Away3d dice with normal map

[Edit – Link not working here]

[Edit – I’ve added another post to take this further, where the map is working correctly – Jan 09]

Over Christmas, I’ve had some time to try and set up a demo for away3d using the Normals mapping that has been added recently. This is the dice demo that I ended up with. Not perfect lighting yet; if the top face stays in position and you rotate the cube on its axis, I thought that the face should remain lit the same, but it darkens as you rotate. I shall work on the code or my normals map a bit more. Arrow keys will turn the die; click and drag to hover around. Not bad for only 12 triangles though.

Away3d with Rob Bateman

Had a really enjoyable day with Rob Bateman, dicussing how to use Away3d, the 3d implementation for Flash/Flex. I can thoroughly recommend the investment; we covered all the basics and several of the advanced techniques of getting 3d into Flash, without too much heavy theory on either the 3d or the javascript sides.

Ventuz with new version, new strategy

Ventuz have finally unveiled their new version of software. That page with the graphic of a blanket covering the box seems to have been there for such a long time. Better text output, better textures, better performance; in common with other packages they are taking Collada models for flexibility (These are the models that Google and Adobe are taking into their software). The main pricing change is that there is now an Express version of the software that is free for both design use and for playback. This could make it a bargain for doing simple presentations on normal PC screens or projectors.

Flash meets 3D

Just looking around at some inspiration in the 2 1/2 and 3D area in Flash. I’ve been playing around with AS3 for a little and thought that I might leverage some of my 3D knowledge in putting together some ideas I have into Flash. These are just a few thoughts before I start delving into it in more detail; something to look back on and laugh maybe. We shall see.

Inspired as usual by the labs at andre michelle’s blog and his mario kart and UniRoyal sites. I wanted to look at putting together something similar as an exercise, so I looked around to see what is out there. Do add a comment or two to give me other pointers. One of the sites I hadn’t seen before (although looks like half a million have!) was the inspirational 2D dancer from roxik which has now been given the backing of Pepsi for this site in Japan. Very cute and easy to use. roxic’s homepage is worth a look too, just to see his face in 3D. Lol.

The choice on the 3D front seemed to be between the Sandy renderer and PaperVision. Papervision is on the OSFlash site, so does this mean that they are leaning this way. The demo I saw using Sandy by shown a cute little kitten, but overall I think there appears to be more development movement from the PaperVision guys. They are presenting at FITC in Totonto this month and have been asked to go to Chicago too. This sounds very promising. I had a quick look at the Sandy code and the pixLib libraries which all look quite well written but not simple to implement. I don’t suppose that this area will be particularly easy; I just like to get a quick demo done to boost my spirits.

Papervision also bring in Collada models, which is an area I’ve looked at before for 3D environments. Being an active open source 3D modelling format, it has great appeal. 3dsMax was also mentioned so I shall probably move in the PaperVision direction for my next tests. What also pushed me towards this toolkit was the demo of the moving textures on the xWing fighter at rockOnFlash and their preview renders from their next release of the renderer. Bump mapping now looking fantastic on Ralph Hauwert’s blog; it will be awesome if he can add normal maps (cheating or not).

Must have a look at Grant Skinner’s blog site to see what the new components are in Flash CS3 – when is that due? Any official 3D? How does the 3D viewer in pdf files figure in the future Adobe thinking? It would be interesting to see what they were thinking in this arena.