Scripting bug when setInPoint and setOutPoint in Adobe Premiere? - javascript

I’ve run into a frustrating brick wall when using:
projectItem.setInPoint(seconds)
projectItem.setOutPoint(seconds)
…about 50% of the time the I/O points (in the source window) are set with a 1 frame error (sometimes 2 frames out). I feel like I’ve tried everything to discover what the pattern is, but it seems entirely random.
 
I thought it might be something to do with drop frame, variable frame rates, the clip being different from the sequence, or other oddities, but the error occurs at simple constant frame rates like 25 fps. There just seems to be no rhyme or reason to the errors (although the same error occurs consistently on certain frames).
 
There’s even a bigger problem with subclips, as the scripting environment thinks that all subclips start at frame 0.
 
I’ve tried everything, including working in ticks, seconds or frames, and converting between them. Nothing made a difference.
 
What I’m trying to accomplish is to set in/out on a set of clips, run a script to make smaller cuts from those source clips, and then restore the clips to the original I/O points. Got most of this working except I can’t restore all the clips to the original I/O points with this bug.
 
Below is a test script I wrote. It gets the current I/O positions, stores them, and then sets them back to the same clip. Half the time the values are not the same!  Argh!  This makes it impossible set the clips I/O accurately.
function framesToSeconds (frames, fps)
{
return frames / fps;
}
function secondsToFrames (sec, fps)
{
return sec * fps;
}
/*---------------------------------------------------*/
var projItems = app.project.rootItem.children;
var clip = projItems[2];
var fps = clip.getFootageInterpretation().frameRate;
var setIn = clip.getInPoint().seconds;
var setOut = clip.getOutPoint().seconds;
var inFrame = secondsToFrames (setIn, fps);
var outFrame = secondsToFrames (setOut, fps);
var secIn = framesToSeconds (inFrame, fps);
var secOut = framesToSeconds (outFrame, fps);
clip.setInPoint( secIn );
clip.setOutPoint( secOut );
var setIn = clip.getInPoint().seconds;
var setOut = clip.getOutPoint().seconds;

I’ve done some more testing. Although I don’t quite understand the source of the error, I believe I have figured out a fix for it.
I tested 2 slugs, each 10 seconds long with different frame rates, and ran them through a loop and set the IO points of each frame. I checked each frame to see which frames came back wrong. What I found was:
test_25fps_1280x720.mov : error on frames 211,209,207,205,203,201
test_29fps_1024x576.mov : error on frames 251,244,242,122,121,61
These errors weren’t random. Whenever I tried to set an in or out point on these frames it would ALWAYS round down 1 frame (I was wrong before about 50% of the frames being off, it’s actually less than 3%).
My best guess is that there’s some precision error because there’s a calculation going somewhere involving large floating point numbers. I can’t confirm it, nor do I really understand how to fix that. But I did figure out I could test the in and out points after setting them, and if it didn’t match expectations I could reset the point by adding the duration of half a frame (in seconds). A full frame would just repeat the error, but half a frame would get Premiere to round up to the correct frame.
This is the main part of my code:
/*---------------------------------------------------*/
function fixAnyFrameErrors (clip, inFrame, outFrame, fps, halfFrame)
/*---------------------------------------------------*/
{
var inSecSet = clip.getInPoint().seconds;
var inFrameSet = secondsToFrames (inSecSet, fps);
var outSecSet = clip.getOutPoint().seconds;
var outFrameSet = secondsToFrames (outSecSet, fps);
if ( parseFloat(inFrame) != parseFloat(inFrameSet) ) {
clip.setInPoint( secIn + halfFrame );
}
if ( parseFloat(outFrame) != parseFloat(outFrameSet) ) {
clip.setOutPoint( secOut + halfFrame );
}
}
/*---------------------------------------------------*/
var tps = 254016000000; // 2.54016e11 ticks per second (Premiere Pro constant)
var projItems = app.project.rootItem.children;
var clip = projItems[2];
clip.addMetadata();
var fps = clip.getFootageInterpretation().frameRate;
var tpf = clip.videoInPoint.frame_rate;
var frameDuration = tpf / tps; // in seconds
var halfFrame = (frameDuration * 0.5);
var inFrame = 201;
var outFrame = 211;
var secIn = framesToSeconds (inFrame, fps);
var secOut = framesToSeconds (outFrame, fps);
clip.setInPoint ( secIn );
clip.setOutPoint( secOut );
fixAnyFrameErrors (clip, inFrame, outFrame, fps, halfFrame);

My observations are:
(We encounter the problem when setting markers.)
Our calculation is correct, but Premiere sets marker seconds e.g. to 8.35999999999606 instead of 8.36 (at 25fps), the marker is shown at 8secs 9frames, but the displayed value is 8secs 8frames.
From Adobe Forums:
https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro/clip-marker-different-start-end-time-in-seconds/m-p/9309128?page=1
they suggest using an epsilon to check if a value is very close to the calculated value.
In the example, the difference is 0,00000000000394 - which is very low and should be corrected to 0.
I do not want to know what happens if we used framerates with dropframes (23.976 for example)...
EDIT: you would have to correct the time inside the existing marker, in my case, so this does not work. i will try to add half a frame...

