Part 2b: Port of the 'ol "Java Vectorballs". Okay, so this time I strip it right back. I chuck all the Tree build and walk code (including my nice no-recursion version) and just load the "Balls" and "Ball Movie Clips" into arrays and call Array.sort with a custom compare function, furthermore I re-institute the single Ball clip with multiple frames for each colour, avoid actually changing the clip depths, bump up the frame rate and throw away a whole bunch of code. I also Re-factor all the objects to minimize calling... and guess what?
Well, the sorting works now, so my Tree stuff must have had a bug, but other than that it's STILL slow as pigshit. So then I dump the bitmap balls and replace with the vector art balls (again) and see VIRTUALLY NO DIFFERENCE in speed (ok maybe a teeny tiny little quicker). Okay, what's costing me CPU here?
By the way, in case you've forgotten/never seen this is what I'm aiming for.