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More Flash Unity3D Communication – u3dObject at Google Code

drawk — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 01:10:26 +0000

I have mentioned before that flash to unity3d communication is a key part of game development for the web now where you are using Unity3D as a higher end renderer and some of your other page elements might be flash. Now there is a new open source kit for this called u3dobject.

To get Flash and Unity3D to talk to one another in an HTML/XHTML page is pretty simple with javascript and with the internal Unity3D Application object and the ExternalInterface in Flash. But there are lots of elements of that communication that can be consolidated and reused so you don’t have to recreate that over and over. Various studios and programmers come up with their own kits but when it becomes a shared activity to get the best integration and make it more of a platform that is where things like swfobject, swfaddress and u3dobject come in.

So far swfobject is the standard for flash html embedding and unityObject is a similar take (but a bit dated) on that but now we have u3dObject that is open as well and a more official open source project for unity3D <–> flash integration and test harnesses for development when those two technologies are used together.

Unity3D <-> Flash Embedding Info:

AS3 CASALib Useful Library of Common Functions and Tools for Flash

drawk — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 02:42:39 +0000

When you do lots of any language you build up libraries over time that are time savers that are repetitive and tedious if you do not consoildate into a library. Taking a look at the CASALib, an as3 library of common functions for flash that was released I have many of the same things in my libraries but CASALib just has lots of extras that go a bit deeper than some libraries, is very clean and is organized pretty well.

One cool thing about it is the IDestroyable interface and the CasaMovieClip, CasaSprite, CasaTextField , etcthat all have a destroy() method that cleans up all events, removed instances and even removes it from the parent display object. Gets me thinking why this isn’t just part of DisplayObject in the first place.

From the release:

Here are a few of our favorite things in CASA Lib AS3:

Standardized external load API

Easily remove listeners with IRemovableEventDispatcher

destroy methods make garbage collection easy

Large group of utility classes for common manipulations

We will be elaborating further the power of CASA Lib in future blog posts.

As with any new release there will be bugs that emerge, but with your help we promise to release updates often to keep CASA Lib as stable as possible.

1.0.0 Downloads & Documentation

ZIP: http://as3.casalib.org/releases/1.0.0/1.0.0.zip
SVN: http://svn.as3.casalib.org/releases/1.0.0/
Documentation: http://as3.casalib.org/releases/1.0.0/docs/

[source]

AlignUtil
- Provides utility functions aligning DisplayObjects.
ArguementTypeError
ArrayContentsError
ArrayUtil
- Utilities for sorting, searching and manipulating Arrays.
AudioLoad
- Provides an easy and standardized way to load audio files.
BaseLoadItem
- Base class used by load classes.
CasaBitmap
- A base Bitmap that implements IRemovableEventDispatcher and IDestroyable.
casalib
- Creates an easy way to determine what version/release of CASA is being used.
CasaMovieClip
- A base MovieClip that implements IRemovableEventDispatcher and IDestroyable.
CasaSprite
- A base Sprite that implements IRemovableEventDispatcher and IDestroyable.
CasaTextField
- A base TextField that implements IRemovableEventDispatcher and IDestroyable.
ColorUtil
- Provides utility functions for dealing with color.
ConversionUtil
- Utilities for converting units.
DataLoad
- Provides an easy and standardized way to load data.
DateUtil
- Provides utility functions for formatting and manipulating Date objects.
Destroyable
- Base class for objects that are destroyable.
Distribution
- Creates the mechanism to distribute DisplayObjects to a vertical or horzontal grid of columns and rows.
DrawUtil
- Utilities for drawing shapes.
Ellipse
- Stores position and size of an ellipse (circle or oval).
EnterFrame
- Creates a centralized enterFrame event.
FlashVarUtil
- Utility for providing easy access to HTML embeded FlashVars.
FrameDelay
- Creates a callback after one or more frames.
FrameTime
- Creates a common time which isn’t affected by delays caused by code execution; the time is only updated every frame.
FrameTimeStopwatch
- Functions exactly like Stopwatch but uses FrameTime as the timing mechanism.
FrameUtil
- Utilities for determining label positions and adding and removing frame scripts.
GeomUtil
- Utilities for positioning, calculating and manipulating geometeric shapes.
GraphicLoad
- Provides an easy and standardized way to load images or SWF files.
GroupLoad
- Allows multiple loads to be grouped and treated as one larger load.
IDestroyable public interface
IList public interface
- Interface for list collections.
Inactivity
- Detects user inactivity by checking for a void in mouse movement and key presses.
InactivityEvent
- An event dispatched from Inactivity.
Interval
- To be used instead of flash.utils.setInterval and flash.utils.setTimeout functions.
IRemovableEventDispatcher public interface
IResumable public interface
IRunnable public interface
Key
- Key class that simplifies listening to global key strokes and adds additional keyboard events.
KeyCombo
- Class for storing keyboard key code combinations.
KeyComboEvent
- An event dispatched in response to a user holding, releasing or typing a combination of keys.
List
- An ordered or sequence collection that can contain duplicates.
ListenerManager
- Creates an easy way to implement IRemovableEventDispatcher when you cannot extend directly from RemovableEventDispatcher.
LoadEvent
- An event dispatched during loading.
LoadItem
- Base class used by load classes.
LoadUtil
- Utilities for calculating a load’s speed and progress.
LocationUtil
- Utilities for determining the location of the SWF and the type of runtime environment.
NavigateUtil
- Simplifies navigateToURL and window.open requests.
NumberUtil
- Provides utility functions for manipulating numbers.
ObjectUtil
- Utilities for working with Objects.
Percent
- Creates a standardized way of describing and storing percentages.
Point3d
- Stores location of a point in a three-dimensional coordinate system, where x represents the horizontal axis, y represents the vertical axis, z represents the axis that is vertically perpendicular to the x/y axis or depth.
Process
- Base process class.
ProcessEvent
- An event dispatched during a Process.
ProcessGroup
- Manages and threads processes.
PropertySetter
- Creates a setter function for properties.
PropertyTween
- A simple property tween class that extends Tween.
QueryStringUtil
- Utility for providing easy access to the browser query string.
Range
- Creates a standardized way of describing and storing an extent of variation/a value range.
RatioUtil
- Provides utility functions for ratio scaling.
RemovableEventDispatcher
- Extends EventDispatcher to allow for simple and quick removal of event listeners.
RetryEvent
- An event dispatched when a load request is retried after previously failing.
ReversibleMovieClip
- Provides additional timeline controlling functions: reverse and gotoAndReverse.
Sequence
- Creates a sequence of methods calls that wait for a specified event and/or delay.
SequenceEvent
- An event dispatched from Sequence.
StageReference
- Stores a reference to Stage for classes that cannot easily access it.
Stopwatch
- Simple stopwatch class that records elapsed time in milliseconds.
StringUtil
- Utilities for manipulating and searching Strings.
TextFieldUtil
- Utilities for working with TextFields.
Tween
- Simple and easily extendable tween/transition class.
TweenEvent
- An event dispatched from Tween.
UniqueList
- An ordered or sequence collection that contains no duplicates.
ValidationUtil
- Utilities for validating common string formats.
VideoInfoEvent
- An event dispatched when meta data, or cue point is received from the VideoLoad.
VideoLoad
- Provides an easy and standardized way to load video files.
VideoLoadEvent
- An event dispatched from VideoLoad.

