Blender > ActionScript Exporter

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torus.jpgAnyone who works with Flash should find this interesting. Blender user Dennis Ippel has created a script which can convert Blender objects in Flash ActionScript 3.0 objects. This allows the creation of realtime-3D rendering within Flash (which is more typically used to render two-dimensional vector imagery). For more information, visit the exporter’s official page, or its wiki entry.

 

 

The most useful information can be found on the official page, including a setup tutorial and a small demo created with the script, showing a rotating torus (pictured). Supported Flash 3D engines are Papervision3D, Away3D, and Sandy 3.0, and it is compatible with Windows and Mac OSX. Thanks to Dennis for this useful resource!

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    • http://www.whimsycoll.com Whimsy Collective

      Thanks Dennis Ippel!

    • http://www.kuehberger.net/blender carlinhos

      I still haven’t tried it, but it seems to be a great new opportunity to get Blender stuff into the web.

    • DramaKing

      But would you still need Flash?

    • tessa

      @DramaKing
      Its not easy to display 3d object in flash, without flash. So yes you do need flash.

    • http://www.davidrevoy.com David Revoy ( Deevad )

      @Tessa :
      I think I have the same question as DramaKing, for sure I understand it need and require *flash plugin browser* to show result on the screen , via a swf surely. But does it need to have Adobe Flash ( the authoring/expensive tool ) installed on the system to start to export some objects ? and if yes wich version ?

      This technology look promising !

    • tessa

      @David Revoy ( Deevad )

      Yes you need something like Flash or Flex to compile it into an swf file. Also since the flash platform doesn’t support 3D natively you also need a 3D engine like Papervision3D, Away3D, or Sandy 3.0

    • http://www.blendernation.com Bart

      Would it be possible to write a generic Flash component that could load external 3D object data? That might be a cool way to display content of 3D object libraries without needing to manually create a Flash file for each object..

    • tessa

      @David Revoy ( Deevad )

      “and if yes wich version ?”
      You would want something that is capable of handling AS 3.0 like Flash CS3.

      Here a cool video to give you an idea of how flash and sandy works:
      http://www.flashsandy.org/tutorials/3.0/video_getting_started

      It would however be possible to make an swf file that reads and displays the content of an obj-file, without the need of Flash CS3 of Flex.

    • tessa

      @Bart
      Yes that would be possible. Long time ago I made a very simple 3D engine in AS2.0 that would display the contents of obj-files. It was very crude and simple though.

    • http://www.davidrevoy.com David Revoy ( Deevad )

      @Tessa:
      Thanks for the answer. The idea of bart to have a 3D swf player look awesome.

    • http://www.blendernation.com Bart

      @tessa: do you have that online somewhere? I’d be interested in seeing how well that works.

    • tessa

      @Bart
      I’m sorry I don’t. I only have some old screenshots showing its wire and solid-modes:
      http://img174.imageshack.us/img174/892/3dflashv0372ip2.jpg

      As I said it was very crude and simple – it didn’t even have a z-buffer! it just used a simple painters algorithm and backface culling to depth sort and optimize all the face. I experimented with a z-buffer, but I found AS2.0 to be too slow for it to be really usable.

      I was about halfway done with my texture/uv functions when I heard that the new AS3.0 would be about 10x faster than AS2.0, so I thought that there was no point in finishing it.

      But if you want to see whats possible with flash and 3D, you should check out the Papervision and Sandy demos – they are really impressive! Thats really the way to go if you want real 3D i flash. It is just too much work to build your own 3D engine now. And since the engine is already made, you would only have to make the obj parser.

    • http://www.rgbk.org Bmud

      This whole mess has brought me back to the world of web designers, and now I’m really afraid of Flash.

    • http://n/a Reynante M. Martinez

      Wow, this is nice! I’ve been dreaming of this feature before, only I wasn’t able to post it via the community. Now I can easily integrate Blender and Flash on my work. Thanks, guys. :) More power to you.

    • http://n/a Reynante M. Martinez

      Btw, the “wiki entry” link doesn’t work with me. Yay. ^_^’

    • http://www.virtualmatter.org KevinW

      YYYYYEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!
      (another excuse to use Blender!)

      –
      Kevin

    • http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=108496 Catboy85

      As far as I know I have not installed any of those 3d engines on my computer. How come I can view the demo flash animation on his web page on my computer?

    • http://spotmeon.blogspot.com gauravanim

      ultimate ultimate great great ultimate

      many many thanks

    • +peter

      To anybody familiar with exporting Collada files for Papervision 3D, I am curious how this is more flexible. In the main .AS file, the code must still reference the Blender AS code in order to draw an object, almost identically to how it would reference the Collada file.

      Is there more flexibility in generating the 3D object using AS code than there would be in a Collada file? Once Papervision gets more into reading the animations from a Collada file (if it doesnt already) only having the model described in AS might be a limitation in comparison.

      Any thoughts?

    • http://www.taddmencer.com Tadd

      This is pretty slick sounding … maybe build a new audience … pull people away from Swish3D?