Related

How to calculate when video is finished

I'm creating a rewards site where people can watch videos to earn points. The problem is that people will skip to the end of the video to earn their points. Therefore, I need to track when the video is done by a timer.
I have the following code:
var video_percent_count = 0;
function video_percent() {
var prize_video = document.getElementById("prize_video");
total_duration = Math.floor(prize_video.duration) + 1;
video_percent_count++;
percent = =total_duration / video_percent_count;
alert(percent);
}
To summarize, the code is adding to a variable every second, this is the timer. The function then grabs the total duration, then divides it by the timer for a percentage.
The function is not outputting a proper percentage, why is this code incorrect?
You've got a syntax error:
percent = =total_duration / video_percent_count;
Should be:
percent = total_duration / video_percent_count;
Notice the second = is removed.
In the future, you can use the web console to find simple syntax errors such as this one.

How can I improve performance on my parallax scroll script?

I'm using Javascript & jQuery to build a parallax scroll script that manipulates an image in a figure element using transform:translate3d, and based on the reading I've done (Paul Irish's blog, etc), I've been informed the best solution for this task is to use requestAnimationFrame for performance reasons.
Although I understand how to write Javascript, I'm always finding myself uncertain of how to write good Javascript. In particular, while the code below seems to function correctly and smoothly, I'd like to get a few issues resolved that I'm seeing in Chrome Dev Tools.
$(document).ready(function() {
function parallaxWrapper() {
// Get the viewport dimensions
var viewportDims = determineViewport();
var parallaxImages = [];
var lastKnownScrollTop;
// Foreach figure containing a parallax
$('figure.parallax').each(function() {
// Save information about each parallax image
var parallaxImage = {};
parallaxImage.container = $(this);
parallaxImage.containerHeight = $(this).height();
// The image contained within the figure element
parallaxImage.image = $(this).children('img.lazy');
parallaxImage.offsetY = parallaxImage.container.offset().top;
parallaxImages.push(parallaxImage);
});
$(window).on('scroll', function() {
lastKnownScrollTop = $(window).scrollTop();
});
function animateParallaxImages() {
$.each(parallaxImages, function(index, parallaxImage) {
var speed = 3;
var delta = ((lastKnownScrollTop + ((viewportDims.height - parallaxImage.containerHeight) / 2)) - parallaxImage.offsetY) / speed;
parallaxImage.image.css({
'transform': 'translate3d(0,'+ delta +'px,0)'
});
});
window.requestAnimationFrame(animateParallaxImages);
}
animateParallaxImages();
}
parallaxWrapper();
});
Firstly, when I head to the 'Timeline' tab in Chrome Dev Tools, and start recording, even with no actions on the page being performed, the "actions recorded" overlay count continues to climb, at a rate of about ~40 per second.
Secondly, why is an "animation frame fired" executing every ~16ms, even when I am not scrolling or interacting with the page, as shown by the image below?
Thirdly, why is the Used JS Heap increasing in size without me interacting with the page? As shown in the image below. I have eliminated all other scripts that could be causing this.
Can anyone help me with some pointers to fix the above issues, and give me suggestions on how I should improve my code?
(1 & 2 -- same answer) The pattern you are using creates a repeating animating loop which attempts to fire at the same rate as the browser refreshes. That's usually 60 time per second so the activity you're seeing is the loop executing approximately every 1000/60=16ms. If there's no work to do, it still fires every 16ms.
(3) The browser consumes memory as needed for your animations but the browser does not reclaim that memory immediately. Instead it occasionally reclaims any orphaned memory in a process called garbage collection. So your memory consumption should go up for a while and then drop in a big chunk. If it doesn't behave that way, then you have a memory leak.
Edit: I had not seen the answers from #user1455003 and #mpd at the time I wrote this. They answered while I was writing the book below.
requestAnimationFrame is analogous to setTimeout, except the browser wont fire your callback function until it's in a "render" cycle, which typically happens about 60 times per second. setTimeout on the other hand can fire as fast as your CPU can handle if you want it to.
Both requestAnimationFrame and setTimeout have to wait until the next available "tick" (for lack of a better term) until it will run. So, for example, if you use requestAnimationFrame it should run about 60 times per second, but if the browsers frame rate drops to 30fps (because you're trying to rotate a giant PNG with a large box-shadow) your callback function will only fire 30 times per second. Similarly, if you use setTimeout(..., 1000) it should run after 1000 milliseconds. However, if some heavy task causes the CPU to get caught up doing work, your callback won't fire until the CPU has cycles to give. John Resig has a great article on JavaScript timers.
So why not use setTimeout(..., 16) instead of request animation frame? Because your CPU might have plenty of head room while the browser's frame rate has dropped to 30fps. In such a case you would be running calculations 60 times per second and trying to render those changes, but the browser can only handle half that much. Your browser would be in a constant state of catch-up if you do it this way... hence the performance benefits of requestAnimationFrame.