AS3 Papervision 3D Debugging/Stats with PV3DDebug

drawk — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 11:36:04 +0000

I have been doing lots of Papervision 3D for a project recently and needed to debug some placement and camera issues. I did a quick search and found PV3DDebug by Jason Bejot and it worked out great and is a pretty sweet utility I thought I would mention when you need to debug Papervision or even for inclusion as a debug console in all your papervision apps and games. It is a good base for your own consoles or debug panels. It is also a great tool to help out with focus and zoom issues and understanding with camera placement.

The code is really easy to drop in and you can get lots of info on the PV3D scenes and camera manipulation.

Moock Mentions XFL for Open Flash IDE Source Formats

drawk — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 03:44:46 +0000

Colin Moock an actionscript brain since the great Flash 4 advances that brought all sorts of fun to flash, like games, has mentioned XFL an open format for flash from a discussion with Adobe product managers.

This would be a format that would be able to import, export and allow compile to SWF. MXML for Flex does this now but bringing the two together into one common format and allowing for all sorts of open source and third party contributions to making flash will let it literally explode in support.

I recently met with Flash authoring product-manager, Richard Galvan, to talk about Diesel, the next version of Flash (i.e., Flash CS4, or version 10 for those counting). Adobe has already demonstrated a bunch of high-impact features for Diesel, including inverse kinematics, a new tweening model, 3D “postcards in space”, and advanced text components (see MAX 07 keynote, FOTB 07 keynote, and FITC Amsterdam 08 keynote). But Richard was keen to talk about a lesser known feature quietly percolating behind the scenes: XFL.

Since its inception, the Flash authoring tool has stored documents in a binary source-file called .fla. Historically, interchanging source with the Flash authoring tool has been virtually impossible for third-party software because the specification for .fla has never been public. But things are changing in the next version of Flash. Flash CS4 will be able to export *and* import a new source format called XFL. An XFL file is a .zip file that contains the source material for a Flash document. Within the .zip file resides an XML file describing the structure of the document and a folder with the document’s assets (graphics, sounds, etc). The exact details of the XFL format are not yet available, but Richard assures me that Adobe intends to document them publicly, allowing third-party tools to import and export XFL.

If this is a market test or check of interest I think that everyone I know working with flash would be very excited about opening and unifying the flash format and allowing great IDEs and tools to help produce better flash content more quickly. Also, with the competition Silverlight using XAML (uncompressed) this also allows a competitive advantage maybe making Silverlight add better compression and loading tools beyond their downloader object.

I hope this is also in the plans for Director. If they used similar formats it could be very nice and something to watch as an emerging market to prepare for.

Read the full post at moock.org