Written in an informal and friendly manner, the style and approach of this book will take you on an exciting adventure. Piece by piece, detailed examples help you along the way by providing real-world game code required to make a complete 3D video game. Each chapter builds upon the experience and achievements earned in the last, culminating in the ultimate prize – your game! If you ever wanted to make your own 3D game in Flash, then this book is for you. This book is a perfect introduction to 3D game programming in Adobe Molehill for complete beginners. You do not need to know anything about Stage3D/Molehill or Flash 11 in order to take advantage of the examples in this book. This book assumes that you have programming experience in AS3 (Actionscript 3).
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Book Description
Frequently Bought Together
Editorial Reviews
Book Description
A step-by-step guide for creating stunning 3D games in Flash 11 Stage3D (Molehill) using AS3 and AGAL with this book and ebook.
−- −
- The first book on Adobe's Flash 11 Stage3D, previously codenamed Molehill −
- Build hardware-accelerated 3D games with a blazingly fast frame rate. −
- Full of screenshots and ActionScript 3 source code, each chapter builds upon a real-world example game project step-by-step. −
- Light-hearted and informal, this book is your trusty sidekick on an epic quest to create your very own 3D Flash game.
In Detail
−Adobe's Stage3D (Molehill) is a set of 3D APIs that has brought 3D to the Flash platform. Being a completely new technology, there were almost no resources to get you acquainted with this revolutionary platform, until now.
−This book will show you how to make your very own next-gen 3D games in Flash. If you have ever dreamed of writing your own console-style 3d game in Flash, get ready to be blown away by the hardware accelerated power of Stage3D. This book will lead you step-by-step through the process of programming a 3D game in Actionscript 3 using this exciting new technology. Filled with examples, pictures and source code, this is a practical and fun-to-read guide that will benefit both 3D programming beginners and expert game developers alike.
−Starting with simple tasks like setting up Flash to render a simple 3d shape, each chapter presents a deeper and more complete videogame as an example project. Right from a simple tech demo, your game will grow to become a finished product - your very own playable 3d game filled with animation, special effects, sounds, and tons of action. The goal of this book is to teach you how to program a complete game in Molehill that has a beginning, middle, and game over.
−As you progress further into your epic quest, you will learn all sorts of useful tricks such as ways to create eye-catching special effects using textures, special blend modes for transparent particle systems, fantastic vertex and fragment programs that are used to craft beautiful shaders and much more. You will learn how to upload the geometry of your 3D models to video RAM for ultra-fast rendering. You will dive into the magical art of AGAL shader programming. You will learn optimization tricks to achieve blazingly fast frame rate even at full screen resolutions. With each chapter, you will "level up" your game programming skills, earning the title of Molehill Master – you will be able to honestly call yourself a 3D game programmer.
−This book is written for beginners by a veteran game developer. It will become your trusty companion filled with the knowledge you need to make your very own 3D games in Flash.
−What you will learn from this book
−- Animate complex 3d scenes in Flash. −
- Initialize the Molehill graphics engine enabling hardware 3d acceleration. −
- Overlay 2D Flash on top of your 3d scenes for beautiful user interfaces.
- Render splendid textures for eye-catching visuals. −
- Upload 3D model geometry for in-game items, enemies, terrain and levels. −
- Program incredible looking shaders in AGAL that run incredibly fast. −
- Make your own special effects like explosions, sparks, and magic. −
- Write event handlers and timers that control the action.
- Track player movements, health and the game state. −
- Trigger game events, detect collisions, and control the game. −
- Compile your project to a .SWF that you can put on a web page.
Approach
−Written in an informal and friendly manner, the style and approach of this book will take you on an exciting adventure. Piece by piece, detailed examples help you along the way by providing real-world game code required to make a complete 3D video game. Each chapter builds upon the experience and achievements earned in the last, culminating in the ultimate prize – your game!
−Who this book is written for
−If you ever wanted to make your own 3D game in Flash, then this book is for you. This book is a perfect introduction to 3D game programming in Adobe Molehill for complete beginners. You do not need to know anything about Stage3D/Molehill or Flash 11 in order to take advantage of the examples in this book. This book assumes that you have programming experience in AS3 (Actionscript 3).
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Flash has been repositioning itself lately as more of a general game development runtime. And the latest extension in that direction is Stage3D. While Flash has had a few minor forays into 3D, the new Flash 11 Stage3D is the first real genuine hardware-accelerated 3D for Flash. The rest were little hacks or software renderers built on Flash's 2D pipeline. With Stage3D, Flash's 3D capabilities are roughly on the same plane capability-wise as Unity 3D and WebGL.
But Stage3D is something entirely "other" than Flash's existing graphical pipeline. While Stage3D shares the existing AS3 scripting as Flash, it is otherwise a 3D engine built into Flash with its own pipeline and API. So you have some new learning to do. And that's where Adobe Flash 11 Stage3D (Molehill) Game Programming comes into play. It's an end-to-end tutorial on how to build a 3D game in Flash using Stage3D (codenamed "Molehill", hence the long-winded title). And it is a good start for people who may know Flash but don't know their 3D. Stage3D is a very capable thing if you've seen the demos, but it's also not something you can just enable by renaming your DisplayObject-based hierarchy to something else.
The book was clearly written and released before Stage3D went gold. And, at the time of this review, Stage3D is still awaiting general release for standalone mobile games. So there are a couple of URL links that point to beta information that may or may not still be there. In any case, Stage3D-enabled Flash is now in general release, so a little googling will find you all of the tools the author mentions.
