Starling Framework

Starling Framework is a cross-platform, hardware-accelerated game engine for creating 2D games and graphical applications using ActionScript 3. It utilizes the Adobe AIR Stage3D API to render all objects directly via the GPU, providing high performance while mimicking the classic display tree architecture of Adobe AIR/Flash.

Key features include:

• GPU Acceleration: Direct rendering via Stage3D.
• Cross-Platform Deployment: Target mobile (iOS, Android) and desktop (Windows, macOS) using Adobe AIR.
• Lightweight Architecture: Designed to be easy to read, understand, and extend.

Transporter Chief is a command-line tool designed to deploy iOS applications directly to an iPhone or iPad.

Platform Requirement: This tool is only compatible with OS X.

To ensure resources are always available when running or debugging your application in a simulator, add the copy_resources.rb External Tool to your run/debug configuration:

1. Open your project's Run/Debug Configuration.
2. Locate the Before launch section.
3. Click the + icon and select Run External Tool.
4. Choose the platform-specific tool you created (e.g., Copy Resources - iOS).

To customize and export iOS app icons and launch screens for a Starling/AIR project, use the provided Xcode project in util/ios_asset_project/.

1. Modify the project in Xcode as described in the distriqt documentation.
2. Build the project using Xcode.
3. In the Xcode project navigator, right-click on iOS Asset Project.app and select 'Show in Finder'.
4. In Finder, right-click the app file and select 'Show Package Contents'.
5. Copy the following files to your Starling Scaffold (system subfolder) or your AIR project:
   • Assets.car (required for icons)
   • LaunchScreen.storyboardc (optional, used for custom launch screens)

On iOS, the viewport fills the entire screen, including the notch and home indicator. To handle the 'safe area' and avoid UI overlap, it is recommended to use the Application ANE from distriqt.

To implement this in the scaffold:

1. Enable the commented-out code in the scaffold that uses the ANE.
2. Update Scaffold_Mobile-app.xml to include the ANE.
3. Modify utils/ScreenSetup to utilize the ANE's safe area information.

Field Agent converts pure black and white bitmaps into distance field textures.

Input Requirements:

• The foreground (the object to render) must be pure black.
• The background can be white or transparent.
• Recommended input: A vector image exported to PNG.

Basic Usage:

ruby field_agent.rb input.png output.png

Use the following links to access official Starling Framework resources:

• Official Homepage: http://www.starling-framework.org
• Instruction Manual: http://manual.starling-framework.org
• API Reference: http://doc.starling-framework.org
• Support Forum: http://forum.starling-framework.org
• Starling Wiki: http://wiki.starling-framework.org
  • Showcase: http://wiki.starling-framework.org/games/start
  • Extensions: http://wiki.starling-framework.org/extensions/start

On macOS, you can make the field_agent.rb script executable so you can call it directly without prefixing it with ruby.

cd /path/to/starling/util/field_agent
chmod u+x field_agent.rb

To run the scaffold in Visual Studio Code, follow these steps:

1. Install the ActionScript & MXML extension by Josh Tynjala.
2. Point the extension to your latest AIR SDK.
3. Open the project folder in VS Code.
4. (Optional) To run on a physical device, update the signingOptions in asconfig.json with your local Apple and Google development keys.
5. Open the Run and Debug menu in the sidebar and select one of the available configurations to start.