For brevity, I am including all suggested changes in a single example below.
The reason you are seeing the animation frame fired so often is because you have a "recursive" animation function which is constantly firing. If you don't want it firing constantly, you can make sure it only fires while the user is scrolling.
The reason you are seeing the memory usage climb has to do with garbage collection, which is the browsers way of cleaning up stale memory. Every time you define a variable or function, the browser has to allocate a block of memory for that information. Browsers are smart enough to know when you are done using a certain variable or function and free up that memory for reuse - however, it will only collect the garbage when there is enough stale memory worth collecting. I can't see the scale of the memory graph in your screenshot, but if the memory is increasing in kilobyte size amounts, the browser may not clean it up for several minutes. You can minimize the allocation of new memory by reusing variable names and functions. In your example, every animation frame (60x second) defines a new function (used in $.each) and 2 variables (speed and delta). These are easily reusable (see code).
If your memory usage continues to increase ad infinitum, then there is a memory leak problem elsewhere in your code. Grab a beer and start doing research as the code you've posted here is leak-free. The biggest culprit is referencing an object (JS object or DOM node) which then gets deleted and the reference still hangs around. For example, if you bind a click event to a DOM node, delete the node, and never unbind the event handler... there ya go, a memory leak.
$(document).ready(function() {
function parallaxWrapper() {
// Get the viewport dimensions
var $window = $(window),
speed = 3,
viewportDims = determineViewport(),
parallaxImages = [],
isScrolling = false,
scrollingTimer = 0,
lastKnownScrollTop;
// Foreach figure containing a parallax
$('figure.parallax').each(function() {
// The browser should clean up this function and $this variable - no need for reuse
var $this = $(this);
// Save information about each parallax image
parallaxImages.push({
container = $this,
containerHeight: $this.height(),
// The image contained within the figure element
image: $this.children('img.lazy'),
offsetY: $this.offset().top
});
});
// This is a bit overkill and could probably be defined inline below
// I just wanted to illustrate reuse...
function onScrollEnd() {
isScrolling = false;
}
$window.on('scroll', function() {
lastKnownScrollTop = $window.scrollTop();
if( !isScrolling ) {
isScrolling = true;
animateParallaxImages();
}
clearTimeout(scrollingTimer);
scrollingTimer = setTimeout(onScrollEnd, 100);
});
function transformImage (index, parallaxImage) {
parallaxImage.image.css({
'transform': 'translate3d(0,' + (
(
lastKnownScrollTop +
(viewportDims.height - parallaxImage.containerHeight) / 2 -
parallaxImage.offsetY
) / speed
) + 'px,0)'
});
}
function animateParallaxImages() {
$.each(parallaxImages, transformImage);
if (isScrolling) {
window.requestAnimationFrame(animateParallaxImages);
}
}
}
parallaxWrapper();
});
#markE's answer is right on for 1 & 2
(3) Is due to the fact that your animation loop is infinitely recursive:
function animateParallaxImages() {
$.each(parallaxImages, function(index, parallaxImage) {
var speed = 3;
var delta = ((lastKnownScrollTop + ((viewportDims.height - parallaxImage.containerHeight) / 2)) - parallaxImage.offsetY) / speed;
parallaxImage.image.css({
'transform': 'translate3d(0,'+ delta +'px,0)'
});
});
window.requestAnimationFrame(animateParallaxImages); //recursing here, but there is no base base
}
animateParallaxImages(); //Kick it off
If you look at the example on MDN:
var start = null;
var element = document.getElementById("SomeElementYouWantToAnimate");
function step(timestamp) {
if (!start) start = timestamp;
var progress = timestamp - start;
element.style.left = Math.min(progress/10, 200) + "px";
if (progress < 2000) {
window.requestAnimationFrame(step);
}
}
window.requestAnimationFrame(step);
I would suggest either stopping recursion at some point, or refactor your code so functions/variables aren't being declared in the loop:
var SPEED = 3; //constant so only declare once
var delta; // declare outside of the function to reduce the number of allocations needed
function imageIterator(index, parallaxImage){
delta = ((lastKnownScrollTop + ((viewportDims.height - parallaxImage.containerHeight) / 2)) - parallaxImage.offsetY) / SPEED;
parallaxImage.image.css({
'transform': 'translate3d(0,'+ delta +'px,0)'
});
}
function animateParallaxImages() {
$.each(parallaxImages, imageIterator); // you could also change this to a traditional loop for a small performance gain for(...)
window.requestAnimationFrame(animateParallaxImages); //recursing here, but there is no base base
}
animateParallaxImages(); //Kick it off
Try getting rid of the animation loop and putting the scroll changes in the 'scroll' function. This will prevent your script from doing transforms when lastKnownScrollTop is unchanged.
$(window).on('scroll', function() {
lastKnownScrollTop = $(window).scrollTop();
$.each(parallaxImages, function(index, parallaxImage) {
var speed = 3;
var delta = ((lastKnownScrollTop + ((viewportDims.height - parallaxImage.containerHeight) / 2)) - parallaxImage.offsetY) / speed;
parallaxImage.image.css({
'transform': 'translate3d(0,'+ delta +'px,0)'
});
});
});

