AS3 Sound Tutorial

Getting Started

Download all the tutorial files here and unzip it. In the 'Sonoport_tutorial1' folder, you will find the 'SonoportCollection1.mxp' file and a 'ChaseDemo' folder which contains the FLA and ActionScript file for this tutorial. Next, we will launch Adobe Flash CS4 to get started on the tutorial.

First Run

Open the ‘ChaseDemo.fla’ file. Here, there is a space-like background on the canvas. On examining the Library, you will find a Spaceship MovieClip, which is what we will be linking the Sonoport Sound Library to. Press Ctrl/Cmd + Return to test out the demo, which should look like this. Let us now examine the basic code layout.

Examine The Code

Open ‘ChaseDemo.as’ located in the ChaseDemo folder. In this file there are two functions we will be examining, onEnter() and onMove(), which control all the movement of our alien spaceship. The onMove() function calculates the mouse position whenever there is mouse movement detected, while onEnter() updates the spaceship's position, with some basic interpolation. The variables 'wSWF' and 'hSWF' are constants to specify the width and height of our Flash file.

private function onEnter(event:Event):void
{
//calculation for interpolating the ship's position
ship.x = (0.90*ship.x + 0.1*targetX)-1;
ship.y = (0.90*ship.y + 0.1*targetY)-1;
}

private function onMove(event:MouseEvent):void
{
//sets the targetX whenever the mouse moves
//this is the target which the object has to reach
targetX = event.stageX;
targetY = event.stageY;
if ( targetX < 30 )
targetX = 30;
if ( targetX > wSWF )
targetX = wSWF;
if ( targetY < 30 )
targetY = 30;
if ( targetY > hSWF-50 )
targetY = hSWF-50;
}

Let’s Start Adding Sound!

To install Sonoport Sounds, launch Adobe Extension Manager CS4 and click Install. Select SonoportCollection1.mxp and click OK. Click on Accept when prompted, this will install the Sonoport Sound Library into your system. For it to take effect, you will have to restart Adobe Flash CS4. Quit the Extension Manager and restart Flash CS4.

First Steps

Once you have restarted Flash, go to Commands located on the Flash menubar and click on ‘AddSonoportToLibraryPath’. This is a one-time process and it adds the library path of our sound models within your Flash CS4 environment. This process places the SonoportCollection1.swc in the Flash Components folder on your hard disk.

Your First Dynamic Sound

Open the ‘ChaseDemo.as’ file and import the Sonoport library. Create a new SpaceShipAmbience sound model called ‘snd’ and call play(). Run the demo by pressing Ctrl/Cmd + Return. You should now hear a “spaceship” sound, similar to this. What you will not hear is the sound changing however.

In addition to the spaceship sound, you might also hear a drip sound regularly. That’s our watermark :) To disable it, you will have to purchase our license from our store which will then give you a key. The next few steps will make the sound dynamic.

//initialising the SpaceShipAmbience soundmodel
var snd:BaseSound = new SpaceShipAmbience();
//remove the watermark
snd.setKey("Enter your key here");
//Calling the play function to play the sound
snd.play();

Panning a Sound model

Each sound model has a unique set of dynamic parameters, changeable using setParam(). Let us first change panning, which ranges from -1 to 1. Panning will be based on the x-position of our spaceship. Press Ctrl/Cmd + Return and you will get this.

// Dynamic panning
var pan:Number = (ship.x-wSWF/2) / (wSWF/2);
snd.setParam( BaseSound.PAN, pan );

Changing the Sound’s Frequency

Now that you are more familiar with dynamically changing a sound model, let us do something more exciting! To change the SpaceShipAmbience’s frequency, setParam() to change the frequency based on the spaceship’s speed. Press Ctrl/Cmd + Return to hear the sound dynamically changing. Let’s explore Sonoport Sounds further!

var dx:Number = Math.abs(targetX - ship.x);
var dy:Number = Math.abs(targetY - ship.y);
//calculating the distance that the ship has travelled
var distance:Number = Math.sqrt(dx*dx + dy*dy);
if(distance >=450 )
{
distance = 450;
}
//change frequency based on the distance moved
snd.setParam(SpaceShipAmbience.FREQUENCY, 50+distance);

Flying In Space

Our demo still needs a few finishing touches, to create a “wow” effect. First, we will change the ship's size based on it's y-position, by applying some scaling. This will give our spaceship the effect of moving further away from the screen or coming closer. The effect should be visible on testing it.

//scaling the ship based on its y-position
ship.scaleX = ship.scaleY = ship.y * 0.5 * 0.01;

Spice Up the Sound

There is much more which we can do with our sound model! Let us now change the parameters called 'Gain' and 'Harmonics', based on the ship's y-position and scaling. Call 'setParam()' once again for each of the parameters. Press Ctrl/Cmd +Return to hear the overall effect of Sonoport Sounds with the spaceship. Congratulations!

//changing the sound model's harmonics value
var harVal:Number = ship.y / 7 ;
//do check for harmonics max level
if(harVal >= 50)
{
harVal = 50;
snd.setParam( SpaceShipAmbience.HARMONICS, harVal);

Moving Further

You have successfully completed the tutorial! What’s next? Well, it’s time to get creative and have fun! The Sonoport API, located at http://docs.sonoport.com provides in- depth documentation on all the sound models in the library. Through this, you will redefine how audio is used within your Flash projects!

Sonoport - AS3 Sound Library

Adding Dynamic Sound in Flash CS4 using the Sonoport Sound Library