Timed random rectangles in AS3

In this tutorial you will learn how to create randomly coloured and sized rectangles on the stage at timed internals. To achieve this effect I have used the timer class to set a timer delay of 500 milliseconds which will trigger a function to create rectangles on the stage. The rectangles are created using the drawRect() method from the Graphics class.

Timed random rectangles in Actionscript 3

Step 1

Open a new Flash AS3 file then open up the Actions panel and enter the following code.

//This creates a new instance of the timer class with a delay of 500 milliseconds.
var myTimer:Timer=new Timer(500);

//Adds an event listener to the timer which will trigger the randomCircles function
//every 500 milliseconds.
myTimer.addEventListener(TimerEvent.TIMER, randomCircles);

//Starts the timer.
myTimer.start();

function randomCircles(event:TimerEvent):void {
    //The randomColour variable will give a random colour.
    var randomColour:int = Math.floor(Math.random() * 0xFFFFFF);
   
    //The randomSize will give a random size between 10 - 100.
    var randomSize:int = Math.floor(Math.random() * 100) +10;
   
    //This creates a new instance of the shape class with
    //random colour and size.
    var myRect:Shape = new Shape();
    myRect.graphics.beginFill(randomColour, 1);
    myRect.graphics.drawRect(0,0, randomSize, randomSize);
    myRect.graphics.endFill();       
   
    //This places the rectangle on the random position on the stage.
    myRect.x = Math.floor(Math.random() * stage.stageWidth);
    myRect.y = Math.floor(Math.random() * stage.stageHeight);
   
    //Add the rectangle on the stage.
    addChild(myRect);
}

Step 2

Test your movie Ctrl + Enter.