This started out as a demo for the depth-of-field sprite object, but quickly metamorphosed into something involving blendmodes, bitmap sessions, marbles…

With the tiled atoms in the background, strictly speaking the dof shouldn’t be apparent at all, but i do suffer from tweak obsession, so probably best to leave it. I may do another demo soon to illustrate the DofSprite2D object in more detail. For now, enjoy! Although please don’t stare at the background too long - might do irreversible psychological damage. As usual, sources can be accessed using the right-click menu or from here.

Next week I’ll be landing in Sydney to give a presentation and a workshop session all about web 3d. The workshop on the 11th will be focussing on how the Flash player can be used as a 3d engine using Papervision and Away3d, while the session on the 13th takes a broader look at how 3d on the web has progressed since the inception of VRML in 1994. While some of the old applications verged on 3d abuse, the present possibilities in Flash offer a way of marrying rich media design with simple, effective 3d UI’s that could be considered a step forward in web evolution.

I’m not looking forward to the flights, but I am certainly looking forward to the event! See you at the barbie

This update of the Away3d engine has one overriding purpose - to make things easier to use!

The updated livedocs section of the site has been completed for all classes, with a new version available in the trunk of the svn repository, accompanying the source. There is also a new folder for demos that exists as an svn folder and a new zip file in the downloads section of the site. Accompanying these updates are a fair few framework tweaks to aid the use of the engine - my personal favourite being the new setter properties on all 3d primitives that can be adjusted on the fly!

For more information about the update, you can read the release announcement on Away3d.com.

…now with source code!

right click on the flash movie or go direct to the source here. Obviously i can’t include the track with the download, but this is a good chance to experiment with your own music running through the demo - might look completely different!
The supplied source uses the latest code from the Away3d svn trunk. I will make sure the download zips on the Away3d site are updated with the same code asap. Some fixes were made to the BitmapRenderSession class, which has been simplified to just specify a pixel scale for the resulting render. You can get a nice speed boost with this class when using a lot of filter effects - as is the case here!

With Away3d 2.0, some interesting effects are now possible using a combination of tiled textures, ownCanvas objects and blendModes. Salt flats Ferrari demonstrates that you don’t necessarily have to raytrace a scene in order to get that reflective polished look, just use some texture mirroring trickery and a multiply blend mode!

The source for this demo also shows how a tiled texture can be transformed on the surface of an object to give the illusion of movement without having to worry about nasty clipping planes. Could be a game in this somewhere… although for authenticity, I may have to swap the F360 for a Lotus Esprit

Away3d svn

Away3d source zip files

…back by popular demand!

The third session is booked for 28th-29th May and will be a good introduction to anyone wanting to create 3d in Flash. Covers Papervision and Away3d engines, including the new features recently released on both fronts, and some nice new demos too.

More details can be found on the LFPUG training page, and this time places are still available! Looking forward to it already.

There have been a few questions recently on both the Away3d and Papervision mailing lists about projecting textures, so i figured a demo was in order to help the explanation along, plus give me an excuse to play with caustic generators . This demo also uses Away3d’s tiling material feature to allow a seamless repeating lightmap to be projected onto the surface of an object.

As usual the source is available in the right click menu or directly from here. To run the code you’ll also need the 2.0.0 version of Away3d from the svn or the downloads section of the site. For now the shading isn’t entirely accurate, as the intensity of the lightmap does not vary with face normal. We’ll be having a look at the possibilities of achieving this, along with other texture projection techniques such as shadows, in the next major revision of Away3d.

The update is here! There has been a lot of activity around engine development, with my recent training class attendees getting a special pre-release 1.9.5 version that after further tweaking has now been launched to the wider world as Away3d 2.0.

full details of the update are present on the Away3d site. The demo we have here is a showcase of some of the new materials - a rehash of a slightly older version you may have seen last November… only this time, we have source code!

As usual, the latest source for the Away3d engine can be obtained from the svn repository or via the download page of Away3d.com. More demos with source code are on their way…

Here’s a little teaser for the upcoming release of Away3d 1.9.5 - something I’ve spent too long tweaking and need to upload so that i can get on with some proper work! It’s my first attempt at an audio visualiser - i call it Supernova.

The rendering uses the new BitmapRenderSession class to be released with 1.9.5 that takes especially good care of filters, certainly there are a few in action here…

I’ve also included a fullscreen option that runs with accelerated bitmap scaling, just to see how it handles all those filters. Does a pretty decent job - hit return in the demo to see it for yourself (you will need the 9.0.115 revision of the Flash Player).

Recent updates to the trunk build of Away3d include a revamped 3DS file importer. Enhancements include:

• Multiple mesh support
• Automatic texture loading
• Individual material support for faces

The update is based on AS3 code supplied by Masi Woermann, to whom i now owe a beer . You can download the source for the demo above by using the right-click ‘View Source’ option on the background of the swf

Plans to include auto texture loading for other formats that allow it are in the pipeline…