You may have noticed that the original C++ version of Box2D is now up to version 2.2.1. As of version 2.2.0 there were a few additions, one of which being a b2RopeJoint. For ActionScript 3.0 users the only choice to incorporate this feature was to use the Alchemy generated Box2D port. Developers using Box2DFlashAS3 by BorisTheBrave unfortunately did not have this as the port is of version 2.1a. That is, until now.

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So far, in each tutorial, we have been calling the step function on each frame update with a fixed delta time to apply the physics. This works quite well as we have seen.

However, there is a problem with this approach. While we may be targeting a frame rate of say 60fps, there is no guarantee that it will update that frequently. A user’s computer hardware may cause it to run slower or faster than this, and subsequently, the physics simulation may appear to run either in slow motion or to appear sped up.

So if you are finding this a problem in your game how can we go about fixing this? The answer is to separate the physics update from our game loop so the physics is not dependant on how often the game loop is called. Read more

Continuing our Box2D camera tutorials, we will now look at creating a specific camera, that being the “Platform Camera”. The platform camera is similar to the follow camera, except that the camera will not always necessarily pan the world to keep the target in the centre of the screen. Instead, we will set invisible margins on the sides of the screen and only when the target crosses these boundaries will the camera pan to prevent the target from disappearing off the screen. Read more

In the last tutorial we started work on our BasicCamera for Box2D, where we added functions such as lookAt and panning so we could translate our camera position, as well as helper functions to convert from world to raster coordinates and vice versa.

We will again be revisiting this class. This time, so that we can add zooming capabilities. Read more

In the next chapter of the Box2D tutorial series, we will explore creating and utilizing a camera. Unlike the previous tutorials, these will be more focused on Flash, as the camera is, for the most part, separate to the Box2D engine.

For this particular tutorial, we will be setting up a basic camera with the ability to pan and centre on any point in the Box2D world. Read more