HTML5 Canvas game loop delta time calculations

I'm new to game development. Currently I'm doing a game for js13kgames contest, so the game should be small and that's why I don't use any of modern popular frameworks.
While developing my infinite game loop I found several articles and pieces of advice to implement it. Right now it looks like this:
self.gameLoop = function () {
self.dt = 0;
var now;
var lastTime = timestamp();
var fpsmeter = new FPSMeter({decimals: 0, graph: true, theme: 'dark', left: '5px'});
function frame () {
fpsmeter.tickStart();
now = window.performance.now();
// first variant - delta is increasing..
self.dt = self.dt + Math.min(1, (now-lastTime)/1000);
// second variant - delta is stable..
self.dt = (now - lastTime)/16;
self.dt = (self.dt > 10) ? 10 : self.dt;
self.clearRect();
self.createWeapons();
self.createTargets();
self.update('weapons');
self.render('weapons');
self.update('targets');
self.render('targets');
self.ticks++;
lastTime = now;
fpsmeter.tick();
requestAnimationFrame(frame);
}
requestAnimationFrame(frame);
};
So the problem is in self.dt I've eventually found out that first variant is not suitable for my game because it increases forever and the speed of weapons is increasing with it as well (e.g. this.position.x += (Math.cos(this.angle) * this.speed) * self.dt;..
Second variant looks more suitable, but does it correspond to this kind of loop (http://codeincomplete.com/posts/2013/12/4/javascript_game_foundations_the_game_loop/)?
Here' an implementation of an HTML5 rendering system using a fixed time step with a variable rendering time:
http://jsbin.com/ditad/10/edit?js,output
It's based on this article:
http://gameprogrammingpatterns.com/game-loop.html
Here is the game loop:
//Set the frame rate
var fps = 60,
//Get the start time
start = Date.now(),
//Set the frame duration in milliseconds
frameDuration = 1000 / fps,
//Initialize the lag offset
lag = 0;
//Start the game loop
gameLoop();
function gameLoop() {
requestAnimationFrame(gameLoop, canvas);
//Calcuate the time that has elapsed since the last frame
var current = Date.now(),
elapsed = current - start;
start = current;
//Add the elapsed time to the lag counter
lag += elapsed;
//Update the frame if the lag counter is greater than or
//equal to the frame duration
while (lag >= frameDuration){
//Update the logic
update();
//Reduce the lag counter by the frame duration
lag -= frameDuration;
}
//Calculate the lag offset and use it to render the sprites
var lagOffset = lag / frameDuration;
render(lagOffset);
}
The render function calls a render method on each sprite, with a reference to the lagOffset
function render(lagOffset) {
ctx.clearRect(0, 0, canvas.width, canvas.height);
sprites.forEach(function(sprite){
ctx.save();
//Call the sprite's `render` method and feed it the
//canvas context and lagOffset
sprite.render(ctx, lagOffset);
ctx.restore();
});
}
Here's the sprite's render method that uses the lag offset to interpolate the sprite's render position on the canvas.
o.render = function(ctx, lagOffset) {
//Use the `lagOffset` and previous x/y positions to
//calculate the render positions
o.renderX = (o.x - o.oldX) * lagOffset + o.oldX;
o.renderY = (o.y - o.oldY) * lagOffset + o.oldY;
//Render the sprite
ctx.strokeStyle = o.strokeStyle;
ctx.lineWidth = o.lineWidth;
ctx.fillStyle = o.fillStyle;
ctx.translate(
o.renderX + (o.width / 2),
o.renderY + (o.height / 2)
);
ctx.beginPath();
ctx.rect(-o.width / 2, -o.height / 2, o.width, o.height);
ctx.stroke();
ctx.fill();
//Capture the sprite's current positions to use as
//the previous position on the next frame
o.oldX = o.x;
o.oldY = o.y;
};
The important part is this bit of code that uses the lagOffset and the difference in the sprite's rendered position between frames to figure out its new current canvas position:
o.renderX = (o.x - o.oldX) * lagOffset + o.oldX;
o.renderY = (o.y - o.oldY) * lagOffset + o.oldY;
Notice that the oldX and oldY values are being re-calculated each frame at the end of the method, so that they can be used in the next frame to help figure out the difference.
o.oldX = o.x;
o.oldY = o.y;
I'm actually not sure if this interpolation is completely correct or if this is best way to do it. If anyone out there reading this knows that it's wrong, please let us know :)
The modern version of requestAnimationFrame now sends in a timestamp that you can use to calculate elapsed time. When your desired time interval has elapsed you can do your update, create and render tasks.
