Flash 3D

Draft

Definition

Flash 3D refers to various attempts to create 3D objects or even scenes with Flash. There exist 3 "solutions" from an designer point of view

• Buy a special toolkit
• Use ActionScript libraries together with some ActionScript programming either in CS3 or with the Flex compiler (or both)
• Use the new Flash 103D ActionScript library

Of course, since Flash (until version 10) was just "2D", performance is not outstanding. On a normal computer you get maybe 10 frames/second for a moderatly complex scene. On the other hand, Flash about the only format that is available on most client machines...

Products / Software

... that help to create 3D Flash in various ways.

Firstly you may draw things with a "normal" 3D modeling software. You then can find various ways to importe these into Flash.

Modeling tools / and engine

• FreeSpin 3D. Enables the importing of 3D Models directly into Adobe Flash as a Flash Movie Clip object. With timeline support and an Action Script interface. In August 2008 this product was in Beta stage and it is free (registration needed). The first final version will be sold.

• Swift 3D is a popular commercial tool ($250 on Aug. 2008) to create 3D objects and animations for Flash (and other 2D formats).
  • Swift 3D (Wikipedia entry).

• 3D Flash Animator (3dfa) is a cheap ($50) 3D Flash tool. (not tested).

• Rozengain Exporter to Away3D, Papervision3D and Sandy3D for the popular Blender free open source 3D content creation suite. (Daniel K. Schneider would start with this if I had to draw something).

ActionScript engines

The two most popular engines seems to be Away3D and PaperVison3D. Both are free.

• Away3D is a realtime 3D engine, i.e. and ActionScript library for Flash. Freeware (you can give donations). The website includes tutorials, a wiki, downloads and examples. It works together with Flashdevelop, a code editor for ActionScript 2/3 and other languages.
  • The FlashMagazine Flash 3D Basics article is using this library.

• PaperVision3D (PV3D) is another popular library. The website (blog) has links to tutorials on other sites.
  • Floorplannner (3D) example.

There exist some other ones:

• Sandy 3D Engine. Sandy is an intuitive and user-friendly 3D open-source library developed in Actionscript 2.0 and Actionscript 3.0 for Adobe Flash.
  • list of tutorials

• WireEngine3D is a lightweight, free (GPL) and fast 3D Engine for Flash 8/9.

• Alternative Platform. An SWC library for 3D-scenes in Flash. Authoring tools and a client-server solution will be available later (added: aug 2008)

Flash 10 3D

• Flash Player 10
  • Flash Player beta downloads (released as Beta in sept. 2008). This page (at the bottom) also has a link for the Flex SDK needed and the documention (zip file)
  • This engine seems to offer better performance than the AS 3 libraries (above) and this is not surprise of course.
  • But it has less features it seems.

Libraries working with ActionScript engines

• FLiNT particle system by Richard Lord. Flint is an open-source project to create a versatile particle system in Actionscript 3. The aim is to create a system that handles the common functionality for all particle systems, has methods for common particle behaviour, and lets developers extend it easily with their own custom behaviours without needing to touch the core code. FLINT can (as an option) be used with PaperVision3D and Away3D.

• Paradox: The Flash based first person 3D engine (FAQ). This is still under development (sept. 2008) and its not clear if and when the engine will be available.

ActionScript editors

Since all the free ActionScript engines imply that you have to code ActionScript, you may consider using a good editor/IDE.

See Flash_ActionScript 3 overview for some suggestions.

Links

Overviews

• 3D Flash (only a stub in aug 2008).

Tutorials

(none tested or endorsed for far ...)

General

• Flash 3D Tutorials Index from Steve's Tutes site.

• Macromedia Flash 3D Tutorials

Away3D related

• Flash 3D basics(Flashmagazine.com).

PaperVision 3D

• Papervision 3D Tutorials and Papervision3D Tutorials in Flex3

Some free 3d objects

• Flash3D.org. See "Games and Free stuff".

Examples

• Flash3D Category in "Best Flash V2.2".

Websites

• draw.logic has several Flash/AS3 3D-related articles.