ActionScript 3.0 Bible

Chapter 15. Working in Three Dimensions

FEATURED CLASSES

• flash.display.DisplayObject

• flash.display.Stage

• flash.geom.Vector3D

• flash.geom.PerspectiveProjection

Flash Player 10 brings DisplayObject into the third dimension, letting you make 3D compositions with just a few lines. Between Flash Player 10's native 3D capabilities and several good software 3D libraries available, 3D has become a fixture of the Flash platform.

In this chapter, you'll learn about Flash Player 10's 3D capabilities and its limitations. You'll also learn the basic way to add 3D effects. There are additional 3D capabilities that support lower-level code and require more math; these will be covered in Chapter 34, "Geometric and Color Transformations," and in Chapter 40, "Advanced 3D." On the other hand, this chapter introduces 3D concepts without too much of the mathematics and theory behind them. You can get plenty of impressive 3D effects with the intuitive API covered here.

I'll also introduce a few widely used ActionScript 3D libraries and compare their features so that you can determine which approach is best for your project, and know where to go for more information.

Note

FP10. This chapter covers features found in Flash Player 10 and later, with the exception of any discussion of ActionScript 3D libraries, which may run in Flash Player 9.

Introducing 3D in ActionScript 3.0

Up to this point, you've seen the display list and Flash Player's coordinate space as flat; two-dimensional. Display objects can have a position, ...