Strata’s Live 3d tool already allows the export of 3d content created in packages such as Maya, 3d Studio Max and Strata’s own Strata 3D CX in an optimised java applet for the web. The Away3d Team have partnered with Strata in order to allow the export of 3d content in Flash, providing more compatibility thanks to the ubiquity of the Flash plugin.

This should be great news for any designers using 3d in Flash - and opens the door for future collaboration aimed at improving the workflow for 3d Flash projects. For the full story go to http://away3d.com/away3d-enters-into-partnership-with-strata

It’s not every day you come home to a burning building - thankfully it wasn’t my flat! At first i had no idea where the fire was - i just knew the police had roped off all the streets around where i was trying to go. Got a pretty good view of the flames at one point - easily reaching higher than the 3-storey Hawley Arms they eventually engulfed.

As usual, the BBC had the best coverage, while at the same time being the slowest to react. I still prefer that approach to Sky News, however, who had more videos on their site but kept making stuff up about the area on their rolling news channel. Sensationalist as ever, but even after all their overuse of the word “Tragedy”, no one was hurt (which was almost as amazing as the fire itself).

A big thank you to everyone who turned up at last month’s LFPUG. The slides were created using Away3d, and can be viewed (complete with fancy stargate-style transition) by clicking the picture above. Navigate using the up/down/left/right arrow keys. You can also access the source files here, which will work with the current release of Away3d (1.9.3) and Tweener packages.

*UPDATE* video now available here on the LFPUG site!

Additionally, here are some of the links that featured in the pres.

VRML links:

• Plugin Detector
• Interactive Robot
• Dungeon Demo
• Cybertown

Java3d links:

• Java3d webstart examples
• Java3d plugin for mac

Shockwave3d links:

• Simple Shockwave demos
• www.shockwave3d.com

Sandy 1.0 ( Flash 8 ) links:

• Kitty demo
  
• Johnnie Walker

Papervision links:

• 3d Speedpool
  
• National Geographic Globe
• Dutch Railways

Away3d links:

• Tiltviewer
• Fifa Street 3
• Hummingbird (part of Aviary suite)
• Evoflash ADHDTV

OpenGL ES links:

• Plugin info
• Teapot

Misc. links:

• Sandy
• Papervision3D
• Away3d
• Google Sketchup (free version)
• EvoEngine Effects / Demo library

The trunk version of Away3d found here has been updated to a release candidate version for 1.9.3. Full details of the additions in this release will be announced when the final build is tagged, but for now, here’s a sneak peek of the new projection and layering options available within the updated trunk classes. The source for this demo is also available - just right click on the swf background for a ‘View Source’ option. You will need to download the latest trunk build to publish the swf.

Rob

*Update:*  Away3D version 1.9.3 is now available via svn or downloads section of away3d.com.

While having a brief respite from the pressures of the very real 3d world, I managed to slot in a game for my friends over at creativestream. It’s a tribute to the slightly backward but still immensely popular Deal or no Deal game on Channel 4, and instead of money, you win christmas turkeys (among other things). You get one chance to win a prize every day, all the way up to the 24th. Surely that’s better odds than the lottery! Oh wait…

Unfortunately his paisley-shirtedness Noel was unavailable for comment.

Rob

I never got a chance to ask Robert how he got paid for doing this stuff, but i guess if we all knew that there wouldn’t be people left like him to impress us with the sheer complexity of his work. Essentially the subject of the presentation was examples of computer generated visuals using mathematical systems that included flocking, tendrils, attractors and so on. There are many online videos of the different systems that were showcased here, you can find them on his blog at http://www.flight404.com/

For jaw dropping visuals, the finale used the latest version of Robert’s Magnetosphere demo. This is a custom built particle effects system controlled by music. If your feeling like a wait you can download the full 193meg quicktime version at http://www.flight404.com/_videos/magnetosphere/, otherwise you can see a slightly smaller flash video version here (with different music). The visuals were created in an open source Java based graphics language called processing, on which you can find more info by going to http://processing.org/.

Rob

Well i could hardly not go to this one!

We were treated to an exhaustive look at Carlos’ back catalog, with many demos i’d seen before but always look great on a big screen. We also got to see Carlos’ latest commercial work for Sony which is a massive achievement visually, and has already won an FWA site of the day. Here are links to just some of the demos shown (which reminds me, must write more Away3D demos!)

http://www.noventaynueve.com/portfolio/index.html

http://www.noventaynueve.com/2007/

http://www.papervision3d.org/

http://www.carlosulloa.com/demos/spaceship/

http://bravia.sony.eu/

Mario Klingemann’s presentations are fantastic to watch not only because he keeps doing new things, but also they always contain something a little unexpected. This time it was his closing demonstration of a multi-touch interface that took me by surprise. You can find the entire presentation in his archives at http://lectures.quasimondo.com/ , although be warned that the ending may not be quite what you expect…

Rob

I was hoping this was going to be a list of howlers that Ted Patrick had made at various points in the past concerning Flex development but instead it was a cunningly disguised list of don’t transformed into do’s. I won’t cover it in too much detail as the session will most likely appear on Ted’s blog in the near future, but it had some good general advice that included:

• Collect components that sit next to each other doing related tasks into a single custom component.
• If your project involves more than 2 developers, use a Framework
• Use classes to organized code (pull it out of the mxml file by extending the base classes).
• Dummy data urls can help kickstart the client developent before server coding starts.
• Beware of optimising early!
• //Comment your code
• Be careful with bindings (eh? what about the Caringorm object model? I think a little coherence here would be good)
• Release early, release often.

There was also a mention of shared libraries when it comes to publishing multiple swfs that all utilise the same base framework. While this is a good idea, i think the new Flex caching features of Flex 3 are a far more advanced way of reducing download sizes of applications that use the Flex framework.

Rob

I won’t cover this in too much detail as a copy of the presentation notes will be available from Keith Peter’s blog at http://www.bit-101.com/blog/

The presentation covered the various ways you can make money from writing flash games, and was interspersed with Keith’s own site of Flash games presented as an example at http://www.wickedpissahgames.com/ (nice!)

The two main ways of generating revenue from self-hosted games seem to be http://www.mochiads.com/ which uses a pay per view system, and https://www.google.com/adsense that I imagine many people already know of, which uses a pay per click system.

Other income ideas involve the licensing of games to various advertisers, with the possibilities of contract terms involving

exclusive or non-exclusive licensing, branding etc.

For more info, check the blog link!

Rob