Here's example code:
var lastTime;
var requiredElapsed = 1000 / 10; // desired interval is 10fps
requestAnimationFrame(loop);
function loop(now) {
requestAnimationFrame(loop);
if (!lastTime) { lastTime = now; }
var elapsed = now - lastTime;
if (elapsed > requiredElapsed) {
// do stuff
lastTime = now;
}
}
This isn't really an answer to your question, and without knowing more about the particular game I can't say for sure if it will help you, but do you really need to know dt (and FPS)?
In my limited forays into JS game development I've found that often you don't really need to to calculate any kind of dt as you can usually come up with a sensible default value based on your expected frame rate, and make anything time-based (such as weapon reloading) simply work based on the number of ticks (i.e. a bow might take 60 ticks to reload (~1 second # ~60FPS)).
I usually use window.setTimeout() rather than window.requestAnimationFrame(), which I've found generally provides a more stable frame rate which will allow you to define a sensible default to use in place of dt. On the down-side the game will be more of a resource hog and less performant on slower machines (or if the user has a lot of other things running), but depending on your use case those may not be real concerns.
Now this is purely anecdotal advice so you should take it with a pinch of salt, but it has served me pretty well in the past. It all depends on whether you mind the game running more slowly on older/less powerful machines, and how efficient your game loop is. If it's something simple that doesn't need to display real times you might be able to do away with dt completely.
At some point you will want to think about decoupling your physics from your rendering. Otherwise your players could have inconsistent physics. For example, someone with a beefy machine getting 300fps will have very sped up physics compared to someone chugging along at 30fps. This could manifest in the first player cruising around in a mario-like scrolling game at super speed and the other player crawling at half speed (if you did all your testing at 60fps). A way to fix that is to introduce delta time steps. The idea is that you find the time between each frame and use that as part of your physics calculations. It keeps the gameplay consistent regardless of frame rate. Here is a good article to get you started: http://gafferongames.com/game-physics/fix-your-timestep/
requestAnimationFrame will not fix this inconsistency, but it is still a good thing to use sometimes as it has battery saving advantages. Here is a source for more info http://www.chandlerprall.com/2012/06/requestanimationframe-is-not-your-logics-friend/
I did not check the logic of the math in your code .. however here what works for me:
GameBox = function()
{
this.lastFrameTime = Date.now();
this.currentFrameTime = Date.now();
this.timeElapsed = 0;
this.updateInterval = 2000; //in ms
}
GameBox.prototype.gameLoop = function()
{
window.requestAnimationFrame(this.gameLoop.bind(this));
this.lastFrameTime = this.currentFrameTime;
this.currentFrameTime = Date.now();
this.timeElapsed += this.currentFrameTime - this.lastFrameTime ;
if(this.timeElapsed >= this.updateInterval)
{
this.timeElapsed = 0;
this.update(); //modify data which is used to render
}
this.render();
}
This implementation is idenpendant from the CPU-speed(ticks). Hope you can make use of it!
A great solution to your game engine would be to think in objects and entities. You can think of everything in your world as objects and entities. Then you want to make a game object manager that will have a list of all your game objects. Then you want to make a common communication method in the engine so game objects can make event triggers. The entities in your game for example a player would not need to inherent from anything to get the ability to render to the screen or have collision detection. You would simple make common methods in the entity that the game engine is looking for. Then let the game engine handle the entity as it would like. Entities in your game can be created or destroyed at anytime in the game so you should not hard-code any entities at all in the game loop.
You will want other objects in your game engine to respond to event triggers that the engine has received. This can be done using methods in the entity that the game engine will check to see if the method is available and if it is would pass the events to the entity. Do not hard code any of your game logic into the engine it messes up portability and limits your ability to expand on the game later on.
