LiveDocs Comments - flash - 9.0 - ActionScriptLangRefV3 - fl/transitions/Tween.html

flash/9.0/ActionScriptLangRefV3/fl/transitions/Tween.html

2008-09-10T12:15:13

We experienced the Tween Freezing problem too.

We work with big projects where we animate everything through AS 3.0, sequencing lots of tweens and also using a lot of tween events listeners to change the "animation" state when those tweens complete. When this problem ocurrs, the animation just "stops" becouse everything depends on the tween finish.

After find some readings ( including the comments posted here ) we decided to develop a Tween Factory to keep every tween from our project referenced in the memory. Now, insted of calling new Tween(...) we use TweenFactory.createTween(), and this Factory manages all the "garbage collection" problem about tweens. In some points of the code, it's necessary to clear the Factory cache.

I hope this post can help someone else!

Bye.

flash/9.0/ActionScriptLangRefV3/fl/transitions/Tween.html

morladron — 2008-09-08T07:00:07

@ workingGal:

I had exactly the same problem last week and it drove me to distraction. To make alpha tweens work with text, you need to embed the font in your movie. This makes flash handle your text as a bitmap so it can apply the tween.

This: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flash/quickstart/embedding_fonts/ covers embedding fonts.

HTH

flash/9.0/ActionScriptLangRefV3/fl/transitions/Tween.html

workingGal — 2008-08-27T08:25:00

I need some help with something so simple I can't believe I'm not figuring it out. But I'm new to ActionScript3...so who knows.

I want to fade text in and out so that transitions are nicer. My Tween is not working on myTextBox, which is a label. However very similarly I have a tween for an UILoader, myUILoader1.

Here's the offending code

textFade = new Tween(myTextBox, "alpha",None.easeNone,1,0,5,true); //fades out

similarily
textFade = new Tween(myTextBox,"alpha",None.easeNone,0,1,5,true);
//fade in

This code is working
fade2 = new Tween(myUILoader1, "alpha",None.easeNone,1,0,5,true);

What's going on?

flash/9.0/ActionScriptLangRefV3/fl/transitions/Tween.html

Doug Wiley — 2008-08-01T15:24:34

I had a similar problem, and using a global Tween variable probably is worse, but here's how to make it work:

PROBLEM

Tweens finish early especially when you click things too fast.

SOLUTION

In a nutshell: detect that there is an impending TweenEvent.MOTION_FINISH and remove it before starting a new tween using the same global var tw:Tween;

if (tw != null)
if (tw.hasEventListener(TweenEvent.MOTION_FINISH))
{
tw.removeEventListener(TweenEvent.MOTION_CHANGE, morphImage);
tw.removeEventListener(TweenEvent.MOTION_FINISH, endMorph);
}

tw = new Tween(paramObj, "t", Strong.easeOut, 0, 1000, tweenDur, true);

tw.addEventListener(TweenEvent.MOTION_CHANGE, morphImage);
tw.addEventListener(TweenEvent.MOTION_FINISH, endMorph);

there are event listeners for both CHANGE and FINISH but it is sufficient to detect just the FINISH one to know to remove both.

Even though doing tw=new Tween() creates an entirely new tween object, it receives the unfinished MOTION_FINISH which I did not expect. The event dispatcher is saving the reference to the previous tween object, so I'm not sure exactly why this fixes it, but it works. The event dispatcher must be checking the tw variable and not saving the reference at the time of addEventListener. Anybody know the details on this?

Doing things this way avoids having to create a pool of tween objects and managing their usage and lifetime.

flash/9.0/ActionScriptLangRefV3/fl/transitions/Tween.html

2008-07-06T18:12:17

I had a similar problem with tweens freezing when using them to fade in an externalswf loader. Declaring the variable globally solved the problem and I haven't had a frozen fade since.

flash/9.0/ActionScriptLangRefV3/fl/transitions/Tween.html

MythosVylok — 2008-04-28T09:59:07

This worked for me:

TransitionManager.start(r_mc, {type:Zoom, direction:0, duration:1, easing: Strong.easeOut});

flash/9.0/ActionScriptLangRefV3/fl/transitions/Tween.html

ryanmagnon — 2008-04-07T15:12:31

If you're still having a problem, you'll also check to make sure the object that the tween is a property of is not also being garbage collected due to scope or something else.

flash/9.0/ActionScriptLangRefV3/fl/transitions/Tween.html

OrbitalFlex — 2008-02-27T14:16:42

I just ran across the issue of tweens stopping prematurely and would like to confirm swartz1999's solution. I had initially declared them local to a method within the object. I simply moved the tween variables out to become properties of the object itself. As long as the object is in play, so are it's tweens. All tweens now execute as expected.

flash/9.0/ActionScriptLangRefV3/fl/transitions/Tween.html

2008-02-26T13:07:04

Here is my 2 cents because I couldn't find a decent explanation anywhere. Please read and add your comments!

PROBLEM
Tweens finish early because they get randomly garbage collected

SOLUTION
Some form of reference that prevents garbage collection BUT does allow garbage collection when appropriate.

(Note the last part you don't want your Flash to clog up memory after executing for a long period of time)

Some people state declaring each tween globally (sometimes doesn't work?) others have made each tween a property of some global object. This is my solution for handling many tweens...

MY SOLUTION
//Anti Garbage Collection for Tweens
var antiGC:Dictionary = new Dictionary(false);

//Function with two tweens
function zoomIn(){
var scale:Number = diagram_mc.scaleX *1.12;

var xT:Tween = new Tween(diagram_mc, "scaleX",Strong.easeOut, diagram_mc.scaleX, scale, 5);
xT.addEventListener(TweenEvent.MOTION_FINISH, tweenFinished);
antiGC[xT] = xT;

var yT:Tween = new Tween(diagram_mc, "scaleY",Strong.easeOut, diagram_mc.scaleY, scale, 5);
yT.addEventListener(TweenEvent.MOTION_FINISH, tweenFinished);
antiGC[yT] = yT;

}

//Allows Garbage Collection
function tweenFinished(e:TweenEvent){

antiGC[e.currentTarget] = null; //GC Object
delete antiGC[e.currentTarget]; //GC Key

}

EXPLANATION

-Global dictionary with strong references will not be garbage collected
-Local tweens ok (e.g. in functions)
-...because tweens are stored in the dictionary
-EventListener triggers a global function to remove all references once finished
-...removing references allows garbage collection to do what it does

Note if you want your own MOTION_FINISH listener just remember to call the tweenFinished function

I'm no Flash or ActionScript expert, but I haven't seen anything tidier that is scalable and allows appropriate garbage collection.

Enjoy

flash/9.0/ActionScriptLangRefV3/fl/transitions/Tween.html

nopaper — 2007-12-03T10:18:35

It seems that a motionStop event is being dispatched even if the Tween has
normally finished (without an explicit call to tween.stop()). I found this when i
attached a listener to motionStop which removed all the listeners and
another one to motionFinished. Even if the tween would normally finish, the
listeners would all be removed before the motionFinished event is
dispatched.

flash/9.0/ActionScriptLangRefV3/fl/transitions/Tween.html

intrinicity2 — 2007-11-05T18:31:07

As is often the case, you fire off a plea for help and then solve it within minutes of clicking submit.

Ignoring the details of the tween itself - this seemed to work fine:

this["aTween"+i] = new Tween(evt.target.loader, "alpha", Strong.easeOut, 0, 1, 2, true);
this["xTween"+i] = new Tween(evt.target.loader, "x", Regular.easeOut, evt.target.loader.x, numx*102+((stage.stageWidth-612)/2), 1.5, true);
this["yTween"+i] = new Tween(evt.target.loader, "y", Regular.easeIn, evt.target.loader.y, numy*34+((stage.stageHeight-136)/2), 1.5, true);

No tween variables defined elsewhere and no "var" in the statment... I'm actually a bit surprised that I could get away with it, AS3 being so strict on variable definition and all ...

flash/9.0/ActionScriptLangRefV3/fl/transitions/Tween.html

intrinicity2 — 2007-11-05T18:14:40

I too, am having the freezing problem and it is NOT fixed by declaring the Tween variable outside the scope of the calling function. About 20-ish iterations in to it and the tweens start failing to complete (not all, just most). A solution was suggested (by Robert Penner) to create many tween variables ), so that each iteration has its own, and store them in array.

I have struggled with this notion for a while now without success (generating dynamic variable names in AS3 is another task that's appears to have become more difficult than in its predecessor).

Could someone please post (and subsequently add to the documentation) a working example of how to generate multiple tweens rapidly, such that they complete.

Thanks

flash/9.0/ActionScriptLangRefV3/fl/transitions/Tween.html

2007-11-01T09:14:24

So the only way around this problem is to set up (in my case) 300 tween vars, and then refer to each one in my loops? This is such a step backwards from 2.0.... I will be shopping for another Tween solution, because this new 3.0 method is obviously not built for handling multiple tweens easily.

flash/9.0/ActionScriptLangRefV3/fl/transitions/Tween.html

swartz1999 — 2007-10-11T17:54:00

Even if there is an event listener registered for an object, the object may be garbage collected if it is a local variable (within the scope of a function). To prevent this, declare the variable globally, as in the following:

var myTween:Tween;

function someFunction()
{
myTween = new Tween(myObject, "x", Elastic.easeOut, 0, 300, 3, true);
myTween.addEventListener(TweenEvent.MOTION_FINISH, listenerFunction);
// ...
}

flash/9.0/ActionScriptLangRefV3/fl/transitions/Tween.html

JoshuaSullivan — 2007-10-11T06:55:20

I've been banging my head against the "freezing tween" problem for a week now. Thank you for pointing out the garbage collection issue. Still, that shouldn't be happening if the tween has an event listener attached to it, should it?

flash/9.0/ActionScriptLangRefV3/fl/transitions/Tween.html

Robert Penner — 2007-09-18T15:32:57

For a dynamic number of Tween objects, create an array and store them there.

flash/9.0/ActionScriptLangRefV3/fl/transitions/Tween.html

ADI D — 2007-09-17T02:01:51

maybe You wright... so U see any idea how to start and operate dynamic number of tweens (20-100)?

flash/9.0/ActionScriptLangRefV3/fl/transitions/Tween.html

Robert Penner — 2007-08-28T14:37:46

It sounds like you are creating 20 tweens, but only using one property. Each tween needs to be stored in its own property, so it can continue to exist.

flash/9.0/ActionScriptLangRefV3/fl/transitions/Tween.html

2007-08-24T00:29:23

> djtechwriter

i have my tween variable declared in class property (which is like global prop for that class). in function i fire new tweens: tween = new Tween(...) in "for" loop about 20 times. tweens crashes also, like other pip says.

any suggestions?

flash/9.0/ActionScriptLangRefV3/fl/transitions/Tween.html

Robert Penner — 2007-08-06T14:52:50

The fl.transitions package comes with Flash CS3.

flash/9.0/ActionScriptLangRefV3/fl/transitions/Tween.html

2007-08-03T06:46:12

How can I get access to the fl.transitions package. It is not accessible by default in my Eclipse environment after having installed the flex builder plug-in.

flash/9.0/ActionScriptLangRefV3/fl/transitions/Tween.html

djtechwriter — 2007-07-05T16:29:07

If you store the Tween in a local variable (within a function), the variable may be garbage collected before the completion of the scripted motion. The Tween object needs to exist throughout the duration of the motion and should be declared in a larger scope.

flash/9.0/ActionScriptLangRefV3/fl/transitions/Tween.html

2007-07-02T21:37:46

Yeah i have this problem also.

flash/9.0/ActionScriptLangRefV3/fl/transitions/Tween.html

thegamemaker — 2007-07-02T14:37:00

agreed TweenEvent.MOTION_FINISH occasionally does not fire and it drives me nuts.

flash/9.0/ActionScriptLangRefV3/fl/transitions/Tween.html

KeenoChris — 2007-06-07T08:05:09

I have this problem also, i am running 3 tweens on a MC (x, y and rotate). Sometimes its fine; others it just stops dead on the screen (the MOTION_FINISHED does not get called)

im not really doing much else

flash/9.0/ActionScriptLangRefV3/fl/transitions/Tween.html

2007-05-05T07:14:15

Has anyone else experienced freezing with these tweens?

I figured at first they would freeze when the variable would loose scope, but now they just seem to break randomly.