One of those areas where open source projects tend to be weakest is in the documentation so news like this is always welcome. Starling, an open source Flash framework for creating 2D games such as Angry Birds, just released the Starling Manual. The manual is pretty comprehensive, weighing in
at over 200 printed page. Details from the announcement:
As is to be expected, the manual contains an overview about all important parts of Starling:
- The technologies Starling was built upon and the principles it follows.
- How to pick an IDE and set it up for your first project.
- The basic concepts like the display list, events and the animation system.
- Advanced techniques, like how to tap into the potential of fragment and vertex programs.
- How to get the best performance out of the framework.
- What’s required to get your game to run on mobile phones and tablets.
That makes it perfect for beginners. However, even if you know the old manual inside-out, you will learn lots of new tricks, for example:
- The role of the new Mesh class and how to use it for custom, textured shapes.
- How to make full use of Distance Field Rendering, introducing the all-new “Field Agent” utility.
- An in-depth introduction of Fragment Filters and Mesh Styles.
- A much better summary of the Event Handling mechanisms.
- Finally, up-to-date information about how best to tackle Multi-Resolution Development.
In short, I think there’s something for everybody! Please head over to manual.starling-framework.org and add a bookmark right away.
The manual is available to read online here, while you can learn more about the Starling framework here.