Flash 3D engines

[thirdphase]

Hi,

Does anyone have experience of 3D engines in Flash?

I have a project where I need to generate one of a set of predefined 3D objects in Flash by clicking the relevant button. For example, clicking the "sphere" button would show the sphere model in 3D which could be rotated etc.

Can anyone help??

Thanks.

S.

[timmytots]

I'm afraid u can't make true 3d space in flash. You can only cheat it by essentially just importing an animation which plays along the timeline and gives the illusion that it's 3d. True 3D navigation and rotation, the latter of which is relevant for your predicament, is possible in Director. The outputted file is Shockwave. U can make buttons that spin 3d objects, rotate them, whatever.

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It's annoying to scroll down though when ur using shockwave, as you'll see.

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[rproctor]

Timmytots is sort of correct. However, there are 3d engines in flash which do create 3d shapes which you can manipulate in real time. However, the code used to generate this is quite complex, and the amount of processing that it takes to make just a rotateable box is way too much. However, depending on what you may need, it may work for you, try searching google for 3d flash engines, you will find a few.

However! there is a program called swift 3D that allows you to turn 3d animations into flash movies. This too, last time I checked, wasnt heavily supported, but it does work. What you could do is create predefined animations that respond to a users action, which would give the reality of real time 3d animations, but really it isnt.

Director would be the best choice if you need a lot of user interaction based on 3d environments. Last time I used director it was outputting shockwave movies, and I assume it still is. Shockwave isnt supported by all browsers, and many people dont have the plugin installed.

[timmytots]

I knew all that too.