Recursive Zoomer Instructions

Overview

The Recursive Zoomer is highly customizable through an XML config file (see bellow), so changing the ActionScript code should not be necesary. If you still need to change parts of the code, see the code in the actions layer of RecursiveZoomer.FLA.

When using this package on your site, make sure to also copy the SpinningEffect subdirectory, as this contains the Pixel Bender bytecode and xml config files. The "Pixel Bender source code" directory is not needed by the SWF; it was included just in case you need to peek inside the Pixel Bender code.

Configuring the Recursive Zoomer

All settings are configurable through an XML file which the flash SWF reads on startup. The path of the XML file can be configured by setting the config=path_of_xml_file FlashVars variable. This way different settings can be used for differents parts of the site. As an example, adding 'FlashVars', 'config=SpinningEffect/RecursiveZoomerConfigDarkRed.xml' as has been done on this instructions page will load an XML settings file that specifies that a dark red color palette is to be used. If no config parameter is found, the SWF will try to load 'SpinningEffect/RecursiveZoomerConfig.xml' which is the included default settings.

The following settings can be configured (specified in the XML file):

• linearSampling: If == 1: Linear sampling will be used which results in a smoothed effect. If == 0: Use nearest neighbor sampling, which results in a fractal looking effect.
• fromColor: Lower end of color range. Specified as ActionScript style uint (0xFF0000 is red, etc etc)
• toColor: Higher end of color range. Same format as fromColor. if==0: use all possible colors (psychedelic effect)
• interactive: If == 1: Use mouse to control zoom and rotation. If == 0: use predefined motion
• zoomSpeed: Speed of zooming. 1=no zoom, 1.05 = slow zoom speed, 1.2 = high zoom speed. Carefull when changing this
• drawEveryXFrame: Will update the effect for every X. frame. Can be used for giving back CPU resources to system (for low-end single core machines). 1=draw every frame, 2=draw every 2nd frame, etc
• debugInfo: If == 1: will display FPS, flash player version, memory usage etc. If == 0: Do not display debug info

Using as a background

The flash SWF is already exported with the correct settings for making it stretch out to fill the whole window and allowing HTML content on top of it. The simplest way of using it as a background is illustrated in the following example:

A minimalistic template is provided. See the Templete.html file and replace "HTML CONTENT GOES HERE!" with custom html.