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Multiline WordWrap DynamicText3D in FIVe3D Part 3 – AS3 & FP10 New Version Support

June 28, 2010 by Devin Reimer

After getting a lot of requests to update my Multiline Word Wrap DynamicText3D class to support the newest versions of FIVe3D, I have finally created an updated version. The new version supports both
FIVe3D_package_AS3_v1.1.3 and FIVe3D_package_AS3_F10_v1.0.2.

Quick example on how to use this class.

var dynText:DynamicText3DMultiline;
dynText = new DynamicText3DMultiline(new HelveticaMedium());
dynText.width = 200;
dynText.align =  DynamicText3DMultiline.CENTER;
dynText.lineSpacing = 5;
dynText.wordWrap = true;

Note: If you do not set wordWrap=true this class will work exactly the same way as DynamicText3D and will have no extra overhead.

To play the demo click here.

To get the demo source, including the newest version of the DynamicText3DMultiline class click here.

To download the newest version of the DynamicText3DMultiline class click here.

Source Requirements: You will need FIVe3D (AS3_v1.1.3 or F10_v1.0.2). To compile the demo source you will also need TweenMax.

Posted in FIVe3D | Tagged , | 3 Comments

JigLibFlash and FIVe3D in Flash Player 10

January 24, 2010 by Devin Reimer

FIVe3D JigLibFlash FP10 Demo Screenshot

This post is long overdue as I put a lot of effort into the code behind this and when it was finally finished, I just never got around to blogging about it.

A little while ago katopz a new member of the JigLibFlash team started work on Flash Player 10 specific version of JigLibFlash. Once he got it up and running I started work on optimizing it’s performance. I had done performance optimizations for many different projects in the past,  but I had never undertaken an optimizing task quite this complex. Overall it was a very great learning experience, learning the ins and outs of the Flash Player and gaining more knowledge on the weird thing that is the Flash Compiler. While I thought I understood people’s frustrations with the Flash Compiler, it wasn’t until my second week into making performance tweaks that I began to see how poorly the Flash Compiler actually works.

In the end my work finally paid off as JigLibFlash began performing 150% faster than the previous version.

Once that was complete I fixed up the JigLibFlash FIVe3D plugin to make it work with a slightly modified version of FIVe3D (just modified enough so it would compile under Flash Player 10). This is the point when I decided that since I had learned so much about FP10 and the Flash Compiler, I should take a stab at creating a properly FP10 version of FIVe3D. What I thought would be a quick task ended up evolving into me completely rewriting the library. When this new version was complete it ran well over twice as fast as the old one. I contacted Mathieu (creator of FIVe3D) so see if he wanted a copy. It turned out that during the same time period he was also working on an FP10 version of FIVe3D.

Not all was lost, he sent me an alpha version of the library, so I could perform some benchmarks. While my code performed better in certain situation, his performed better in normal uses cases. With this new information in hand I began work trying to incorporate some of my feature enhancements into his version of the library. The most important feature being the addition of ‘direct transform matrix manipulation’. Mathieu and I had spoke of about this feature a few times prior, but understandably he had more important items to tackle. For people that don’t know ‘direct transform matrix manipulation’ is so important because it is a requirement for JigLibFlash to work. This is why in the past to get FIVe3D and JigLibFlash to work together you had to download a custom Sprite3D class from my site.

After a lot of thought I managed to come up with a way to not only incorporate this feature, but also make the library a little bit faster in the process. I sent the modified version back to Mathieu and this code has since been added to the FP10 version of the FIVe3D library. Mathieu was also nice enough to add me as a contributor to the library.

This means that need to download a custom Sprite3D class is no longer required. All the code (minus the Cube class) for using JigLibFlash together with FIVe3D is now added to their respective libraries. This also means that things are a lot faster and in the end; speed = fun.

All the pieces you with need to download:

To see the demo click here.

To get the source for this example click here.

Note: This demo is the same as my first FIVe3D JigLibFlash example the only difference being it is using the FP10 version of both JigLibFlash and FIVe3D.

Update: Some people are having problems with the scale of objects being too small. This is a bug in the original Flash Player 10 player. This bug has since been fixed so make sure you get the newest version of Flash Player 10, Flash CS4 and/or Flex SDK.

Posted in FIVe3D, Physics (JigLibFlash) | Tagged , | 1 Comment

JigLibFlash FIVe3D Dominos

October 1, 2009 by Devin Reimer

JigLibFlash FIVe3D Dominos

So far the only FIVe3D JigLibFlash example I have shown is the Falling Cube Demo. So it was time to create something a little more practical. Dominos.

In this demo you can create, position and rotate dominos, then knock them over. You can also move the camera around the scene to get a better view.

This demo is my first use of flat shading in FIVe3D , which is a new feature in V2.1.2. Flat shading couldn’t be easier to implement, I simply set scene.ambientLightIntensity=.05 and then set all the sides of my dominos to flatShaded=true. I’m impressed with how easy it was to add and how much more visually appealing it made this demo.

This demo is also my first since joining the JigLibFlash team and adding FIVe3D support to the JigLibFlash library. This means the sample source does not contain any JigLibFlash classes, as they are now within the JigLibFlash library itself. Make sure you update your version of JigLibFlash rev 101 or higher.

To check out the demo click here.

To get the demo source click here.

Source Requirements: You will need both FIVe3D 2.1.2 and JigLibFlash to compile the demo source.

