Visual

Base class for all visual elements in Ceramic.

Visuals are the building blocks to display things on screen. While a raw Visual doesn't render anything by itself, it serves as a container for other visuals and provides core functionality like transformation, hierarchy, and event handling.

Specialized visual classes like Quad, Mesh, Text, etc. extend this class to provide actual rendering capabilities.

Key features:

• Hierarchical parent-child relationships
• Transform properties (position, scale, rotation, skew)
• Event handling (pointer events, focus)
• Depth sorting and rendering order
• Hit testing and touch input
• Shader and blend mode support

Example usage:

var visual = new Visual();
visual.pos(100, 100);
visual.size(200, 150);
visual.onPointerDown(this, info -> {
    trace('Visual clicked at ${info.x}, ${info.y}');
});

Instance Members #

Get this visual typed as Quad or null if it isn't a Quad

Get this visual typed as Mesh or null if it isn't a Mesh

When enabled, this visual will receive as many up/down/click/over/out events as there are fingers or mouse pointer interacting with it. Default is false, ensuring there is never multiple up/down/click/over/out that overlap each other. In that case, it triggers pointer down when the first finger/pointer hits the visual and trigger pointer up when the last finger/pointer stops touching it. Behavior is similar for pointer over and pointer out events.

Whether this visual is between a pointer down and an pointer up event or not.

Whether this visual is between a pointer over and an pointer out event or not.

Use the given visual's bounds as clipping area for itself and every children. Clipping areas cannot be combined. That means if clip is not null and current visual instance is already clipped by a parent visual, its children's won't be clipped by it anymore as they are instead clipped by this clip property instead.

Whether this visual should inherit its parent alpha value or not. If it inherits, parent alpha value will be multiplied with current visual's own alpha property.

Computed flag that tells whether this visual is only translated, thus not rotated, skewed nor scaled. When this is true, matrix computation may be a bit faster as it will skip some unneeded matrix computation.

Whether we should re-check if this visual is only translating or having a more complex transform

Setting this to true will force the visual to recompute its displayed content

Setting this to true will force the visual's matrix to be re-computed

Setting this to true will force the visual's computed render target to be re-computed

Setting this to true will force the visual to compute it's visility in hierarchy

Setting this to true will force the visual to compute it's touchability in hierarchy

Setting this to true will force the visual to compute it's clipping state in hierarchy

If set, the visual will be rendered into this target RenderTexture instance instead of being drawn onto screen directly.

The blending to use for this visual.

Set to false to make this visual (and all of its children) invisible and not rendered.

Set to false to make this visual (and all of its children) not touchable

Set this visual's depth. Visuals are rendered from back to front of the screen. Given two visuals, a visual with higher depth will be rendered above a visual with lower depth. In practice, it is advised to use integer values like 1, 2, 3... to order your visuals, like you would do with z-index on CSS elements.

If set to 1 (default), children will be sort by depth and their computed depth will be within range [parent.depth, parent.depth + depthRange]. You'll usually won't need to change this value, unless you want to do advanced drawing where different hierarchies of visuals are blending with each other.

// Children computed depths will be relative to their parent visual depth.
// This is the default value and recommended approach in most situations as
// its behaviour is similar to display trees, z-index etc...
visual.depthRange = 1;

// More advanced, two visuals: visual2 above visual1 because of higher depth, but
// visual1's depth range is `8`, so its children computed depths will be distributed
// between `1` and `1 + 8` (9 excluded). That means some of visual1's children
// can be above visual2's children. Can be useful on some specific edge cases,
// but not recommended in general.
visual1.depthRange = 8;
visual1.depth = 1;
visual2.depth = 2;

// Another case: two visuals with the same depth and depthRange.
// There children will share the same computed depth space, so a child of visual1 at `depth = 6`
// will be above a child of visual2 at `depth = 4`.
// Resulting computed depths will be between `1` and `1 + 16` (17 excluded).
visual1.depthRange = 16
visual2.depthRange = 16
visual1.depth = 1;
visual2.depth = 1;

// Children computed depths won't be relative to their parent visual depth.
// Instead, it will be relative to the higher parent (of the parent) in hierarchy that has a positive `depthRange` value,
visual.depthRange = -1;

The x position of this visual. Relative to its parent, or screen if this visual has no parent.

