Update on Papervision3D

A very busy period at the moment but I thought I would just post an update on where we have reached with Papervision3D.

Success, basically. We now have our matrix as a 3D object within Flash which we can rotate and move around. We also have movieclips assigned to the individual cubes which animate if we want them to etc. The last part is not quite there. This is the part where you click on the movieclip'd cube which takes you to another image. So close to sussing it, a few scratching of heads and hopefully we will get the last little bit done, and this can finally become part of the Abbey project.

The hold-up for us was the Collada file. If the Max model is not set up correctly with material ID's etc then the Collada file will not work. We even took the Max model as a 3DS file into Swift3D, and then immediately exported it out to Papervision3D. (This creates a folder of sub folders containing all the information required, including an AS3 file, which does not happen if you export to a Collada file from Max.)

It needed me to realise the problem was with the materials, Paul as a Flash designer understands how to pull it into Flash, the publish settings, parameters etc but not Max and materials within Max. So when the Collada file refused to see the materials within Flash, we wondered if it was how the Collada file is created / exported. Using Notepad to look at the code within the Collada file, I saw it mention material ID's, so went back to Max, made sure that each material used was saved to the library with it's own material ID. The file then newly exported and brought into Flash worked.

I will post a step by step tutorial on this blog once the Beaulieu Abbey project is finished, as we found some of the tutorials we have visited have assumed software knowledge on the part of the user, and if they have not used the software before i.e. Max as a Flash designer, the tuturial then fails and frustration rises. Hopefully it will help other newcomers to Papervision3D and Collada.

Hopefully next post you will see the KubeMatrix in action...

Interaction with Papervision3D

The above image has been created with Papervision3D by Den Ivanov and can be viewed on his website. It is a lovely piece of work and shows some of what Papervision3D can achieve.

Papervision3D enables Flash / Flex users to use 3D content for the web. Flash was originally designed for just 2D input / output, however interactive. Macromedia Director was the tool that designers used to create interactive 3D interfaces for CD-ROM's / DVD's, not Flash. This is changing rapidly with this rather fantastic render engine.

I am not an expert on this but in trying to see how it works, there does not seem to be an interface that most of us would recognise, such as in Mental Ray. Once downloaded and installed, within Flash, you then have Papervision3D as an AS3 scripting page. Already, those of you who have any experience with code and Flash will know that this is new to me. What I have learnt is that it is an open source 3D render engine for Flash, the programming behind this only enhances the fact that there is a whole world of very clever people out there, making my skillset miniscule by comparison.

To explain - my husband is the Flash / Web designer, I ususally stick to my 3D work, and between us we are looking to use the interactive capability of Papervision3D in The Talking Walls project for Beaulieu Abbey. Unfortunately, neither of us are expert in code - of any sort. Paul uses CSS, AS2 etc as part of his job but his background is in graphics not programming. (Traditionally the two were always separate - not the case now, with programmers designing, and vice-versa.)

As for the 3D modelling aspect of Papervision3D, we are able to bypass this part of the coding, as we have Swift3D and Max. Papervision3D /Flash will import 3D content from either Swift3D or Max, using Collada as the export from Max, and Papervision3D export from Swift3D.

We have searched high and low for step-by-step tutorials for what we want to achieve. Looking through the web, there are some absolutely wonderful examples of Papervision3D, some of them showing exactly the kind of interactivity we want to incorporate.

JonathanDC
Blitz
Tutankhamun
arTYPEcture
vellof

But how to do this evades us at the moment. I know it won't be too long before we work it out, we already have interactivity on a single object thanks to this website we just need to know how to add the other cubes and make them interactive at the same time, and still allow the user to rotate the KubeMatrix.

In Director, this would have been fine, but we would really like to create the whole application in Flash.

If anyone reading this knows the additional code to make each cube interactive i.e. click and go to another page, then we would love to hear from you. It needs only to be the full faces on each cube, i.e the faces without the connectors, not every face.

Meanwhile, perseverance and determination (and stubborness) will succeed I am sure. As soon as we have worked it out, via help or otherwise, we will post the tutorial on this blog.