The last example in this series discussed getting the anchor to move in a way that our ball would paint more interesting and we worked on restricting the colors to a certain RGB range. This one is a very simple change, but has a pretty significant effect. We’re just editing the cap style of our lines in lineStyle. The default value we’ve been using so far is ROUND, but now if we test NONE the lines drawn will have no ends and basically be rectangles (since the width is so wide). This gets interesting especially when the path curves and we can see all the angles and corners exposed by the rectangles and it makes me think of a wooden snake toy (Wooden Wiggle Snake
). I started playing around with the opacity or alpha property of the lines as well so that the flat ended lines would show better. What else would you toy with in here?
06 lineStyle, play here
[kml_flashembed publishmethod=”dynamic” fversion=”9.0.0″ replaceId=”gen-art-6″ movie=”https://circlecube.com/circlecube/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2011/02/gen-art-06-linestyle.swf” width=”550″ height=”550″ targetclass=”flashmovie”]
Please visit the blog article to view this interactive flash content. Flash plug-in required: 
[/kml_flashembed]
actionscript source code
[cc lang=”actionscript”]
var ball:Sprite = new Sprite();
ball.graphics.beginFill(0x000000, 1);
ball.graphics.drawCircle(0, 0, 10);
ball.graphics.endFill();
addChild(ball);
var anchor:Sprite = new Sprite();
anchor.graphics.beginFill(0x333333, .6);
anchor.graphics.drawCircle(0, 0, 12);
anchor.graphics.endFill();
addChild(anchor);
var div:Number = .1;
var line_max_width:Number = 64;
var line_min_width:Number = 2;
var line_width:Number = randomRange(line_min_width, line_max_width);
var line_width_velocity:Number = 0;
var dampen:Number = 0.95;
var ballax:Number = 0;
var ballay:Number = 0;
var oldx:Number = ball.x;
var oldy:Number = ball.y;
var anchorvx:Number = 0;
var anchorvy:Number = 0;
anchor.x = stage.stageWidth/2;
anchor.y = stage.stageHeight/2;
var gradientBoxMatrix:Matrix = new Matrix();
var colors:Object = new Object();
colors.r = 255;
colors.g = 255;
colors.b = 255;
colors.rv = 0;
colors.gv = 0;
colors.bv = 0;
colors.rmin = 0;
colors.rmax = 150;
colors.gmin = 100;
colors.gmax = 200;
colors.bmin = 200;
colors.bmax = 250;
colors.rate_of_change = 12;
var color_first:Number = 0xFFFFFF;
var color_second:Number = rgb2hex(colors.r, colors.g, colors.b);
function loop () {
oldx = ball.x;
oldy = ball.y;
anchorvx += randomRangeAxis(10);
anchorvy += randomRangeAxis(10);
anchor.x += anchorvx;
anchor.y += anchorvy;
anchorvx *= dampen;
anchorvy *= dampen;
if(anchor.x > stage.stageWidth) {
anchor.x = 0 – anchor.width;
}
else if(anchor.x < 0 - anchor.width) {
anchor.x = stage.stageWidth;
}
if(anchor.y > stage.stageHeight) {
anchor.y = 0 – anchor.height;
}
else if(anchor.y < 0 - anchor.height) {
anchor.y = stage.stageHeight;
}
ball.x -= ballax = (ballax + (ball.x - anchor.x) * div) * .9;
ball.y -= ballay = (ballay + (ball.y - anchor.y) * div) * .9;
line_width_velocity += randomRangeAxis(1);
line_width += line_width_velocity;
line_width_velocity *= dampen;
if(line_width > line_max_width) {
line_width = line_max_width;
line_width_velocity = 0;
}
else if (line_width < line_min_width) {
line_width = line_min_width;
line_width_velocity = 0;
}
color_step();
color_first = color_second;
color_second = rgb2hex(colors.r, colors.g, colors.b);
var dx:Number = ball.x - oldx;
var dy:Number = ball.y - oldy;
this.graphics.lineStyle(line_width, color_first, (line_width+100-line_max_width)/100, true, LineScaleMode.NONE, CapsStyle.NONE);
gradientBoxMatrix.createGradientBox(Math.abs(dx), Math.abs(dy), Math.atan2(dy,dx), Math.min(oldx, ball.x), Math.min(oldy, ball.y));
this.graphics.lineGradientStyle(GradientType.LINEAR, [color_first, color_second], [(line_width+100-line_max_width)/100,(line_width+100-line_max_width)/100], [0, 255], gradientBoxMatrix);
this.graphics.lineTo(ball.x, ball.y);
}setInterval(loop, 1000/30);function rgb2hex(r:Number, g:Number, b:Number):Number {
return(r<<16 | g<<8 | b);
}
function color_step(){
colors.rv += randomRangeAxis(colors.rate_of_change);
colors.r += colors.rv;
colors.rv *= dampen;
if (colors.r > colors.rmax) {
colors.r = colors.rmax;
} else if (colors.r < colors.rmin){
colors.r = colors.rmin;
}
colors.gv += randomRangeAxis(colors.rate_of_change);
colors.g += colors.gv;
colors.gv *= dampen;
if (colors.g > colors.gmax) {
colors.g = colors.gmax;
} else if (colors.g < colors.gmin){
colors.g = colors.gmin;
}
colors.bv += randomRangeAxis(colors.rate_of_change);
colors.b += colors.bv;
colors.bv *= dampen;
if (colors.b > colors.bmax) {
colors.b = colors.bmax;
} else if (colors.b < colors.bmin){
colors.b = colors.bmin;
}
}
//random number between min and max
function randomRange(max:Number, min:Number = 0):Number {
return Math.random() * (max - min) + min;
}
//random number range centered at 0 with the specified max, randomRange(-max, max)
function randomRangeAxis(max:Number, axis:Number = 0):Number {
return Math.random() * (max * 2) - max + axis;
}
[/cc]
download
Here’s the gen-art-06-linestyle.swf as well as the gen-art-06-linestyle.fla to download and tinker.