Question

I have 3 movieclips, each one has 7 frames and labels that play different images, I want to stop each one randomly, but never have them equal the same frame. I was thinking array.push once its called, but I dont know how to do that. So I have this so far:

function startGame(event:MouseEvent)
{
    addChild(level6_mc);
    addChild(inGameNav_mc);
    level6_mc.gotoAndPlay(2);
    var timer = setTimeout(startAgain, 1000);
    startAgain();
}


// level 6
function startAgain()
{
    var randomNumber:Number= Math.floor(Math.random()*7);
    var door1 = level6_mc.door1_mc;
    var door2 = level6_mc.door2_mc;
    var door3 = level6_mc.door3_mc;
    door1.gotoAndStop(randomNumber);
    door2.gotoAndStop(randomNumber);
    door3.gotoAndStop(randomNumber);
}

there has to be an easy way for this, I just cant figure it out. I have been looking all over the net for a solution, but every method is just so complicated. Can anyone help me find a simple solution, and if you tell me to use an array can you please give example. Thanks in advance

Answer 1

I would opt for an approach like this:

function startGame(event:MouseEvent){
    addChild(level6_mc);
    addChild(inGameNav_mc);
    level6_mc.gotoAndPlay(2);
    var timer= setTimeout(startAgain, 1000);
    startAgain();
}

function startAgain(){
    var randomFrames:Array = getRandomFrames(3);
    var door1 = level6_mc.door1_mc;
    var door2 = level6_mc.door2_mc;
    var door3 = level6_mc.door3_mc;
    door1.gotoAndStop(randomFrames[0]);
    door2.gotoAndStop(randomFrames[1]);
    door3.gotoAndStop(randomFrames[2]);
}


/*
   Given input of 3, the return should be an array of integers randomly 
   chosen from the array defined by `frames`.  An example would be `[5,2,7]`
*/
function getRandomFrames(var $frameCount:Number):Array {
    var frames:Array = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]
    var randomFrames:Array = new Array(Math.min($frameCount, frames.length));

    var pos:Number = 0;
    for (var i:int = 0; i < randomFrames.length; i++)
    {
        pos = int(Math.random() * frames.length);
        randomFrames[i] = frames.splice(pos, 1)[0];
    }
    return randomFrames
}

I don’t have Flash on this machine, so I can’t test. But the idea is that you have an array of frame numbers, 1-7 and you randomly choose 3 of those numbers to be your stop frames.