Hi there,

migrating across from papervision in order to make use of the Molehill capabilities, and the two APIs I’ve been playing around with so far are Away3D and Alternativa3D.

Obviously both are in alpha state, so it’s maybe a bit early to say, but just wondering what, if any, pros and cons the two APIs have?

One of the major drawbacks with Away3D previously was lack of a forum, so now that’s been remedied, I see them bath as being about equal, I’m leaning more toward Away3D as it seem a lot more open and free, whereas Alternativa seems to be commercially driven.

Performance wise, the only differences I can see so far, is that Away3D seems to take longer before drawing anything onto the screen. This might not be entirely accurate as I’m using two slightly different examples to draw a load of cubes, so maybe some other differrence in the code is causing this.

Both seem to suffer from a slowdown connected with the number of objects drawn, is one object with 12000 faces runs smooth, whereas 2000 objects with 6 faces on each runs a lot slower..

Anyone else have any comparisons between the two?

Being one that has been testing both engines ( also Flare3D) since they released their Molehill Alpha I can say that Alternativa API in its current state is horrible.Very small amount of features,the performance is bad,many Molehill API methods are exposed directly in the Engine and many other routines are done in very inconvenient way(like skin animation setup). But from my acquaintance with that team and a couple of latest lectures Anton Volkov spoke (well I know Russian ) on Russian events the only reason for it is that they don’t hurry releasing a version.They have got much work around “tanki online” and also optimizing the architecture of   engine’s official release .Based on FP10 experience with Away and A3D I can tell you that I have no doubt that in terms of performance once again Alternativa will beat all the rest(sure some of Away team members would not agree on it once they come out with the official release.BUT in terms of Features and API user-friendliness Away3D will lead the way.Also You should always remember that Away is opensource

Yes, Away3D is really a nice framework with a lots of exciting features ! It’s more versatile than other engines available for flash Stage3D APIs.

If it can perform better , that will be a dreaming framework for Stage3D!

The same question was also asked recently in the LinkedIn group for Away3D.

To me, having access to the source code so I can fix bugs has been crucial. I can’t take on a professional project only to discover there is a bug in the engine and that I can’t fix it due to license issues.

J

Bummer. The discussion isn’t open for the world to see :( Have changed the setting for the group now, but the gist of it was that a member asked “Please help me to choose the best 3D framework suitable for my commercial project http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/78316/3d-frameworks-for-flash”

Here’s my reply:

Well, this is maybe not the best group to ask in if you want non-coloured advice?

Anyway - I’d certainly remove both Papervision and Sandy from that list of yours. Both of these have been dead for more than two years. Five3D isn’t really a 3D engine either. It’s more of an engine for 3D effects as far as I now. So your list actually should look like this:

Alternativa3D
Away3D
Flare3D
Yogurt3D

Out of these, only Away3D has a free (as in no strings attached) license. Alternativa3D requires that you supply a link to their website. For the other two, I can’t find info regarding the license so I’m assuming they’re both commercial. It is however impossible to buy a license on both sites.

I guess the question then becomes - is it ok to show the link to Alternativa in your project? If not, you really only have one choice

Of the list of 4, I think all are pretty good in terms of documentation. The thing I really love about Away3D though is that if something isn’t working the way I want, I have the source code so I can extend it to my needs. That is much harder when all you get is a SWC file.

As for support - there is no commercial support for Away3D available, but help is available through the google mailing list: http://groups.google.com/group/away3d-dev

The other ones offer various forms of support but it’s not that easy to find the options on either site. Looks like publicly available forums is the way for these as well?