The problem with your code is first your calling different objects render and updates not in the correct order. You need to call ALL your updates then call ALL your renders in that order. Another is your method of hard coding objects into the loop is going to give you a lot of problems, when you want one of the objects to no longer be in the game or if you want to add more objects into the game later on.
Your game objects will have an update() and a render() your game engine will look for that function in the object/entity and call it every frame. You can get very fancy and make the engine work in a way to check if the game object/entity has the functions prior to calling them. for example maybe you want an object that has an update() but never renders anything to the screen. You could make the game object functions optional by making the engine check prior to calling them. Its also good practice to have an init() function for all game objects. When the game engine starts up the scene and creates the objects it will start by calling the game objects init() when first creating the object then every frame calling update() that way you can have a function that you only run one time on creation and another that runs every frame.
delta time is not really needed as window.requestAnimationFrame(frame); will give you ~60fps. So if you're keeping track of the frame count you can tell how much time has passed. Different objects in your game can then, (based off of a set point in the game and what the frame count was) determine how long its been doing something based off its new frame count.
window.requestAnimationFrame = window.requestAnimationFrame || function(callback){window.setTimeout(callback,16)};
gameEngine = function () {
this.frameCount=0;
self=this;
this.update = function(){
//loop over your objects and run each objects update function
}
this.render = function(){
//loop over your objects and run each objects render function
}
this.frame = function() {
self.update();
self.render();
self.frameCount++;
window.requestAnimationFrame(frame);
}
this.frame();
};
I have created a full game engine located at https://github.com/Patrick-W-McMahon/Jinx-Engine/ if you review the code at https://github.com/Patrick-W-McMahon/Jinx-Engine/blob/master/JinxEngine.js you will see a fully functional game engine built 100% in javascript. It includes event handlers and permits action calls between objects that are passed into the engine using the event call stack. check out some of the examples https://github.com/Patrick-W-McMahon/Jinx-Engine/tree/master/examples where you will see how it works. The engine can run around 100,000 objects all being rendered and executed per frame at a rate of 60fps. This was tested on a core i5. different hardware may vary. mouse and keyboard events are built into the engine. objects passed into the engine just need to listen for the event passed by the engine. Scene management and multi scene support is currently being built in for more complex games. The engine also supports high pixel density screens.
Reviewing my source code should get you on the track for building a more fully functional game engine.
I would also like to point out that you should have requestAnimationFrame() called when you're ready to repaint and not prior (aka at the end of the game loop). One good example why you should not call requestAnimationFrame() at the beginning of the loop is if you're using a canvas buffer. If you call requestAnimationFrame() at the beginning, then begin to draw to the canvas buffer you can end up having it draw half of the new frame with the other half being the old frame. This will happen on every frame depending on the time it takes to finish the buffer in relation to the repaint cycle (60fps). But at the same time you would end up overlapping each frame so the buffer will get more messed up as it loops over its self. This is why you should only call requestAnimationFrame() when the buffer is fully ready to draw to the canvas. by having the requestAnimationFrame() at the end you can have it skip a repaint if the buffer is not ready to draw and so every repaint is drawn as it is expected. The position of requestAnimationFrame() in the game loop has a big difference.