I do have one quibble with Adobe Flash 11 Stage3D Etc., and that's with its selection of tools. One thing I like to see in a book is usage of free tools if they are available and high quality. And the book is written so that you can build the examples with the (free) Flex SDK and (free) FlashDevelop as well as the (not free) FDT and Flash Professional. But the author doesn't extend this courtesy to 3D tools. All the examples are done with 3DS Max even though the author says that Blender 3D will also work. And even if 3DS Max is a superior tool for getting the job done, you're doing the reader a service if you let him build a "proof of concept" without much cash outlay. A couple of pages on connecting Blender with Stage3D would have been welcome.
That said, this book is a very well-done tutorial. As a bit of kitsch, the book is structured like a game, with each chapter covering a "level" of the 3D programming adventure. The chapters are well structured without any further cutesy-ness. Despite its size (350+ pages, big for a Packt title), it still doesn't cover everything, but it does cover enough to build a complete game, a spaceship/alien shooter. Some things, like the shader language, are covered to the extent that you can get started and with a link to further information if you want it. The author also shows how to make existing Flash 2D content work with Stage3D. And that's awfully handy for building your surrounding score/health UI, HUD display, main menus, etc. After all, if it's there and it works, there's not much point in abandoning it.
Adobe Flash 11 Stage3D (Molehill) Game Programming is, like many Packt titles, a pretty narrowly-focused work that intends to cover one topic comprehensively. And it does that well.
But Stage3D is something entirely "other" than Flash's existing graphical pipeline. While Stage3D shares the existing AS3 scripting as Flash, it is otherwise a 3D engine built into Flash with its own pipeline and API. So you have some new learning to do. And that's where Adobe Flash 11 Stage3D (Molehill) Game Programming comes into play. It's an end-to-end tutorial on how to build a 3D game in Flash using Stage3D (codenamed "Molehill", hence the long-winded title). And it is a good start for people who may know Flash but don't know their 3D. Stage3D is a very capable thing if you've seen the demos, but it's also not something you can just enable by renaming your DisplayObject-based hierarchy to something else.
The book was clearly written and released before Stage3D went gold. And, at the time of this review, Stage3D is still awaiting general release for standalone mobile games. So there are a couple of URL links that point to beta information that may or may not still be there. In any case, Stage3D-enabled Flash is now in general release, so a little googling will find you all of the tools the author mentions.
I do have one quibble with Adobe Flash 11 Stage3D Etc., and that's with its selection of tools. One thing I like to see in a book is usage of free tools if they are available and high quality. And the book is written so that you can build the examples with the (free) Flex SDK and (free) FlashDevelop as well as the (not free) FDT and Flash Professional. But the author doesn't extend this courtesy to 3D tools. All the examples are done with 3DS Max even though the author says that Blender 3D will also work. And even if 3DS Max is a superior tool for getting the job done, you're doing the reader a service if you let him build a "proof of concept" without much cash outlay. A couple of pages on connecting Blender with Stage3D would have been welcome.
That said, this book is a very well-done tutorial. As a bit of kitsch, the book is structured like a game, with each chapter covering a "level" of the 3D programming adventure. The chapters are well structured without any further cutesy-ness. Despite its size (350+ pages, big for a Packt title), it still doesn't cover everything, but it does cover enough to build a complete game, a spaceship/alien shooter. Some things, like the shader language, are covered to the extent that you can get started and with a link to further information if you want it. The author also shows how to make existing Flash 2D content work with Stage3D. And that's awfully handy for building your surrounding score/health UI, HUD display, main menus, etc. After all, if it's there and it works, there's not much point in abandoning it.
Adobe Flash 11 Stage3D (Molehill) Game Programming is, like many Packt titles, a pretty narrowly-focused work that intends to cover one topic comprehensively. And it does that well.
Format:Paperback
As a hobbyist game developer that sometimes participates in the Ludum Dare 48 competition, I've had the pleasure of knowing Christer Kaitila or Breakdance McFunkypants though that community. He has always been an extraordinarily fun and entertaining presence to have and reading through his book on Stage3D, that personality is there with you as you read.
To me, I think this is the most successful part of this book. As a reference to Stage3D and AGAL, and as an introduction to GameDev in general (since he shares a number of little tricks and time-savers in later chapters), this book is indispensable. But what makes it stand out is the tone that Christer sets from the beginning, that of a friendly Dungeon Master or guide leading the reader along. This takes the book from dry, weighty textbook territory into something that you will actually enjoy reading.
I've written a slightly more in depth review of this book at my blog, here [...]
To me, I think this is the most successful part of this book. As a reference to Stage3D and AGAL, and as an introduction to GameDev in general (since he shares a number of little tricks and time-savers in later chapters), this book is indispensable. But what makes it stand out is the tone that Christer sets from the beginning, that of a friendly Dungeon Master or guide leading the reader along. This takes the book from dry, weighty textbook territory into something that you will actually enjoy reading.
I've written a slightly more in depth review of this book at my blog, here [...]
Format:Paperback
Book is really good, informative and educational. It is one of those books which you will have to read chapter by chapter, paragraph to paragraph to get a sense of what is being taught.
It is as much about game programming and computer graphics as it is about Adobe Flash Stage3D. And is DEFINITELY for beginner computer graphics. Not that an intermediate user can't use it as a good intro to AGAL, it seems more like a conveniently-printed-online-tutorial.
It is as much about game programming and computer graphics as it is about Adobe Flash Stage3D. And is DEFINITELY for beginner computer graphics. Not that an intermediate user can't use it as a good intro to AGAL, it seems more like a conveniently-printed-online-tutorial.
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