Flash 3D Cheats Most Wanted (Paperback)

~ Aral Balkan (Author), Josh Dura (Author), Anthony Eden (Author), Brian Monnone (Author), James Dean Palmer (Author), Jared Tarbell (Author), Todd Yard (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Easy 3D has long been the holy grail for desktop designers, and this book provides an exciting overview of the most wanted 3D effects using Macromedia Flash MX. 3D is a tricky area. The specialist software is expensive, it's complex, you can't deliver it on the web with any great ease, and it's not exactly interactive. This book is for Flash users who want the whole subject sorting out! It is devoted to setting 3D straight, by showing you the simple, powerful, and sometimes downright mind-blowing 3D effects Flash is capable of. Sometimes, as this book shows you, all you need is the right idea, and Flash is capable of delivering some of the most incredible material. Here we look at light and shadow effects, isometric 3D, parallax effects, methods of focusing, plus an innovative slice engine that delivers the most incredible and convincing 3D models! Clear step-by-step instructions show you how to replicate the effects and give you an insight into how you might use them for your own designs. From the Publisher This book is aimed at people who are quite comfortable with Flash MX, and know a little ActionScript. It provides detailed step-by-step tutorials, and boasts complete technical support from the friends of ED website.

About the Author

After studying theatre in London, then working for several years as an actor in the US, Todd was introduced to Flash in 2000 and was quickly taken by how it allowed for both stunning creativity and programmatic logic application&emdash;a truly left-brain, right brain approach to production&emdash;and has not looked back. He now freelances as a Flash developer in New York City, creating both silly animations and utilitarian applications. His personal work and experimentation can be found at his website, www.27Bobs.com.

Brian is more than simply a Flash artist. He is a technologist with a love for great design, motion graphics, and music. Currently, he is a Senior Interactive Designer at nFusion Group in Austin, Texas. His role with nFusion includes creating dynamic Flash demos, videos, and sound design. His future plans include filmmaking. Becoming a filmmaker has been a lifelong passion for Brian, and until that day comes he'll continue to create unique multimedia. Visit his website: www.monnone.com.

Jared Tarbell was born in 1973 to William and Suzon Davis Tarbell in the high-altitude desert city of Albuquerque, New Mexico. First introduced to personal computers in 1987, Jared's interest in computation has grown in direct proportion to the processing power of these machines. Jared holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from New Mexico State University. He sits on the Board of the Austin Museum of Digital Art where he helps promote and encourage appreciation of the arts within the global community. Jared is most interested in the visualization of large data sets, and the emergent, life-like properties of complex computational systems. Jared has recently returned to Albuquerque to work closer to friends and family while enjoying the unique aspects of desert living. Additional work from Jared Tarbell can be found at levitated.net and complexification.net.

Aral Balkan is a Flash Platform veteran and overall Internet junkie. Oh, and in 2008 he\'s producing the world\'s first large-scale online web conference, Singularity. Aral cofounded and coordinates OSFlash.org, authored the pattern- based ActionScript framework Arp, and created the SWX data format, SWX RPC, and SWX PHP. His latest open source project is the GAE SWF Project, providing Flash and Flex developers with knowledge and tools to build Rich Internet Applications on Google App Engine. Aral is a published author and has contributed to several books and magazine articles. Specifically, he is the author of the Adobe Flex 2 QuickStart Guide and Flex 3 QuickStart Guide and has authored six courses on Flash, Flex, ActionScript, and open source development. Aral is a regular speaker at international conferences including Macworld, FlashForward, d.construct, FITC, Wizards of OS, and Adobe MAX.

James graduated in 1998 from the Texas A&M Computer Engineering program. In 2000 he completed his M.S. degree in Computer Visualization. Deeply technical and profoundly visual, James has been working professionally both in print and the web since 1994. James founded Caramba Designs in 2001 to develop web-based applications and end-to-end solutions for unique problems.

Josh Dura started his career as most web developers do, designing simple HTML pages with a little graphics here and there. About 3 years ago, Josh started coding ColdFusion, learning basic OOP skills through that language, which brought him to learning ActionScript. Josh currently works for ReadyHosting.com out of Richardson, TX, doing most of the web, graphic/print design work for them. His personal website, www.joshdura.com , is a basic weblog/photography/open source Flash project. Josh also currently owns and runs Dura Media, LLC ( www.duramedia.com) with his brother Daniel.

From an early age, Anthony developed a love for interacting with mathematics and computational languages. Along the way, he gained an appreciation for any given natural environment and developed the ability to transform his environment into a digital construct. Inspiration for his latest project, www.arseiam.com (essentially an ActionScript anthology of his Flash work), is a testament to this philosophy. For Anthony, the last decade has included commercial roles with Microsoft, Disney, Toyota, and Adobe, opportunities that have provided him with a sound framework in which to explore and diversify his technical skills and style. Spare time? If he's not thinking about it, he's doing it!