Posted in FIVe3D, Physics (JigLibFlash) | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

JigLibFlash FIVe3D Support and FIVe3D Cube

August 3, 2009 by Devin Reimer

FIVe3D JigLibFlash Demo 1 Screenshot

Last week I spoke at ‘Flash in the Peg‘ – Winnipeg’s Adobe User Group. Here I got the opportunity to show a demo of JigLibFlash FIVe3D support that I have been working on for the last few weeks. After more hours than I would like to admit JigLibFlash FIVe3D support is now available for download. Like both JigLibFlash and FIVe3D these classes are released under the MIT License.

If you have used FIVe3D before you will know that there are no 3D object primitives built into the library, because of this I have also wrote a Cube class primitive for FIVe3D. Even if you do not need to use physics in your project you can still use this new Cube primitive.

Setting up JigLibFlash to work with FIVe3D is not quite as easy as Papervision3D, but it’s not a lot harder. The reason for this is FIVe3D does not allow for direct transformation matrix manipulations. In simpler terms a  few small changes needed to be made to the Sprite3D class within FIVe3D. You can use my modified version of the Sprite3D class to replace your current version, or just add it directly to your project using the same package folder structure. An example of how to do this is in my source below. The modifications to the Sprite3D class are small and should have no impact on your projects (with or without JigLibFlash).

To check out the demo click here.

To get the demo source, including all required files click here.

To just download the required files (JigLibFlash FIVe3D Plugin, modified Sprite3D class and new Cube primitive) click here.

Source Requirements: You will need both FIVe3D 2.1.2 and JigLibFlash to compile the demo source.

Update: As I am now a JigLibFlash contributor, JigLibFlash library now has built-in FIVe3D support. For more information click here.

Update 2: The JigLibFlash team (myself included) have completed work on upgrading JigLibFlash to Flash Player 10. To view the my blog post on this click here.

Posted in FIVe3D, Physics (JigLibFlash) | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

Multiline WordWrap DynamicText3D in FIVe3D Part 2 (Now with Dynamic Alignment)

July 19, 2009 by Devin Reimer

FIVe3D WordWrap Part 2 Screenshot

Update: I have released a new version that now supports the newest versions of FIVe3D. To go to the new post click here.

For those of you that have not read my original blog post on multiline wordwrap in FIVe3D. You can go read the article here.

I didn’t intend of expanding my DynamicTextMultiline class, but as I was working on another project I ended up adding to it and expanding its feature set. I have now implemented dynamic alignment (left,right,center) and line spacing, as well as fixed a small bug involving multiline text width. I have also updated the package path of the class to a more logical location (almostlogical.five3d.display).

Using dynamic alignment and line spacing is very easy:

var dynText:DynamicText3DMultiline;
dynText = new DynamicText3DMultiline(HelveticaMedium);
dynText.width = 200;
dynText.align =  DynamicText3DMultiline.CENTER;
dynText.lineSpacing = 5;
dynText.wordWrap = true;

This class has been programmed in such a way that you can use it even if you don’t need to use word wrap because it has almost no additional performance impact when wordwrap=false. Plus now you get the added benefit of being able to dynamically align your text.

This demo is the same as Part 1 except it includes the ability to change the alignment of the text (left,right,center) in real-time.

Note: For performance reasons I recommend setting text.wordwrap=true as the very last property you set.

To play the demo click here.

To get the demo source, including the newest version of the DynamicText3DMultiline class click here.

To just download the newest version of the DynamicText3DMultline class click here.

Source Requirements: You will need both FIVe3D 2.1.2 and TweenMax to compile the demo source.

Note: If you are having problems using word wrapping with generated fonts (not the default Helvetica fonts), please refer to the solution in the previous post.

Posted in FIVe3D | Tagged , , , , , | 9 Comments

Multiline WordWrap DynamicText3D in FIVe3D

June 23, 2009 by Devin Reimer

FIVe3D Word Wrap Screenshot

For those of you that have never heard of FIVe3D, it is a lightweight vector based 3D library now written in AS3. You can check it out for yourself, http://five3d.mathieu-badimon.com.

In working on a small project using FIVe3D I discovered that while the 3D text part of the library is awesome it did not support multiline word wrap. I had seen examples of people using muliple DynamicText3D objects to fake text being multiline, but I wanted the text to be able to support dynamically word wrapping.

So I created a class called DynamicText3DMultiline which works the exact same way as the normal DynamicText3D class, but adds multiline wordwrap functionality. To use wordwrapping, simply set the width of the object and then set wordwrap equal to true.

var dynText:DynamicText3DMultiline;
dynText = new DynamicText3DMultiline(HelveticaMedium);
dynText.width = 200;
dynText.size = 14;
dynText.wordWrap = true;

There is next to no overhead in using this class instead of the DynamicText3D class when you don’t need the word wrapping feature, so as in my example this is now my standard text rendering class. Also it does have the added benefit have having a textHeight function.

To play the demo click here.

To get the demo source and the new DynamicText3DMultiline class click here.

Source Requirements: You will need both FIVe3D 2.1.2 and TweenMax to compile the demo source.

Update: I have been informed that people have not been able to get this class to work with their own generated typography files. I have discovered the issue, it turns out there is a small bug in the Typography Generator. Luckly the solution is easy. Once you create a new typography AS file, open it up and go to line 15. Change the variable ‘__heights’ to ‘__height’, and word wrapping will work.

Update 2: A new version of the DynamicText3DMultline class has been released with new features. Please check out the new post.

Update 3: I have released a new version that now supports the newest versions of FIVe3D. To go to the new post click here.

Posted in FIVe3D | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments