The angle value represents the angle of the theoretical light source falling on the object and determines the placement of the effect relative to the object. If the distance property is set to 0, the effect is not offset from the object and, therefore, the angle property has no effect.

For most applications, a quality value of low, medium, or high is sufficient. Although you can use additional numeric values up to 15 to achieve different effects, higher values are rendered more slowly. Instead of increasing the value of quality, you can often get a similar effect, and with faster rendering, by simply increasing the values of the blurX and blurY properties.

You can use the following BitmapFilterQuality constants to specify values of the quality property:

• BitmapFilterQuality.LOW
• BitmapFilterQuality.MEDIUM
• BitmapFilterQuality.HIGH

• BitmapFilterType.INNER
• BitmapFilterType.OUTER
• BitmapFilterType.FULL

public function BevelFilter(distance:Number = 4.0, angle:Number = 45, highlightColor:uint = 0xFFFFFF, highlightAlpha:Number = 1.0, shadowColor:uint = 0x000000, shadowAlpha:Number = 1.0, blurX:Number = 4.0, blurY:Number = 4.0, strength:Number = 1, quality:int = 1, type:String = "inner", knockout:Boolean = false)

public override function clone():BitmapFilter

1. Import the required classes.
2. Declare three properties used in the draw() function, which draws the object to which the bevel filter is applied.
3. Create the BevelFilterExample constructor function, which does the following:
• Calls the draw() function, which is declared later.
• Declares a variable filter as a BitmapFilter object and assigns it to the return of a call to getBitmapFilter().
• Create a new Array object myFilters and add filter to the array. Assign myFilters to the filters property of BevelFilterExample object. This applies all filters found in myFilters, which in this case is only filter.
4. Create the getBitmapFilter function to create and set properties for the filter.
5. Create the draw() function. This function uses methods of the Graphics class, accessed through the graphics property of the Sprite class, to draw the square.

package {
    import flash.display.Sprite;
    import flash.filters.BevelFilter;
    import flash.filters.BitmapFilter;
    import flash.filters.BitmapFilterType;
    import flash.filters.BitmapFilterQuality;

    public class BevelFilterExample extends Sprite {
        private var bgColor:uint = 0xFFCC00;
        private var size:uint      = 80;
        private var offset:uint  = 50;

        public function BevelFilterExample() {
            draw();
            var filter:BitmapFilter = getBitmapFilter();
            var myFilters:Array = new Array();
            myFilters.push(filter);
            filters = myFilters;
        }

        private function getBitmapFilter():BitmapFilter {
            var distance:Number      = 5;
            var angleInDegrees:Number = 45;
            var highlightColor:Number = 0xFFFF00;
            var highlightAlpha:Number = .8;
            var shadowColor:Number       = 0x0000FF;
            var shadowAlpha:Number      = .8;
            var blurX:Number      = 5;
            var blurY:Number      = 5;
            var strength:Number      = 5;
            var quality:Number      = BitmapFilterQuality.HIGH;
            var type:String          = BitmapFilterType.INNER;
            var knockout:Boolean      = false;

            return new BevelFilter(distance,
                                   angleInDegrees,
                                   highlightColor,
                                   highlightAlpha,
                                   shadowColor,
                   shadowAlpha,
                                   blurX,
                   blurY,
                                   strength,
                   quality,
                                   type,
                                   knockout);
        }

        private function draw():void {
            graphics.beginFill(bgColor);
            graphics.drawRect(offset, offset, size, size);
            graphics.endFill();
        }
    }
}