@RokCoder's Fireworks remixed by gregatku Click the Green Flag and watch the Fireworks! (... and there's a hidden Easter Egg to find?)
All the real work is @RokCoder's. His project is the culmination or end-product of his series of Tutorials on how to make such a Project, which you can find here: https://youtu.be/yM3RkuMtDCU I just tweaked it a little, first to limit random Colour selection to the 3.0 range of 0-99 (but this has no impact). Second I wanted the Starburst of a Rocket to burst into its complementary colour & I added a saturation parameter because I wanted to see more light-like colours. Finally I used gradient shading on the backdrop so that it was more a navy colour near the horizon. Whether or not you think these changes are improvements, is completely in the eye of the beholder. Then I got carried away with it when I noticed that all descending fragments appeared to be rising, when you froze the project (eg. by clicking the Stop button) and you couldn't tell which way the rockets were going. Tried to convince @RokCoder he should change his code & tutorials accordingly, but he wasn't buying it, so I did it myself. I think I did an okay job. But really with all the subsequent changes documented below, many of them were essentially joint efforts between myself & @Rokcoder, because he helped me with so many of them, as evidenced by the huge chain of project Comments between us. Then finally I slightly increased the frequency with which the Fireworks appear. But as soon as I'd done that I suddenly decided I wanted the Fireworks to be in a variety of sizes. Well now that's done, I think it's time I put it to bed. But NO! Then @RokCoder asked me what's next & after telling him it was midnight & time for bed. I realised I had a bug. In the hour I spent fixing the bug, I had a think about what might be next, and suddenly it jumped out at me, the Firework fragments needed tapered Tails. So now they have them. Perhaps I am finished with this baby now. But perhaps not? Of course I wasn't. I was a little disappointed with the fact that with my slightly increased frequency of the release of the fireworks, that the drawing of them slowed down somewhat on some devices, and also in full-screen mode. @RokCoder suggested I look into his 4000 Thank Yous Project, to see how he modifies the amount of activity based on how long it takes to do things. He thereby introduced me to to the Brave New World of Frame Rate monitoring & adjusting what a project does based on how long it is taking to do what it has to do. In my case the rate of release of new Fireworks is slowed down when the project can't keep pace with the large number of fireworks it has to draw & sped up when it is coping well. I hope I did it right, it seems to be doing its job. To help me see if modifying Lo (minimum delay to next Rocket) & Hi (maximum delay to next Rocket) based on the frame rate is actually helping prevent the code from being unable to show everything it's meant to, fast enough, you can now see both Lo, Hi & the # of fireworks present, by clicking the Stage. Click it again and they'll disappear. And then there was more ... suddenly I wondered why all the fireworks break into the same number of fragments and why the starbursts always split the same number of ways? Well they don't any more! Then I realised that too many Firework fragments were having starbursts, so I reduced the frequency with which that happens. I also noticed that falling fragments (that didn't have a starburst), weren't fading as they fell ... they are now. And then at the last minute I decided I wanted longer tails. Perhaps it's done now! NO - maybe it never will be. I had wanted to add a Catherine Wheel type effect as a hidden Easter Egg, but @RokCoder was tinkering and beat me to it. He was kind enough to share with me, the mathematics he'd used to create the effect. Once applied to my project I wanted to tinker with it a bit myself. First I wanted them to appear a bit more frequently and then be thrown out more, rather than in the tight circles @RokCoder had. They were simple enough changes, but then I wanted half of them to spin clockwise and half of them to spin anti-clockwise, which was a little more work, but it's done now. This is so much fun! Thanks @RokCoder. It was fun playing around with it. You're one of the few who will read this far down so I'm sure you'll see this, but there is now a hidden Easter Egg for those who do read this far ... any time after you have clicked the Green Flag, click the Stage anywhere in its bottom third. Enjoy! I have made lots of subtle tweaks since generation 24 when I introduced the Easter Egg, but I am over the Moon about a Light Bulb moment I had for generation 39 ... It's an extra Sprite (a few bitmap mode pixels near the bottom left corner) that appears when Easter Egg is on. Oh and when you've switched on Easter Egg Mode, you can switch the sheet fireworks (under the Bridge), Off/On by clicking the flashing Sydney sign.
