Away3d 2.2 is now released! So it is time to start dipping into the new features available, and demo some of what’s on offer.

One of the biggest new features in 2.2 is triangle caching. This is a way to speed up scenes with static cameras, and (some) static content. The demo above shows how Away3d can now handle around 50,000 polys rendered to screen without too much hassle, while maintaining interactivity and framerate. This is accomplished by automatically detecting when a triangle mesh require redrawing, and skipping that step when it isn’t required.

You can view the turtles from any angle, but in order to maintain framerates while moving around, a wireframe model is swapped in from the point the camera starts moving. Once things are static again, triangle caching automatically kicks in. The beauty of this feature is that it will work on your existing Away3d applications without any modifications - if triangle caching can be employed, Away3d will use it!

Source code is available here, or in the right-click menu of the demo. The use of ownCanvas in the source is something to note - it essentially allows boundaries to be defined for different areas of caching in a scene. When an object has it’s own drawing canvas with ownCanvas enabled, it has it’s own caching routine that updates separately to other areas of the scene. So if you have a definite separation between objects that are static and objects that move (or in this case have their materials updated), enabling ownCanvas on a moving object will ensure only that container has a redraw triggered, allowing the rest of the scene to remain cached and keeping framerates high.

More demos of the new features of Away3d 2.2 should be arriving here soon. In the meantime, check out the latest svn source or visit the Away3d downloads page for zip files.

So Wednesday this week is the day the new LHC supercollider is switched on at CERN. And apparently, worse case scenario doesn’t just include the usual suspects - like funding for the project running out - but a black hole being created and swallowing the earth.

I do love it what the media latches onto scientific events such as these, because they consistently feel duty bound to simplify things to the point where they no longer make sense. I mean - liking the supercollider to “An enormous microscope”? Right, that’s a perfect analogy, if you imagine a microscope working by smashing thing with an enormous hammer and then classifying the resulting bits by how far they flew.

Scientists conducting the experiment are essentially looking for something that hasn’t yet been observed in the Standard Model (the current accepted wisdom of particles physicists) - the Higgs Boson. So because they don’t know exactly what it will be, anything could happen, right?

I do have some sympathy for critics to this event. The Standard Model is a terrible theory - not because of it’s accuracy or predictive power (which has been very good thus far), but because of it’s seemingly lunatic-assembled rules and definitions - which sit together like some sort of ugly tangled web. If beauty is indeed truth, then we could safely assume that the theory presented in particle physics today is complete tosh, which might be why they’re having trouble finding the last few bits in experimental results…

But my sympathy quickly evaporates when you actually look at the postulated dangers from the scientists against the LHC (who are at present frantically filing lawsuits to try and delay it’s switching on). First off is the theory that micro-black holes could form and slowly eat the earth over a period of 4 years. This completely ignores the widely held belief that exactly the same kind of collisions are produced on the earth naturally, and even if micro black holes were formed, they cannot be surviving otherwise we’d already know. Second is the theory that the 120 tons of superfluid Helium II (used as coolant in the LHC’s superconducting magnets) could explode in a bosenova which would essentially be like an enormous thermonuclear detonation, but presumably with latin beats. These events are described as “inexplicable phenomenon”, which is not exactly hard evidence that one will be formed here. I mean, is there anything we know the LHC won’t do?

Sadly, i feel the media frenzy surrounding the fear of the unknown will quickly evaoprate once the damn thing actually goes online. And that’s a pity, because modern-day scientific discoveries do seem to suffer from a media blackout. For example, can you remember who won the Nobel prize for physics last year? Or in the last 10? Here’s hoping future LHC discoveries have a public interest that last a bit longer than a decaying Higgs Boson…

*** Update ***

Hooray! we’re still here! Although now CERN tell us they haven’t actually started smashing protons yet - and that won’t happen for another 2 months while things are calibrated. Doh! Another two months of suspense…

The latest trunk version of Away3d (currently version 2.1.7) has several new and exciting features which are to be officially released in the upcoming 2.2 version. However, being the enterprising souls that you are, i thought you may want to see some of whats on offer a little ahead of schedule!

This demo shows off a new feature to Away3d - full support for collada bones animation. A nice feature about bones is that they can control any number of meshes without incurring significant extra processing overhead. Of course, full source is available here, but make sure you have the latest trunk version of Away3d before compiling.

Those of you who were at the recent Flashforward conference many have seen me stumble through a whistlestop rundown of Away3d features at the Speaker Slam, after being denied a place to plugin my laptop. However, had I been able to do so, this demo is part of what you would have seen. At my next speaker gig at Flash on the Beach, I’ll have more opportunity to reveal the whole piece that this fits into… not wanting to give things away, but it ends up involving wiimotes. Stay tuned!