Large vertical gradients not working like examples

Question

Hello guys, now this seems to be a very straight forward thing to do and there are loads of tutorials about the subject. None of them are helping me get this right though, and I can't for the life of me figure out what's wrong...
Im trying to create a simple gui component that has a vertical gradient, simple enough right... I create the sprite, and draw the gradient with beginGradientFill and a matrix with a 90 degree radian angle on it; but it stops working if the sprite has a long width, below is an exmaple of what I mean:
package
import flash.display.GradientType;
import flash.display.Shape;
import flash.display.Sprite;
import flash.geom.Matrix;
public class Main extends Sprite
public function Main()
var theWidth : Number = 800;
var theHeight: Number = 100;
var shape1:Shape = new Shape();
var matrix:Matrix = new Matrix();
matrix.createGradientBox(theWidth , theHeight, Math.PI*0.5, 0, 0);
var colors:Array = [ 0xffffff, 0x000000];
var alphas:Array = [ 100, 100];
var ratios:Array = [ 0, 255];
shape1.graphics.lineStyle(2,0xa1b0b6);
shape1.graphics.beginGradientFill(GradientType.LINEAR,colors, alphas, ratios, matrix);
shape1.graphics.drawRect( 0.0, 0.0, theWidth , theHeight);
shape1.graphics.endFill();
addChild(shape1);
If I change
matrix.createGradientBox(800, 100, Math.PI*0.5, 0, 0);
to
matrix.createGradientBox(800, 100, Math.PI, 0, 0);
it works fine - but horizontally - why is it that applying 90 degrees the fill does not work?
Thanks for your help, I really don't know whats wrong with this

Answer 1

Hi Rob, I'm really confused, if I create a new action script project and use the code i posted I get this:
As you can see its not going from white to black, but instead it just looks grey - although there is a gradient, it looks like its massive or something :S I don't get it
Im using flash builder 4, I create a new action script project, in the as file I paste that code into the constructor and run the application.
ps.. yes i know about the alphas need to be 1, it was a typo when i posted this, setting them to 1 doesn't seem to be my issue. Any other ideas?