Movement slower when canvas is bigger

Using this code:
x = x + (canvas.height/250);
which happens every 1 millisecond should add an amount to x in proportion to the canvas size. x is then drawn so therefore x should move down the canvas at the same speed on different screen sizes (the canvas changes size according to the screen size). However the x moves down at different speeds on my ipod and my pc.
If you want to know the full source code and html file the html is here and the javascript file linked to it is here.
First, let's think about what this line does:
x += canvas.height / 250;
The speed of the object is canvas.height / 250. The distance is canvas.height. We can say that:
distance = speed * time
We already have distance and speed, so:
time = distance / speed = canvas.height / (canvas.height / 250) = 250 ms
So the object always reaches its destination in 2.5 seconds. In order to make that happen, you change the speed based on the screen size.
If you want the speed to be the same in all devices, it shouldn't depend on canvas.height.
The change in traversal time is due to a change in draw time.
If the device is, say, two times slower to draw, the increase
will get done two times less per second, and your object will be
in mid-screen in the slow device when it will have crossed screen in
the other.
To have consistent behavior you must handle your game time.
Then you just have to decide of your objects speed in pixels per milliseconds,
and use the classical equation :
pos = pos + speed * (time step)
the code looks like :
var x = 0;
var speed = canvas.width / 1000 ; // speed in pixels per milliseconds.
var lastTime = 0;
requestAnimationFrame(launchAnimate);
function animate() {
requestAnimationFrame(animate);
var now = Date.now();
var dt = now - lastTime ;
lastTime = now ;
// draw everything
draw();
// update everything with this frame time step.
update(dt);
}
function launchAnimate() {
lastTime = Date.now() ;
requestAnimationFrame(animate);
}
Edit : you can't draw faster than your screen, so on a 60Hz screen, you'll draw at best every 16.666 ms.
Don't be scared by RequestAnimationFrame, it just means : "when the screen is ready, draw the callback that i gave you.".
So you have to re-arm it every time to make your game live.
So for your game, it's time to organize a bit :
have an update function where you put all the code that updates all things.
have a draw function that draws everything.
do not draw in the update (remove the draw calls in moveTrees), and
do not update in the draw. SEPARATION OF CONCERNS, :-)
have each update depend on frame time (dt) for all that's related to time (position, speed, acceleration, forces).
function update( dt ) {
x = x + speed * dt ;
moveTrees(dt);
}
function draw () {
drawTrees();
drawHangGlider();
drawTrees();
}
You'll notice i changed the animate function to call draw and update, still you have a bit of work to re-organize things.
Edit 2 : RequestAnimationFrame is widely ok now :
http://caniuse.com/requestanimationframe
(Chrome for Android is ok).
Rq :
// to use rAF, call this function before your game launches
polyFillRAFNow();
// insert the function in your code.
function polyFillRAFNow() {
// requestAnimationFrame polyfill
var w = window;
var foundRequestAnimationFrame = w.requestAnimationFrame || w.webkitRequestAnimationFrame || w.msRequestAnimationFrame || w.mozRequestAnimationFrame || w.oRequestAnimationFrame || function (cb) { setTimeout(cb, 1000 / 60); };
window.requestAnimationFrame = foundRequestAnimationFrame;
}
Rq2 : you might be interested in this article i wrote on the game loop http://gamealchemist.wordpress.com/2013/03/16/thoughts-on-the-javascript-game-loop/
So basically you want a relative absolute speed depending on the screen size, which would then appear to be the same on different displays. In order to do this you should use percentages, for example:
var pixels_in_1_percent = canvas.height/100;
x += pixels_in_1_percent
That will increase the speed by 1% of canvas height, if you want more speed then you have to multiply it
x += pixels_in_1_percent * <number_of_percent_to_increase>
Hope that helps.
You said in your question that you are calling the function every 1 millisecond. However, some browsers limit the speed of window.setInterval so if you made the function call once every 50 milliseconds it would be the same on all devices.
window.setInterval(function(){
/// call your function here e.g. add1toxfunction();
}, 50);