Michael, Erkan and others also chipped in with their 5 cents. Annoying that LinkedIn does not allow me to set this discussion as public…

J

hello i’m on big test on all engines in my website http://3dflashlo.free.fr/
for the moment only 3 away3d demo but other come soon with the same setting an pannel

see code is better and i love away “simplicity”
alernativa is complex for now ?? hard to use
flare3d on the contrary to simple but good with biped anim and very fast
procsenieum is amazing but need a master’s degree in math

other engine yogurt and minko not available now i think

hello i’m on big test on all engines in my website http://3dflashlo.free.fr/
for the moment only 3 away3d demo but other come soon with the same setting an pannel

see code is better and i love away “simplicity”
alernativa is complex for now ?? hard to use
flare3d on the contrary to simple but good with biped anim and very fast
proscenieum is amazing but need a master’s degree in math

other engine yogurt and minko not available now i think

Think when Unity3D will support AS3 and Flash Platform this question is by solved

I think you’ll find it’s Unity C# or javascript compiling to Flash, not Unity suddenly supporting AS3, unfortunately!

Peter Strømberg - 17 June 2011 08:50 PM

I think you’ll find it’s Unity C# or javascript compiling to Flash, not Unity suddenly supporting AS3, unfortunately!

In official Unity site is written:

You’ll have two options:

1. For people with a Flash background:
Target our ActionScript API directly from Flash. Think:
var go:GameObject = new GameObject(“Just normal ActionScript 3 code”);
2. For people with a Unity background:
Script your content in C# / JavaScript / Boo, like you’re used to, and have Unity automatically translate it to ActionScript when you hit publish

I think what you will see over time is Away3D’s open source approach will create a large community of modders that will continually push the envelope on what is possible to do with the framework. Just like Apache and Linux grew into solutions that rivaled or are even better than the commercial products, Away3D should benefit from that community dedication.

Jens Chr Brynildsen - 17 June 2011 08:06 AM

The same question was also asked recently in the LinkedIn group for Away3D.

To me, having access to the source code so I can fix bugs has been crucial. I can’t take on a professional project only to discover there is a bug in the engine and that I can’t fix it due to license issues.

J

As you could see from that LINKEDIN thread I have been fighting for Away3D on many fronts ) .Reply to the guy who talked about Unity3D Flash compilations.The latest rumors said that it is unlikely that they will make it in any near future or at all.In order to implement it ,they need to rebuild their engine from the ground up and make AS3 one of the additional languages of their API .
For Alternativa and Flare3D : As I said Alternativa release in its current state is far from be something you would expect from these guys,but they work hard and I ma sure that the final version will strike the users with outstanding performance and some other cool stuf -just like they always did.Flare3D is a very cute and robust engine.Especially their 3Ds max plugin which really helpful for those working with 3DsMax.I am a private Beta tester of their engine and the last version I got from them is just awesome ,especially in terms of performance.Having said all this you should know that NO ONE from these engine even comes near Away3D when we talk about amount of features it have (including external tools).Besides Away3D till now is the most published 3D Flash engine with already 3 book on its count.And yes ,it is open source-probably the most important detail of all the rest .

I agree Choons, open source projects grow quicker, and attract innovators.

It’s horses for courses, as usual. There is no “best” without considering the actual project, and not least the skills and experience of the team or individual working on it.

Coming from PaperVision, Away3D is without doubt the closest alternative.

Syntesis > yes that’s a bit ambiguous. “Target our ActionScript API directly from Flash” does that mean running both plugins together? From the example code it looks like the Unity compiler could inject ActionScript when exporting to the Flash Platform, though I could be mistaken and would like to know more. From the same article: “It will be up to developers in the end, to decide whether they want to target only the Flash Player, only the Unity Web Player, or some combination of the two”.

Pete , btw ,unrelated to this discussion. I have asked you in the google group regarding your latest short demo with cloth physics.Is the physics your own stuff or some engine was involved.Have not got an answer and I am still curious .
Regards,
Michael

Hi Michael, it was here on the forum, and I did reply, briefly.
http://away3d.com/forum/viewthread/82/
The effect is a twist modifier powered by the rotation speed and direction of the shirt, and tweeked to suit that particular 3D model.
Cheers,
Pete