Question

Is it possible to show another instance of a sprite? What I’m trying to do is have a reflection of a animated sprite.
What I’ve got so far is my Sprite called “canvas” that has things animating inside it by use of AS3. And what I want to do is show a copy of it flipped, below it to look like a reflection. I tried the following code but to no luck, it just hides everything?..

addChild(canvas);
var reflection:Sprite = new Sprite();
addChild(reflection);
reflection.addChild(canvas);

Any ideas why this code doesn’t work? Or do you have a better way to approach this.
Thanks

Answer 1

You could use BitmapData for that.

class members:

// flip vertically and shift by 100 (insert your canvas size)
private var reflect:Matrix = new Matrix(1, 0, 0, -1, 0, 100);
// instanciate BitmapData with 100x100 size (insert your canvas size),
// filled with black but with 100% transparancy, it's an
// ARGB value (0 == 0x00000000)
private var reflectionData:BitmapData = new BitmapData(100, 100, true, 0);
private var reflection:Bitmap = new Bitmap(reflectionData);

init:

// you might want to draw canvas already on startup
reflectionData.draw(canvas, reflect);
reflection.x = canvas.x;
reflection.y = canvas.y + canvas.height;
addChild(reflection);

on animation/redraw

// clear to transparency
reflectionData.fillRect(reflectionData.rect, 0);
// draw the current canvas with matrix applied
reflectionData.draw(canvas, reflect);