JavaScript Duration of animation isn't exact

First of all I want to mention two things,
One: My code isn't perfect (esspechially the eval parts) - but I wanted to try something for my self, and see if I could duplicate the jQuery Animation function, so please forgive my "bad" practices, and please don't suggest that I'll use jQuery, I wanted to experiment.
Two: This code isn't done yet, and I just wanted to figure out what makes it work badly.
So the animation runs for about 12 seconds while the duration parameter I entered was 15 seconds, What am I doing wrong?
function animate(elem, attr, duration){
if(attr.constructor === Object){//check for object literal
var i = 0;
var cssProp = [];
var cssValue = [];
for(key in attr) {
cssProp[i] = key;
cssValue[i] = attr[key];
}
var fps = (1000 / 60);
var t = setInterval(function(){
for(var j=0;j<cssProp.length;j++){
if(document.getElementById(elem).style[cssProp[j]].length == 0){
//asign basic value in css if the object dosn't have one.
document.getElementById(elem).style[cssProp[j]]= 0;
}
var c = document.getElementById(elem).style[cssProp[j]];
//console.log(str +" | "+c+"|"+cssValue[j]);
if(c > cssValue[j]){
document.getElementById(elem).style[cssProp[j]] -= 1/((duration/fps)*(c-cssValue[j]));
}else if(c < cssValue[j]){
document.getElementById(elem).style[cssProp[j]] += 1/((duration/fps)*(c-cssValue[j]));
}else if(c == cssValue[j]){
window.clearInterval(t);
}
}
},fps);
}
}
animate('hello',{opacity:0},15000);
html:
<p id="hello" style="opacity:1;">Hello World</p>
Note: I guess there is a problem with the
(duration/fps)*(c-cssValue[j])
Part or/and the interval of the setInterval (fps variable).
Thanks in advance.
I'm not gonna try and refactor that and figure it out, cause it's pretty wonky. That said... a few things.
Don't rely on the value you are animating to let you know animation progress
In general your approach is unsound. You are better off keeping track of progress yourself. Also, as a result of your approach your math seems like it's trying too hard, and should be much simpler.
Think of it like this: your animation is complete when the time has elapsed, not when the animated value seems to indicate that it's at the final position.
Don't increment, set
Floating point math is inexact, and repeated addition cumulation like this is going accumulate floating point errors as well. And it's far more readable to make some variables to keep track of progress for you, which you can use in calculations.
animatedValue += changeOnThisFrame // BAD!
animatedValue = valueOnThisFrame // GOOD!
Don't do the positive/negative conditional dance
It turns out that 10 + 10 and 10 - (-10) is really the same thing. Which means you can always add the values, but the rate of change can be negative or positive, and the value will animate in the appropriate direction.
timeouts and intervals aren't exact
Turns out setTimeout(fn, 50) actually means to schedule the fn to be call at least 50ms later. The next JS run loop to execute after those 50ms will run the function, so you can't rely on it to be perfectly accurate.
That said it's usually within a few milliseconds. But 60fps is about 16ms for frame, and that timer may actually fire in a variable amount of time from 16-22ms. So when you do calculations based on frame rate, it's not matching the actual time elapsed closely at all.
Refactor complex math
Deconstructing this line here is gonna be hard.
document.getElementById(elem).style[cssProp[j]] -= 1/((duration/fps)*(c-cssValue[j]));
Why for more complex break it up so you can easily understand what's going on here. refactoring this line alone, I might do this:
var style = document.getElementById(elem).style;
var changeThisFrame = duration/fps;
var someOddCalculatedValue = c-cssValue[j];
style[cssProp[j]] -= 1 / (changeThisFrame * someOddCalculatedValue);
Doing this makes it clearer what each expression in your math means and what it's for. And because you didn't do it here, I had a very hard time wondering why c-cssValue[j] was in there and what it represents.
Simple Example
This is less capable than what you have, but it shows the approach you should be taking. It uses the animation start time to create the perfect value, depending on how complete the animation should be, where it started, and where it's going. It doesn't use the current animated value to determine anything, and is guaranteed to run the full length of the animation.
var anim = function(elem, duration) {
// save when we started for calculating progress
var startedAt = Date.now();
// set animation bounds
var startValue = 10;
var endValue = 200;
// figure out how much change we have over the whole animation
var delta = endValue - startValue;
// Animation function, to run at 60 fps.
var t = setInterval(function(){
// How far are we into the animation, on a scale of 0 to 1.
var progress = (Date.now() - startedAt) / duration;
// If we passed 1, the animation is over so clean up.
if (progress > 1) {
alert('DONE! Elapsed: ' + (Date.now() - startedAt) + 'ms');
clearInterval(t);
}
// Set the real value.
elem.style.top = startValue + (progress * delta) + "px";
}, 1000 / 60);
};
anim(document.getElementById('foo'), 5000);
​
JSFiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/DSRst/
You cannot use setInterval for accurate total timing. Because JS is single threaded and multiple things compete for cycles on the one thread, there is no guarantee that the next interval call will be exactly on time or that N intervals will consume the exact duration of time.
Instead, pretty much all animation routines get the current time and use the system clock to measure time for the total duration. The general algorithm is to get the start time, calculate a desired finish time (starttime + duration). Then, as you've done, calculate the expected step value and number of iterations. Then, upon each step, you recalculate the remaining time left and the remaining step value. In this way, you ensure that the animation always finishes exactly (or nearly exactly) on time and that you always get exactly to the final position. If the animation gets behind the ideal trajectory, then it will self correct and move slightly more for the remaining steps. If it gets ahead for any reason (rounding errors, etc...), it will dial back the step size and likewise arrive at the final position on time.
You may also need to know that browsers don't always support very small timing amounts. Each browser has some sort of minimum time that they will allow for a timer operation. Here's an article on minimum timer levels.
Here's an article on tweening (the process of continually recalculating the step to fit the duration exactly).
I'd also suggest that you look at the code for doing animation in some libraries (jQuery, YUI or any other one you find) as they can all show you how this is done in a very general purpose way, including tweening, easing functions, etc...

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