AS3: Dynamically Loading Sounds in FlashDevelop

Dynamically Loading Sounds in FlashDevelop

Dynamically loading sounds in an AS3 movies allows you to store files seperately from your movie. Depending on where and how your sound is stored there may be significant time involved in loading it. Another method of using sound in your movie by embedding it directly into your movie can be found here.

The Set Up:

• Either upload sound to your own webspace, or find the address to one online to use for testing. The sound must be formatted as a mp3 to be loaded into a movie.
• Create a new AS3 project space in FlashDevelop.

Non-blocking image load:

• ... Non-Blocking?:
  Loading an image without Blocking means that while the sound is being loaded, code continues to run. This is a problem if the application demands that the sound plays immediately when you call Sound.play(). However, blocking sound loading takes some foresight in AS3, and non-blocking sound loading is adequate for many situations. If you need your sound to play immediately when you call Sound.play() and are using this method, make sure you give your sound adequate time to load before calling play().

The Code:

   // entry point
   var loadedSound:Sound = new Sound(new URLRequest("http://sites.google.com/site/programmingetc/Home/sploosh.mp3")); // Begin loading sound from the web
   loadedSound.play(); // Sound will play after it has finished loading.

Line By Line:

1. Lines up with the "//entry point" comment that should be in the default as3 project in FlashDevelop.
2. Create a sound object. By providing it's constructor with a URLRequest, it will begin downloading the sound immediately, alternately you could call loadedSound.load(URLRequest).
3. Play the sound. Techinically this queue's it up to be played once it is finished loading.

.zip source for this project can be found here