Starling 2.2 was just released today. Several new features were added including inverted masks, stronger blurs, binding scale9 grids to texture, async bitmap upload and more. Starling is an open source game framework for ActionScript (Flash) offering an easy 2D api with graphics acceleration. The Starling framework has been used to power several popular games including titles in the Angry Birds series.
Details from the changelogs:
- added ‘DisplayObject.isMaskInverted’ (thanks to Ehsan Marufi)
- added support for stronger blurs with fewer passes to BlurFilter
- added ‘Image.bindScale9GridToTexture’ for automated scale9Grid setup (thanks to Kevin Foley)
- added ‘Image.bindPivotPointToTexture’ for automated pivot point setup
- added ‘Image.automateSetupForTexture’ for automated setup of all the rest 😉
- added workaround for memory issue on iOS concerning BatchPools
- added ‘padding’ to TextField class → allowing injection of ‘TextOptions’ into TextField
- added convenience methods and properties to ‘Padding’ class
- added ‘Painter.setupContextDefaults’ and using it in ‘DisplayObject.drawToBitmapData’
- added support for asynchronous bitmap texture uploads (via ‘Texture.asyncBitmapUploadEnabled’)
- added support for specifying the alpha value with which the context is cleared each frame
- added support for overriding ‘updateTransformationMatrix’ in display objects
- added methods for quickly checking the current platform in SystemUtil (thanks to Kevin Foley)
- added ‘numSides’ parameter in ‘Polygon.createEllipse’ and ‘createCircle’ (thanks to Ehsan Marufi)
- added ‘StringUtil.parseBoolean’ and using it for XML parsing in TextureAtlas
- added ‘TextureAtlas.addSubTexture’ (thanks to Ehsan Marufi)
- added ‘RectangleUtil.extendToWholePixels’ and using it to optimize area processed by fragment filter
- added ‘DisplayObject.drawToBitmapData’ method
- added link to new manual to README
- added iPad support and auto-orientation to scaffold project
- added ‘Field Agent’ utility for simple distance field creation
- added depth test settings to RenderState (thanks to Alexander Mokretsov)
- added ‘styleSheet’ property to TextField
- added color component setter functions to ‘Color’ class (thanks to Alexander Mokretsov)
- added ‘letterSpacing’ property to ‘TextFormat’ class (thanks to pbalmasov)
- added ‘antiAliasing’ property to FragmentFilter
- changed ‘TextField.setRequiresRecomposition’ to be public
- changed that Travis build now always uses the latest AIR SDK
- changed that Starling now stops with an error if AIR/Flash runtime version is not supported
- changed ‘scaffold_mobile’ project to be better suited for current mobile device
- changed that ‘copyFrom’ is called before setting the new style in MeshBatch (thanks to Robert Carone)
- changed IntelliJ IDEA resource utility so it’s easier to use
- changed that ‘depthAndStencil’ warning is printed out on first use of masks
- optimized MiniBitmapFont: replaced XML with compressed ByteArray to save space
- optimized masking: now using depth test to prevent masks from being drawn (thanks to Ehsan Marufi)
- optimized transformation matrix workflow
- optimized ‘removeEventListener’ by avoiding duplicate vector creation (thanks to Josh Tynjala)
- optimized pushing and popping of state stack in DisplayObjectContainer (thanks to vroad)
- fixed that objects were not notified if HOVER phase ended due to display list changes
- fixed possible null reference error in Sprite3D instances
- fixed that back buffer could be left in unknown state after disabling ‘Starling.shareContext’
- fixed that ‘alignPivot’ did not force transformation matrix update on Sprite3D
- fixed that internal ‘dispose’ was called twice on empty TextField (thanks to 5k0rp)
- fixed that render context was disposed before the stage (thanks to neuronix)
- fixed that changing camera settings did not force redraw
- fixed ‘drawToBitmapData’ when called on the stage with negative viewPort.x/y
- fixed that DisplacementMapFilter did not clamp edge pixels
- fixed that ‘copy_resources.rb’ script could not handle multiple configurations
- fixed that helper matrix was not initialized in FragmentFilter (thanks to bwhiting)
- fixed iPad logic of mobile scaffold
- fixed that ‘Juggler.removeDelayedCalls’ didn’t remove the id of the delayed call
- fixed that disposing video texture did not always cut connections to camera and net stream
- fixed some class references in the API documentation
- fixed that ‘setRequiresRedraw’ was not called after resizing native window (thanks to Josh Tynjala)
- fixed that masking a filtered object with a clipRect did not work
- fixed exception on rendering of mesh occurring when its style was changed
- fixed that back buffer sizes below 32×32 lead to an exception (now forcing this minimal size)
- fixed null pointer exception in Pool.getPoint3D
You can read a great deal more about this release here. Starling is available for download here.