I just want to share this little experiment with you. I have been looking for an easy way to use as3dmod to bend materials with a “lighter” 3d engine. But as3dmod works only with the more advanced engines like Away3D and Papervision (and it works very well with them).
However I sometimes need (wish for) a lighter version easy to use in normal small projects, banners etc. and this is the purpose of my own “bend” modifier. It’s really simple and can’t do half of what as3dmod is capable of (it’s not build with triangles but simply rows of squares!), so there’s no twisting etc. but only a simple bend is possible.
The good thing from my point of view, and the reason I created this, is that it uses the native 3d in Flash Player. My example swf below is about 12 kb including the TweenLite engine, and it compiles a LOT faster than my projects involving Papervision and Away3D.
Source will be up soon – it’s not rocket science, but maybe you can use it for something! The example is build by 32 segments – which is a lot more than I would usually do with 3d engines, but here it seems to work fine.
I still recommend as3dmod and the real 3d engines for serious 3d Flash work – they perform really well and offers a lot of posibilities.
Take a look here
I’m very proud to announce that today my website for Kenneth Elgaard receives the Favourite Website Award.
Kenneth Elgaard is a young Danish artist. The design for his website was created with his art and graphic style in mind. I wanted to create a small world with some of the same elements used in his art pieces. The navigation is intuitive, simple and still somewhat different.
Here’s a couple of navigation tips many visitors probably won’t even find out:
- Double click images in the galleries to reset them to 100% size.
- Use keys up/down and left/right for navigation in the 4 subsites.
- Click the small symbols below the logo to go directly to another subsite.
- Reload site intro to see a random symbol.
- Move your mouse over the corners of the images in “contact” and “curriculum vitae” and they stick!
All 3d elements of the website is created with the native 3D support in Flash Player 10. This is something that proved difficult, but very beneficial for the overall performance and appearance in this project. I’ll soon write a blog post about the some of the technical aspects of this site, with focus on the 3D elements (z-sorting, scaling, shading etc.)
- You can have a look at the site here.
- And check out www.thefwa.com to see many more great websites.
Have a merry christmas and get in touch if you can use me for freelance Flash projects in 2010.
Swing by the Favorite Website Award’s People’s Choice Award 2009 and cast your vote for the best site of 2009. I can’t decide on one favorite, they are all really awesome. If you haven’t seen these websites yet, you’re in for a treat!
Finally we have launched the new website for InfoGalleri – see it here.
InfoGalleri is a company specialized in interactive experiences. I have developed many projects for (and with) them since I went freelance – many of these are present at the website too.
For the 3D experience, I used the away3D engine and as3dmod – I can highly recommend this to other developers.
Wow, long header for this post. But this is a simple experiment! I was inspired by a cool RGB splitting effect on an image I saw recently, but I figured it would look cool to have it be even more interactive. This led me to develop this: DEMO
It’s a simple webcam stream which rgb splits the bitmapdata in 3d space according to the mouse position – just move around your mouse cursor and see.
Nothing crazy actionscript wise – but it looks cool, right?
Here’s a little experiment, transforming your webcam screenshot into a bunch of 3D planes.
Basically I was interested in the performance of this because it might have been a cool idea for an image transition – but I had hoped for faster and better looking results! It’s pretty cool though anyway, so check it out below.
Click the screen when ready to take a snapshot (no images are saved from the application)
Demo 1 – this is with a planesize of 16 pixels and made with away3D Lite.
Demo 2 – this is with a planesize of 16 pixels and made with the native 3D in Flash.
Demo 3 – same as demo 2 but with planesize of 8.
Demo 4 – same as demo 2 but with bitmapFill instead of plain color fills.
Demo 5 – same as demo 1 but made with Papervision.
I’m a big fan of the open source 3D engines such as Away3D (and the smaller Lite version), Papervision etc. But it seems that for this simple 3D “effect”, the native 3D in Flash Player 10 performs a little better. Surprisingly Papervision also did this better than Away3D Lite – if anyone knows why, please share with me, because every other demo I’ve made with Away3D Lite has proved it better performing than any other engine!
NOTE: If you’re not seeing any video, you should propably right-click and change your camera settings for Flash.
The talented and always lovely Nicoline Graversen (and yes, she’s my girlfriend) just launched her portfolio. Check it out, especially if you’re an agency from Amsterdam looking for an enthusiastic illustrator.
See her portfolio here
I just launched a small website for my good friend Stinne and her new business. Go see what she is all about here: I-Sing – Sangundervisning
There’s a new kid on the (crowded) block. Another 3D engine has been released, but this one is worth a serious look. It’s a new lighter version of Awayd3D called Awayd3DLite. I have been playing a little around with this engine, and for my purpose it’s just as good as Papervision, but compiling time and filesize is reduced tremendously – so I’m probably using this in the future! The engine has primitive objects such as cubes, planes and spheres, so unless you are doing really heavy/advanced 3D development, this engine is highly recommended.
Note that you must publish for Flash Player 10 to take this engine into consideration (but you are already doing that I hope…)
Here are some other links for my favourite engines – or at least the ones I’ve tried 
Five3D
Papervision
Alternativa
Btw. my next project is using my own “engine” for simple 3D stuff like cubes and z-sorting.
For the first time since I started checking out the FWA reguraly (like every other webdesigner) the award has been given to a website NOT made with Flash! Is this a good thing you might ask, and why do I write about this? – well the answer is simple: use the right technology for the right project and everyone’s happy!
The site awarded was a 3d Robin Hood game made with the “new kid on the block” Unity3D. The performance, graphics and everything is so much better than what Flash is able to do currently. Maybe someday soon Flash will be able to do this, but for now Unity3D is a serious competitor and hopefully something we will see a lot more in the future. I don’t plan on learning Unity, because Flash is still my web tool #1, but for game developers this should be something to check out.
Also check out this post from Bartek, if you’re not convinced.