Importing the API

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import flash.filters.BevelFilter

Assigning the settings

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BevelFilter = new BevelFilter ([Settings])

The settings are formatted as:

Distance: Default = 4
The distance of the bevel, this should be given as a number equating to pixels.

Angle:  Default = 45
The angle of the bevel, this should be given as a number between 0 and 360, if 0 is used then there is no offset and will have no effect on the bevel.

Highlight Colour:  Default = 0xFFFFFF
The highlight colour of the bevel, this should be given in hexidecimal format such as 0xFF33cc, or 0x33cc33

Highlight Alpha: Default = 1The transparency value of the highlight colour, this should be given as a value between 0 and 1, so .25 would be 25% and .36 would be 36%, Remember 1 is completely opaque and 0 is completely transparent.

Shadow Colour: Default = 0×000000
The shadow colour of the bevel, another hexadecimal format.
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Importing the api

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import flash.filters.BlurFilter

The filter itself only uses three settings; xblur, yblur and quality

Assigning and applying the filter

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Blur = new BlurFilter(100,200,3)
Filters = new Array()
Filters.push(Blur)
Object.filters = Filters

So now the object with instance name Object has the blur filter applied to it.

The blur filter is one of the easiest filters to use and here’s why:

xblur : the distance of blur on the x axis
yblur : the distance of blur on the y axis
quality : the quality of the blur, for lots of blurs minimise this but for limited then you can use a higher quality. There isn’t much difference just the sharpness.

Ok, let’s take a look at the colour matrix filter

Basically it’s a matrix. I prefer to call it an array – we all know what they are…

Anyway, it’s a 20 part array, a 5×4 (20) element array. Let’s take a look at one…

So, let’s take a look at the formula…

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red = a[0] * origRed + a[1] * origGreen + a[2] * origBlue + a[3] * origAlpha + a[4]
green = a[5] * origRed + a[6] * origGreen + a[7] * origBlue + a[8] * origAlpha + a[9]
blue = a[10] * origRed + a[11] * origGreen + a[12] * origBlue + a[13] * origAlpha + a[14]
alpha = a[15] * origRed + a[16] * origGreen + a[17] * origBlue + a[18] * origAlpha + a[19]

This shows us that;

Tthe values in the first row determine the resulting red value, the second row the green value, the third row the blue value, and the fourth row the alpha value. You can also see that the values in the first four columns are multiplied with the source red, green, blue, and alpha values, while the fifth column value is added (offset). Note that the source and result values for each channel range between 0 and 255.

Greyscale, blacks whites and greys

How can we accomplish this… Let’s take another look at the matrix:

Ok, so if we think about it if we had all the red, green and blue channels the same that would be greyscale

That’s because there is no more red than green or blue and so it will be grey…

ok, let’s see:

Half of all the colours resulting in mid-grey and also all the same resulting in a greyscale effect…

Contrast time

Firstly, we need an input; redSaturation greenSaturation and blueSaturation are your input variables.

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redSaturation += 1
greenSaturation += 1
bueSaturation += 1

Now, all we need is that array…

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change = new Array(redSaturation, 0, 0, 0, 128*(1-redSaturation), 0, greenSaturation, 0, 0, 128*(1-greenSaturation), 0, 0, bueSaturation, 0, 128*(1-bueSaturation), 0, 0, 0, 1, 0)