ActionScript™ 3.0 Bible

Chapter 32. Applying Transformations to Graphics

Introduction

In this chapter

• Understanding transforms

• Using matrices to rotate, scale, translate, and shear MovieClip objects

• Using color transforms

• Applying solid colors

• Applying tints

The flash.geom.Transform class lets you apply two sorts of transformations to display objects—geometric and color. A Transform object has a handful of properties, two of which are matrix and colorTransform. The matrix property is a Matrix object you can use to apply geometric transforms, as discussed in the section “Working with Matrix Transforms.” The colorTransform property is a ColorTransform object you can use to apply color transforms, as discussed in the section “Working with Color Transforms.”

Working with Matrix Transforms

You've already seen how you can transform a display object in basic ways using properties such as x, y, width, height, and so on. However, using matrices you can apply more complex transformations—not only offsetting the coordinates, scaling, or rotating the object, but also skewing/shearing the object.

A matrix is a representation of a set of linear equations. For example, the following equation determines a line in two‐dimensional space:

2x + 10y = 5

That linear equation can be written as the following 1×3 matrix:

| 2  10  5 |

If you have more than one linear equation, you can group each of them into a single matrix. For example, consider the following three linear equations:

2x + 10y = 5
1x + 2y = 8
4x + 1y = 3

The preceding three ...