Build a Stage3D Shoot-’Em-Up: Sprite Test

In this tutorial series (part free, part Premium) we’ll create a high-performance 2D shoot-em-up using the new hardware-accelerated Stage3D rendering engine. We will be taking advantage of several hardcore optimization techniques to achieve great 2D sprite rendering performance. In this part, we’ll build a high-performance demo that draws hundreds of moving sprites on-screen at once.

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Final Result Preview

Let’s take a look at the final result we will be working towards: a high-performance 2D sprite demo that uses Stage3D with optimizations that include a spritesheet and object pooling.

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Introduction: Flash 11 Stage3D

If you’re hoping to take your Flash games to the next level and are looking for loads of eye-candy and amazing framerate, Stage3D is going to be your new best friend.
The incredible speed of the new Flash 11 hardware accelerated Stage3D API is just begging to be used for 2D games. Instead of using old-fashioned Flash sprites on the DisplayList or last-gen blitting techniques as popularized by engines such as FlashPunk and Flixel, the new breed of 2D games uses the power of your video card’s GPU to blaze through rendering tasks at up to 1000x the speed of anything Flash 10 could manage.
Although it has 3D in its name, this new API is also great for 2D games. We can render simple geometry in the form of 2D squares (called quads) and draw them on a flat plane. This will enable us to render tons of sprites on screen at a silky-smooth 60fps.
We’ll make a side-scrolling shooter inspired by retro arcade titles such as R-Type or Gradius in ActionScript using Flash 11′s Stage3D API. It isn’t half as hard as some people say it is, and you won’t need to learn assembly language AGAL opcodes.
In this 6-part tutorial series, we are going to program a simple 2D shoot-’em-up that delivers mind-blowing rendering performance. We are going to build it using pure AS3, compiled in FlashDevelop (read more about it here). FlashDevelop is great because it is 100% freeware – no need to buy any expensive tools to get the best AS3 IDE around.

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Step 1: Create a New Project

If you don’t already have it, be sure to download and install FlashDevelop. Once you’re all set up (and you’ve allowed it to install the latest version of the Flex compiler automatically), fire it up and start a new “AS3 Project.” [...]

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