The y position of this visual. Relative to its parent, or screen if this visual has no parent.

The scaleX value of this visual.

The scaleY value of this visual.

The skewX value of this visual.

The skewY value of this visual.

The anchorX value of this visual. Affects how position, scale, rotation and skew of the visual are rendered. Default is 0, which means: anchor relative to the left of the visual. Use 1 to make it relative to the right of the visual, or 0.5 to make it relative to the horizontal center of the visual.

The anchorY value of this visual. Affects how position, scale, rotation and skew of the visual are rendered. Default is 0, which means: anchor relative to the top of the visual. Use 1 to make it relative to the bottom of the visual, or 0.5 to make it relative to the vertical center of the visual.

The width of the visual. Default is 0. Can be set to an explicit value. Some subclasses of Visual are computing it automatically like Text from its textual content or Quad when a texture is assigned to it.

The height of the visual. Default is 0. Can be set to an explicit value. Some subclasses of Visual are computing it automatically like Text from its textual content or Quad when a texture is assigned to it.

If set to a value above zero, matrix translation (tx & ty) will be rounded.

roundTranslation = 0; // No rounding (default)
roundTranslation = 1; // Pixel perfect rounding
roundTranslation = 2; // Half-pixel rounding

May be useful to render pixel perfect scenes onto ceramic.Filter.

Rotation of the visual in degrees. The center of the rotation depends on anchorX and anchorY.

Alpha of the visual. Must be a value between 0 (transparent) and 1 (fully opaque)

Visual X translation. This is a shorthand equivalent to assigning a Transform object to the visual with a tx value of translateX. Only recommended for advanced usage as x property should be used in general instead.

Visual Y translation. This is a shorthand equivalent to assigning a Transform object to the visual with a ty value of translateY. Only recommended for advanced usage as y property should be used in general instead.

Set additional matrix-based transform to this visual. Default is null. A Transform object will affect of the visual is rendered. The transform is applied after visual's properties (position, rotation, scale, skew).

Assign a shader to this visual. When none is assigned, default shader will be used.

Whether this visual is active. Default is true. When setting it to false, the visual won't be visible nor touchable anymore (these get set to false). When restoring active to true, visible and touchable will also get back their previous state. If you want to keep a visual around without it being displayed or interactive, simply set its active property to false. It will be almost like it doesn't exist and its impact on rendering will be minimal.

Computed visible value. This is true if this visual is visible and all of its parents are visible. If you want to know if a visual is visible on screen, you should check with this property and not visible property, which doesn't account for parent visibility.

Computed alpha value. This is the combination of this visual's alpha and its parent alpha if inheritAlpha is true

Computed depth value. This is the final depth used by rendering, computed from this visual's depth and depthRange properties and its hierarchy of parent visuals.

Computed render target. When a visual has a renderTarget assigned, its computedRenderTarget will be assigned with the same instance, and its children's computedRenderTarget property as well.

Computed touchable value. This is true if this visual is touchable and all of its parents are touchable.

If any parent of this visual has a clip visual assigned, this will be the computed/resolved visual.

A visual can have children. Children positions and transformations are relative to their parent. This property is read only. Use add() to add children to this visual and remove() to remove them. The order on the visuals in children should not be used to predict the order in which visuals are rendered. If you want to control the order of rendering of visuals, use depth property on the children instead.

The parent visual if there is any, or null if this visual doesn't have any parent.

Stop this visual, whatever that means (override in subclasses). When arcade physics are enabled, visual's body is stopped from this call.

Read and write arbitrary boolean flags on this visual. Index should be between 0 (included) and 16 (excluded) or result is undefined.

