Fluorescent Ballast and Neon Flicker + Across The Hall Movie
Posted: November 23, 2009 at 9:03 pm
Just completed a rush project for the film Across The Hall. Being that this is a noir styled film, I came up with a simple class that emulates the effect of sign letters turning on. Could work for Fluorescent lights as well as other stuff. Easiest way to use it is to link the MovieClip in your library you intend to export and point the base class path to FluorescentBallastFlicker.

Then in your code, instantiate and attach the MovieClip to your DisplayObject and the MovieClip will automatically set its alpha to 0 and will be ready to turn on.
The turnOn() method takes the arguments; seconds of turn on time, seconds of delay, and an optional callback function when the effect has finished.
_hSign.turnOn(1, 0); _oSign.turnOn(2, .5); _tSign.turnOn(2, 1); _eSign.turnOn(2, 1.5); _lSign.turnOn(2, 2); _riverview.turnOn(2, 2.5, startSite);
Once the item is on, you can use the badBallast() method to emulate a loose connection. The lower the number the more frequent the flickering.
_hSign.badBallast(100);
Download Fluorescent Ballast and Neon Flicker Class Source Code!
The Discussion
see what everyone is saying
Hi Donovan,
I'm really keen to try this FluorescentBallastFlicker of yours working but I'm having a few poblems getting it going.
Done all what you have said above but when I set the linkages properties like you have done I get an error message about the base class not being correct. I then put this in as the class :com.hydrotik.effects.FluorescentBallastFlicker
And flash.display.MovieClip as the base class. What I get now is an these 3 message in the error screen:
1120: Access of undefined property Ssign.
1120: Access of undefined property riverview.
1120: Access of undefined property startSite.
1120: Access of undefined property Ssign.
Very confused
Its it possible for me to send you the code and you have a look?
Cheers,
Ben.