Levitated | Seeds Animation Component | the Hidden Power of Flash MX Components, a Sybex publication

The Seeds component creates an arrangement of movie clips in a spiral radiating pattern, a form often seen in nature. The geometric pattern is constructued with a well known, yet not entirely understood, rotational technique. Simply put, each new graphic object is placed adjacent to the last at precisely 137.5 degrees. The resulting formation consists of several nested spirals, their components enumerating the sequence of the Fibonacci series (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, ... ).

The Seeds Component also allows the setting of color, internal and external radii, seed size, and a special 'breathing' behavior.

To use the Seeds component (it must first be installed), drag an instance of it from the Components Panel in Flash MX to the stage. Change the component's properties by first selecting it, then adjusting the settings through the custom user interface.

The following are all the properties of the Seeds component:

Outer Radius, Inner Radius
The outside and inside radii of the seed arrangement. All seeds will be placed between the outer and inner radii.

Outside Seed Scale, Inside Seed Scale
These set the scale of the seeds at the outside and inside of the arrangement. Individual seeds are exponentially scaled within a range of sizes defined at both the outside and inside of the arrangement.

Color Mixing Chaos
This percentage determines to what extent the colors in the Color Points array will be mixed when applied to the seeds.

Breathing Intensity
This value controls the depth of breaths each seed takes. Larger values produce more exaggerated breaths. A value of 0 produces seeds that do not breathe at all.

Breathing Variation
This percentage is used to mix up the times that seeds take their breaths. A value of 0 creates a seed arrangement with seeds that breathe simultaneously, while higher values create a seed arrangement with seeds that breathe further and further out of sync.

Show Build Process
This Boolean value determines if the construction of the seed arrangement is shown as it happens or after it has completed. If this value is set to True, the seeds are placed one at a time, starting from the outside edge. If it is set to False, the seed arrangement is instantaneously constructed and shown all at once.

The Hidden Power of Flash MX Components , paperback
372 pages | 1st edition (forthcoming) | Sybex | ISBN: x