Question

I’ve created a Canvas class which has an Array of multiple instances of CanvasEntity. Each of these has a skin property which is a reference to a previously created instance of BitmapData, representing some graphics that can be used.

The Canvas runs through this list each frame to perform a render:

1. lock() the canvas
2. Clear the canvas using fillRect().
3. Loop through the aforementioned Array and use copyPixels() on each of the instances’ skin properties.
4. unlock() the canvas.

This is all fine, but now I’m a bit unsure of the best way to approach rendering text in the same fashion.

Do I need to make a sprite sheet with all of my glyphs on it, just like I do for all the frames of any other object? Or is there a simpler way to create a piece of BitmapData that will represent these?

Making a sprite sheets seems painful as there would need to be individual objects representing each glyph to be rendered.

So far I have this as a sprite sheet:

Answer 1

You don’t need an individual object for every character. If you want a low-cost text display, have a single class that extends CanvasEntity and accepts a string in the constructor, copies relevant data from the spritesheet to the skin.