Away3D: The Essential guide to 3D in Flash released
3d Flash, Publications June 1st, 2010
A slightly delayed announcement as the actual launch date occurred while i was away training Away3Ders in Sydney… but we now have our very first Away3D publication!
This has been a lot of work for everyone involved, and is a testament to the dedication of the core team and support of our community. The book serves as an ideal primer for anyone looking to get into 3D in Flash, or anyone who has used Away3D for a short while but is interested in cementing their knowledge. It covers a wide range of topics from basic primitive creation and interaction through to advanced features such as bones animation and 3D text manipulation, using the latest 2.5 & 3.5 double release as its code base. Each chapter is packed full of examples that teach underlying 3D concepts as well as the application of Away3D in a standard AS3 project, and the text provides initial setup assistance for whichever ActionScript editor you favour.
A web page at http://flash3dbook.com has been created to document where you can buy the book online, and is also the place we are hosting the errata doc which is keeping track of any minor corrections. Alternatively, go to Amazon or the publisher’s own page at www.friendsofed.com, the latter of which offers an eBook option, as well as all the necessary source files for the contained code examples.
Being one of the main authors makes it hard for me to give an accurate appraisal of the book without sounding egotistical… so feel free to comment your thoughts below if you have purchased the book recently and would like to submit a review – all opinions welcome!
June 1st, 2010 at 10:23 am
Thanks for writing such a great book, its exactly what I was looking for! I’m sorry to report a slight error in the 2nd chapter though. On page 26 and 27 at least, your code uses an _view which you never define. I’m assuming you mean view because that works fine
. Might want to add that to the errata. Thanks!
June 1st, 2010 at 11:09 am
Well done my friend! Your own book.
Can you now put your feet up and retire?
June 1st, 2010 at 11:14 am
Congratulation! Great timing, can i have your autograph please, thank you
June 2nd, 2010 at 4:41 am
Hey mate, congrats
The hell of writing is over and now begins the endless rounds of dinner parties and gala invites to enjoy the rewards of your hard work 
June 3rd, 2010 at 1:59 pm
In chapter 4, Drawing irregular lines in space there is an error in the example code. The start and end methods of a line segment take a Vertex, not a Number3D. I fixed this by adding two new vertex variables and setting their values to the number3D’s x,y,z values.
public class LineSegments extends ChapterFour
{
protected override function _createScene() : void
{
var i:int;
var p1:Number3D = new Number3D();
var p2:Number3D = new Number3D();
var ver1:Vertex = new Vertex();
var ver2:Vertex = new Vertex();
var seg:LineSegment;
for (i=0; i < 500; i++) {
p2.x = (Math.random()-0.5) * 200;
p2.y = (Math.random()-0.5) * 200;
p2.z = (Math.random()-0.5) * 200;
p2.add(p2, p1);
ver2.x = p2.x;
ver2.y = p2.y;
ver2.z = p2.z;
seg = new LineSegment();
seg.start = ver1;
seg.end = ver2;
_view.scene.addChild(seg);
p1.clone(p2);
ver1 = ver2.clone();
}
}
June 7th, 2010 at 1:26 pm
Hello Rob, I live in Brazil, I would like to know how to purchase this book here, as I do, how much is the value for $ for Brazil. Help me oh, I love Flash and study him very much, and I love the engine Away3D and I studied a lot, and I’m mad now behind this book, gives me strength oh!
Big hug and congratulations for the book, God bless you more and more for you to develop more enginers to Flash and so I learn more !!!!!
Answer me this e-mail: wpdas@yahoo.com.br (please (desperate))
June 7th, 2010 at 4:01 pm
@Oops, another one in Chapter 4
thanks for the report! It is being added to the errata doc
@Wenderson
You can easily buy the book in electronic form if you are living in a country with no FoED distributor – just go to this page and click on “buy as eBook”.
June 7th, 2010 at 9:26 pm
Rob, answer me one thing, as you did to make his first such 3D cube, without using any enginer, I say only in a class?? guy call me crazy here because I study very as3, but if I’m crazy, if you would talk to see that you are the owner of a hospice, you are super smart guy!
June 7th, 2010 at 9:29 pm
One more thing, do you think in a few days enginer Away3D will be as fast as the Unity??
June 8th, 2010 at 3:36 am
@Wenderson
Yes, simple shapes like cubes, spheres and cylinders can be created in Away3D just by instantiating a class. Iam not the owner of a hospice, but thank you for your kind words!
There is atm no code we can write in Away3D to be able to match Unity in terms of speed. We would need a GPU-accelerated Flash Player for that to be possible. Adobe?
June 8th, 2010 at 8:43 am
hmmm, understand, I’m sorry for “hospital” kkkk, then the truth is that Adobe has to find a way to improve the processing of FlashPlayer right?
Ok then hug you and thank you for information when I grow up I want to be like you!! euruerueeee:)
June 18th, 2010 at 4:04 am
Hi, congrats to your book! – In chapter 4 you want to load Models from an external file. The asset SWF is in the same dir as the chap 4 test SWF, but the document class is in a subfolder (flash3dbook.ch04). I didn’t find a way to define a document class from an AS-file that is in a subfolder – could you explain the setup of this very example in more detail, please? (“Creating a library of models”, p. 66ff)
Thanks in advance!
June 18th, 2010 at 8:26 am
Sorry for the previous comment! This is actually listed in the Errata page on flash3dbook.com. Could vou post a link to this errata page on friendsofed.com, too? ’cause there is nothing…
Thanx!
June 18th, 2010 at 6:36 pm
“Variable MonkeyMesh is not defined†error thrown when instantiating
loaded mesh class in LoadingAS3Models.as
Sorry again, but the errata for Chapter 4 does not work at all. First a class has to be imported (whch is not mentioned in the Errata; it is import flash.system.ApplicationDomain)
But then I still get the error:
/…/_Flash/Away3D_LoadingAS3Models.as, Line 62 1061: Call to a possibly undefined method getDefinitionByName through a reference with static type flash.system:ApplicationDomain.
Could you please post a correct solution?
Thanks!
June 18th, 2010 at 6:43 pm
OK – it should read getDefinition, not getDefinitionByName. My mistake, sorry!
July 5th, 2010 at 2:21 pm
@Bob
Sorry for the delayed response with this. We have been looking at the example you mentioned, and it seems in certain editors there is an error related to application domain permissions between swf files. If you run the example from CS4 you shouldn’t have these problems, but Flex, FlashDevelop etc might experience the errors you describe.
We have decided to update the sample sources that accompany the book with all class files created, so that we can ensure examples compile correctly. The update will be made in a new zip file that will be available for download from flash3dbook.com in the next few days.
October 20th, 2010 at 5:11 pm
I have been learning from the Essential Guide to 3D in Flash. I am mostly please with this fine book.
However, I’ve recently attempted to update to away3d_3.6 (and/or 3.5.2), but keep getting an error message about
1119: Access of possibly undefined property displayObject through a reference with static type away3d.core.utils:SpriteVO.
I’ve joined and posted to the groups at google, but no answer. I’m using Flash CS4 and Flash Player 10 (debug)
Your thoughts to enable using the new version would be appreciated.
TIA