The Away3d Team are pleased to announce a new partnership with the community-driven software company Strata, involving their 3d application software Live 3D and 3d[in] Photoshop plugin.

Live 3D is a powerful 3d exporter for the web, which provides an intuative workflow for converting content made in standard desktop 3d modeling software to web based 3d content in Java, PDF and Flash formats.

3d[in] is a plugin extension for Photoshop that allows the import, manipulation and export of 3d content to a variety of web formats.

Away3d will be providing an updated Flash export option for 3d content that displays in realtime, with navigation and animation options built in. The new export format will provide designers with an easy one-click solution for publishing 3d content, using the Flash Player to maintain a high level of compatibility with web browsers.

The Away3d Team will also be developing further tools to allow content manipulation for 3d exported to Flash from the Strata product line.

We are all really excited about the potential this offers 3d on the web, as currently the transition from high-end accelerated desktop 3d content to lower end, browser based web content is still somewhat tricky for 3d designers. Our partnership with Strata aims to address the balance by improving the workflow for Flash content.

Further details will be announced as work progresses.

To bring in 2008, it is time for an update to the documentation for Away3D.

Other than a significant makeover, the documentation now :

• has been updated to V1.9.2
• provides a search function
• documetation can be easily managed
• links to the new wiki are included for each class
• examples will be included with the classes to make life easier
• anyone can add comments to the documentation

At present, there is still a lot of content to be added to the documentation but this is now a simple process and can be done when required - rather than having to get comments put in the code and get it all regenerated. So more information will be being added all the time - if you need to know something in particular, contact us on the mailing list.

In conjuntion with the new LIVEDOCS, Pete has done a great job and introduced an EXAMPLES page to allow anyone to post any useful Away3D snippets or complete solutions that others would benfit from. Note, these will be subject to approval by the team.

And if that wasn’t enough, there is now a site WIKI to provide yet another mechanism for use contribution. There is a link from each class in the Livedocs to a class specific wiki page. If the page doesn’t exist, create it and add to it. This again is to allow all of you to help others understand and use the API.

If you come across any issues with the livedocs, examples or wiki, let me know via the mailing list and I’ll get it seen to as soon as I can.

NOTE: Please bear in mind that these items may need tweaking and will certainly have more information added and should be considered to be in a Work-In-Progress state. More notices will be posted when things of significance happen.

Greg

Ok no pixels news for once…
I was tired building in each project an FPS (frames per second) counter or add traces everywhere.
So i thought it might be usefull to build once and for all an handy tool that would require no external swf or to be set in the library. This little device generates itself and is available at anytime in any Away3d projects. It will use a little calculation power only when on screen. Just right click or ctrl/press on the mac to display it on screen.

HOW TO INSTALL IN YOUR PROJECT? Just compile and run the swf and call the player menu! Nothing!

Check this destructive demo that demonstrate how the color indicator behaves.(Don’t wait till your browser crashes!)

When on screen, you’ll be able to access some helpfull informations for any projects development like:

fps
swf framerate
highest fps and lowest fps
average fps
ram usage
faces count
active camera information
mesh count
geometrie information
face rendered count
The stats window is also draggable, so it can stay on screen while testing.
It also has a color information coupled to performance based on swf framerate and actual FPS. The more fps on that scale, the more the bar gets greenshish and that means your project’s gonna be a killer! While going on the other side of the scale it will tint to red and that would probably mean: back to the drawingboard!
If users are finding it handy, we will probably extend it with more features, like debugging options.
Soon in the svn…

Fabrice

Click the image or here to play Away3D basketball! :)

Just like my previous post of materials “ala” Pete, well here are physics “ala” Pete.

 I decided to HACK some code together to get the effect I want (basically), and although I know the math may be flawed, it is something that I can use A LOT. It is a “custom” engine that works with both away3d and papervision3d.

This demo is just a preview of what I would like to share, but I want correct the math before I release it.

_pete