom shader set directly:var customShader = new CustomShader (); bitmap.shader = customShader;We have also enabled support for custom OpenGL shaders for individual tiles in
TilemapImproved blendMode and colorTransform support
We have improved support for
blendModethroughout our renderer, and have added support for hardware-acceleratedcolorTransformwhen possible. In other cases, we enabledcacheAsBitmapin order to preserve performance. We also added (beta) support forcolorTransforminTilemap, but it is supported only on hardware since it is very expensive on other render types.Stage3D Libraries
Although OpenFL has enjoyed stable Stage3D support for some time, we have continued to focus on creating faithful renditions of familiar Stage3D libraries for OpenFL.
Away3D
Away3D is an open source platform for developing interactive 3D graphics for video games and applications.
The latest development version of Away3D is now compatible with OpenFL, and should continue to improve in quality with time: https://github.com/openfl/away3d
Starling
Starling is the “Cross-Platform Game Engine”, a popular Stage3D framework. OpenFL is hardware-accelerated without the use of Starling, but it still provides a popular alternative to the traditional Flash API.
We currently have 1.8 release of Starling and the Starling particle framework working reliably, and are still working on porting the Starling 2.x codebase for use with OpenFL: https://github.com/openfl/starling
DragonBones
DragonBones is a skeletal animation editor, as an alternative to using SWF assets with OpenFL directly (which is also supported).
We have ported the most recent ActionScript runtime for DragonBones over for use with OpenFL. There is still room to create a runtime using OpenFL
Tilemap, but we are still happy to provide a working version of the DragonBones runtime for use with projects: https://github.com/openfl/dragonbonesOther Improvements
We are continuing to invest in SWF asset support. You can use SWF content from Flash Professional or Adobe Animate directly in OpenFL, with layers, animation and object IDs preserved.
In time, we expect
MovieClipanimation to continue to perform better, as well as accuracy. OpenFL 6 includes improved support forblendMode,colorTransformand frame script when working with SWF source data.As always, we are continuing to improve and polish a large variety of minor behaviors and features.