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: friends of ED; 1 edition (July 24, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590592212
• ISBN-13: 978-1590592212
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 8.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #842,464 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Trigonometry background required in some chapters, February 22, 2005

By	Carlo R. Montoya "Toy photographer" (Cebu City, Cebu Philippines) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

TOC:

Chapter 1 Introduction to Flash 3D
Chapter 2 Light and Shadow
Chapter 3 Scaling for 3D
Chapter 4 Isometric 3D
Chapter 5 Focus and Depth of Field
Chapter 6 Parallax Scrolling
Chapter 7 Text Effects in 3D Space
Chapter 8 Drawing API and Math for 3D
Chapter 9 3D Slice Engine
Chapter 10 Departure Lounge: Moving beyond Flash 3D

Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 10 don't require a trigonometry
background. One of Chapter 6 topics uses XML though.

The best chapters for me were 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6.

I gave the book 5 stars because it has something for everyone.
Some people use Flash to create digital art while others use it
for practical purposes. This book delivers to both people.
Unfortunately, I belong to the latter kind and some of the topics
aren't for me.

I also think that some chapters are impractical unless you're
really a math geek. For example, I think Chapter 8 - Drawing
API and Math for 3D -- is unnecessary because you can import
Swift 3D files.

Some of the authors also show you Actionscript without really
explaining what it does (I think they assume you do know trig).
I work for a software engineering firm (not as an engineer
though) but I do know that it's bad practice to embed magic
numbers -- literals that don't have apparent meaning -- in
any code. It's better to put them in constants.

One of the authors (the Chapter 4 author I think) said to get
a good book on trigo. I don't think I will because there are
plenty of free trigo tutorials on the web. I agree though that
to get the most out of Flash and this book, learning trigo is a
must.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A work of art! Opens all new possibilities to script builders, September 12, 2005

By	Just Me "Dilbert" (Foster City, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This is the best book I have read in years! If you know the basics of ActionScript and you know sine and cosine, this book opens up whole dimensions of possibilities for both games and business applications of Flash.

It is clearly written and reads more smoothly than most programming books. While it does assume a basic literacy with ActionScript, it does not leave you flailing with complex 3D concepts. You may have to pull out your definitions of sine and cosine, but beyond that, it is pretty light lifting.

The genious of the book is that it violates commmon assumptions, and this results in simple, elegant techniques that are also powerful for a wide range of problems. The common assumption is that Flash doesn't do 3D. Don't believe it anymore. If you are willing to use some basic limitations to your application (such as keeping your polygon count down), you can have some smoothly flowing, useful 3D applications with relatively little effort. And unless I'm mistaken, those applications will run equally well on a browser running on a Mac, Windows or Linux.

The solutions are simple and eclectic. The authors have created a variety of 3D engines - each optimized for a given purpose. The engines are simple enough that (in theory) you can take the source and enhance it to your needs. Each technique is backed up by source code that you can download from the publisher's web site. But don't shortchange yourself with only the sample code - the explanations in the text are worth the cost of the paper book.

Here are my favorite techniques:

* ch 8 (P 195) - Drawing API and Math for 3D - here they explain and provide a working polygon 3D engine. The demos work smoothly (at least 20-30 frames per second) on my cheap Dell laptop. The demos include a oragami bird and a rocket ship with at least 10-20 polgons each. It doesn't support bitmapped textures, but it does offer fill color and shading support.

* ch 9 - 3D Slice Engine - this is the more clever, powerful and non-obvious technique of the book. Check out "dad.swf" in the binary samples from the web site to get an idea of the power of this approach - the author has made a 3D talking head of his father from a photograph! The idea here is that if you can view your 3D world as a topographical map, then you can model it with a set of parallel planes, where each plane represents a certain cut through the entire 3D model. This approach, though not immediately intuitive, is extremely powerful in Flash because it plays on the strenghths of Flash. Each plane is represented by two "movieclip" objects, with one embedded in the other. The first one handles scaling, and the second handles rotation, within the scaled clip. The hidden surface problem is finessed because the planes are parallel - so you only reverse the rendering order once every 180 degrees of change in viewer angle. This enables you to handle full bitmap detail of your scenes, and the result is pretty dazzling! The basic rendering engine requires only about 50 lines of ActionScript!

* Ch 6 - Parallax Scrolling - This name is misleading - it really goes beyond a scrolling 2D game model. In the Wyvern's Claw" example, it explores the idea of building a 3D world like a movie set - with a set of strategically placed flat surfaces (like the fronts of buildings in the studio sets). Each surface is a movieclip, and your script manages the proper scaling and shading as the viewer moves through. The demo then shows an animated walk-through of a small town rendering in such a way. This seems very cool for a potential game.

I'm already using the Chapter 9 slice engine for a work-related project - multidimensional data browsing. So for me, the book was not only stimulating to read but valuable!

6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good golly, December 2, 2003

By	Nettlewine "Nettlewine" (UK) - See all my reviews

This has to be about the best book I have ever seen. The 3D cheats in it are amazing -- and you surely wouldn't know you were cheating. There are some incredibly insightful techniques, and some more staple things if you're not quite steady on your feet yet.

I think I am, but this book showed me how much more there was to know!