Shorthand to set width and height in a single call.

Shorthand to set anchorX and anchorY in a single call.

Shorthand to set x and y in a single call.

Shorthand to set scaleX and scaleY in a single call.

Shorthand to set skewX and skewY in a single call.

Shorthand to set translateX and translateY in a single call.

Change the visual's anchor but ensure the visual keeps its current position. This is similar to anchor(anchorX, anchorY) but visual with have its x and y properties updated to ensure it stays at the same position as before changing anchor.

Returns the first child matching the requested id or null otherwise.

Returns the first child matching the requested type or null otherwise.

Destroy the visual. When a visual is destroyed, clear() is called, which means all children are removed and destroyed. Events owned by this visual and events on this visual are unbound so they don't need to be unbound explicitly. As soon as destroy() is called, the destroyed property becomes true.

Remove and destroy all children.

Returns true if screen (x, y) screen coordinates hit/intersect this visual visible bounds

Assign x and y to given point after converting them from screen coordinates to current visual coordinates.

Assign x and y to given point after converting them from current visual coordinates to screen coordinates.

Extract current visual transformation and write it into the given transform

Compute content on this visual. This method is expected to be overrided in Visual subclasses to compute actual content (raw Visual class doesn't do anything).

Will walk on every children and set their depths starting from start and incrementing depth by step.

Sort children by depth in ascending order. This will simply reorder children in children array. No depth value will be changed on any child.

This is the equivalent of calling sortChildrenByDepth() followed with autoChildrenDepth()

Check if current visual has targetParent as parent visual. The parent can possibly be indirect, meaning it can be the parent of the parent of the visual etc...

Returns the first parent (can be indirect) of this visual that matches the given class or null if none is matching

Add the given visual as a child. When a visual is added as a child, it's parent property is updated and it will follow parent transformation in addition to its own.

Remove the child from current visual.

Returns true if the current visual contains this child. When recursive option is true, will return true if the current visual contains this child or one of its direct or indirect children does.

Compute bounds from children this visual contains. This overwrites width, height, anchorX and anchorY properties accordingly. Warning: this may be an expensive operation.

Will set this visual size to native screen size. This is different than bindToScreenSize() because it will ignore logical screen scaling. Use that if you want to provide visuals that should keep the same pixel size when the window changes size and scales its content. If needed, a Transform instance will be created and assigned to transform property.

Will set this visual size to screen size

Will set this visual size to target size (settings.targetWidth and settings.targetHeight)

Create a new Visual

The arcade physics body bound to this visual.

The arcade physics body linked to this visual

Allow this visual to be rotated by arcade physics, via angularVelocity, etc...

An immovable visual will not receive any impacts from other visual bodies. Two immovable visuas can't separate or exchange momentum and will pass through each other.

If set to true, arcade world will always separate on the X axis before Y when this body is involved. Otherwise it will check gravity totals first.

The x velocity, or rate of change the visual position. Measured in points per second.

The y velocity, or rate of change the visual position. Measured in points per second.

The maximum x velocity that the visual can reach.

The maximum y velocity that the visual can reach.

The x acceleration is the rate of change of the x velocity. Measured in points per second squared.

The y acceleration is the rate of change of the y velocity. Measured in points per second squared.

Allow this visual to be influenced by drag

The x drag is the rate of reduction of the x velocity, kind of deceleration. Measured in points per second squared.

The y drag is the rate of reduction of the y velocity, kind of deceleration. Measured in points per second squared.

The x elasticity of the visual when colliding. bounceX = 1 means full rebound, bounceX = 0.5 means 50% rebound velocity.

The y elasticity of the visual when colliding. bounceY = 1 means full rebound, bounceY = 0.5 means 50% rebound velocity.

Enable or disable world bounds specific bounce value with worldBounceX and worldBounceY. Disabled by default, meaning bounceX and bounceY are used by default.

The x elasticity of the visual when colliding with world bounds. Ignored if useWorldBounce is false (bounceX used instead).

