pong collisions and movement

[weefolk]

I may have asked this a while ago, but i'll ask anyway because if i did i rephrased it now.
I'm making pong for my first game and I need help making collisions between the ball, the paddle, and the walls (objects the same color as the background)
I have it so the paddle can't move off the screen but i can't figure out how i would change the ball's direction when it collides with something. what's a good way to go about this?

[NTD]

Hi,

This can be done by assigning a variable such as speed to an objects _x or _y position in an enterframe event. Then, when you want to reverse direction, simply apply negative to the speed variable. To see this in practice, create a new movie with a circle movieclip named "ball". Paste this onto the first frame of the movie...

speed = 10;
this.onEnterFrame = function() {
	if (ball._x>=Stage.width) {
		speed = -speed;
	&#125; else if &#40;ball._x<=0&#41; &#123;
		speed = -speed;
	&#125;
	ball._x += speed;
&#125;

The above only accounts for motion on the _x axis. The same thing would need to apply for the _y axis. To further the above example to include motion on both axis and create a boundary to show the ball bouncing off different boundaries,......... remove the above posted code from frame 1 and replace it with the following function....

function ballBounce(myTarget) {
	speedY = 10;
	speedX = 8;
	walls = 300;
	top = 100;
	bottom = 300;
	r = myTarget._width/2;
	_root.createEmptyMovieClip("outline", 1);
	with (_root.outline) {
		lineStyle(1, 0xFF00FF, 100);
		moveTo(top, bottom);
		lineTo(top, bottom);
		lineTo(walls, bottom);
		lineTo(walls, top);
		lineTo(top, top);
		lineTo(top, bottom);
	}
	this.onEnterFrame = function() {
		posY = myTarget._y+speedY;
		posX = myTarget._x+speedX;
		if (posY>(bottom-r)) {
			myTarget._y = bottom-r;
			speedY = -speedY;
		&#125; else if &#40;posY<top+r&#41; &#123;
			myTarget._y = top+r;
			speedY = -speedY;
		&#125; else &#123;
			myTarget._y = myTarget._y+speedY;
		&#125;
		if &#40;posX>&#40;walls-r&#41;&#41; &#123;
			myTarget._x = walls-r;
			speedX = -speedX;
		&#125; else if &#40;posX<top+r&#41; &#123;
			myTarget._x = top+r;
			speedX = -speedX;
		&#125; else &#123;
			myTarget._x += speedX;
		&#125;
	&#125;
&#125;
ballBounce&#40;ball&#41;;

This should help you understand the motion involved. You will need to research the hitTest method for detecting when movieclips collide to create a paddle that will change the speed variables upon contact.

Regards
NTD