Question

Is there a programmatical way in ActionScript (maybe by using display filters) to add the white and then dark borders around objects like at the following picture? Or has the border been added to the graphical assets already by Photoshop or similar tool?

The image above is a screenshot of the game Magic Land (c) Wooga.

Answer 1

Yes, you can use two GlowFilters to achieve this:

displayObject.filters = [new GlowFilter(0xffffff, 1, 4, 4, 10, 2), 
                         new GlowFilter(0x0, 1, 1.5, 1.5, 10, 2)];

You might want to experiment with the values a bit.

• The thickness is mainly controlled by the blur values (4 for the white and 1.5 for the black in the example above).
• Since we don’t really want a blurry look we need to use a high strength (10 in the example above).
• When using a high strength, it is usually best to set quality to 2 from the default 1, otherwise the strokes will look a bit pixelated. In that case you need to reduce the strength a bit.