The y elasticity of the visual when colliding with world bounds. Ignored if useWorldBounce is false (bounceY used instead).

The maximum x delta per frame. 0 (default) means no maximum delta.

The maximum y delta per frame. 0 (default) means no maximum delta.

Allow this visual to be influenced by gravity, either world or local.

This visual's local y gravity, added to any world gravity, unless allowGravity is set to false.

This visual's local x gravity, added to any world gravity, unless allowGravity is set to false.

If this visual is immovable and moving, and another visual body is 'riding' this one, this is the amount of motion the riding body receives on x axis.

If this visual is immovable and moving, and another visual body is 'riding' this one, this is the amount of motion the riding body receives on y axis.

The angular velocity is the rate of change of the visual's rotation. It is measured in degrees per second.

The maximum angular velocity in degrees per second that the visual can reach.

The angular acceleration is the rate of change of the angular velocity. Measured in degrees per second squared.

The angular drag is the rate of reduction of the angular velocity. Measured in degrees per second squared.

The mass of the visual's body. When two bodies collide their mass is used in the calculation to determine the exchange of velocity.

The speed of the visual's body (read only). Equal to the magnitude of the velocity.

Whether the physics system should update the visual's position and rotation based on its velocity, acceleration, drag, and gravity.

When this visual's body collides with another, the amount of overlap (x axis) is stored here.

When this visual's body collides with another, the amount of overlap (y axis) is stored here.

If a visual's body is overlapping with another body, but neither of them are moving (maybe they spawned on-top of each other?) this is set to true.

A visual body can be set to collide against the world bounds automatically and rebound back into the world if this is set to true. Otherwise it will leave the world.

Init arcade physics (body) bound to this visual.

Set velocity, or rate of change of the visual position. Measured in points per second.

Set maximum velocity that the visual can reach.

Set acceleration, which is the rate of change of the velocity. Measured in points per second squared.

Set drag, which is the rate of reduction of the velocity, kind of deceleration. Measured in points per second squared.

Set elasticity of the visual when colliding. 1 means full rebound, 0.5 means 50% rebound velocity.

The elasticity of the visual when colliding with world bounds. Ignored if useWorldBounce is false (bounceY used instead).

The max delta, or rate of change the visual position. Measured in points per second.

This visual's local gravity, added to any world gravity, unless allowGravity is set to false.

If this visual is immovable and moving, and another visual body is 'riding' this one, this is the amount of motion the riding body receives on x & y axis.

The nape physics (body) of this visual.

Init nape physics body bound to this visual.

Private Members #

Just a way to store some flags. 32 boolean values stored inside an Int.

Compute children depth. The result depends on whether a parent defines a custom depthRange value or not.

Fired when a pointer (touch or mouse) is down on the visual

Fired when a pointer (touch or mouse) was down on the visual and is not anymore

Fired when a pointer (touch or mouse) is over the visual

Fired when a pointer (touch or mouse) was over the visual and is not anymore

Fired when this visual gains focus (after handling a pointer event)

Fired when this visual loses focus

Dispatched when this visual body collides with another visual's body.

Dispatched when this visual body overlaps with another visual's body.

Dispatched when this visual body collides with another body.

Dispatched when this visual body overlaps with another body.

Dispatched when this visual body collides with the world bounds.

Read and write arbitrary boolean flags on this visual. Index should be between 0 (included) and 16 (excluded) or result is undefined. /!\ Reserved for internal use

Called when this visual's transform has changed

Called when this visual's matrix needs to be recomputed

The actual hit test performed on the visual. If needed to change how hit test is performed on a visual subclass, this is the method to override.

Override this method in subclasses to intercept hitting pointer down events on this visual's children (any level in sub-hierarchy). Return true to stop an event from being triggered on the hitting child, false (default) otherwise.

Override this method in subclasses to intercept hitting pointer over events on this visual's children (any level in sub-hierarchy). Return true to stop an event from being triggered on the hitting child, false (default) otherwise.

Metadata #