Welcome

I realize that there are others working on bringing 3D to Flash, but I have done some work of my own on this and have created a pretty decent engine that gives some pretty amazing results- and it is fairly intuitive. The purpose of this blog is to show how the approach works, add functionality, show off examples, and gather suggestions to make it better.

What is it?
See this example below. A picture is worth a thousand words. This is the first site I have designed that uses the engine. It was actually nominated in the FlashForward Film Festival (along with PaperVision3D - Ug. they will surely win)

http://www.nitrocircus.com/

How does it work?
Basically, you place MovieClips on the stage. The engine uses the actual _x, _y, and _alpha properties of each MovieClip to determine their position in the 3D universe. The _alpha value of each MovieClip is used to create the Z coordinate when the engine runs (100 is really close, 0 is very far away). This allows regular Flash designers to intuitively position each MovieClip on the X, Y, and Z axes. My mother thinks it is an ingenious approach.

How is it different from PaperVision3D?
Not sure yet. I have never been able to figure out how to get their demo files - just a shark swims around on their site. I am sure PaperVision3D is far more powerful - and a lot more complex to use. Kind of Flash 3D for nerds. I'm not that smart. I have also notices that the graphics in PaperVision are Nintendo64 quality - pretty pixellated.

What does the Matt Maxwell 3D Engine do exactly?
You can move forward, backward, left and right, but you are always looking forward. That's all. But that's a lot. The engine has headlights that illuminate the objects based on their distance from the camera.

What are your plans for the engine?

• I want to add audio speakers that get louder when you are close by and soft when you are far away.
• I want to improve performance using AS3 Sprites
• I need to convert it to AS3. I am struggling a little with the nerdier approach of AS3. I realize why Adobe has made it more complex, but it is far less intuitive to me.
• I want to use it as much as possible so people get used to a more immersive, realistic web experience. I want HTML to go away. My hope is that everyone will say, "hey, how come our site is flat and boring? We need a next-generation site like that one."
• I want to give it away for free so I can get a lot of good karma (and hopefully a few PayPal donations - mattmaxwelldesign@gmail.com if you are feeling generous)

What's my background?

I have been designing in Flash since it was FutureSplash in the 1990's. I have a degree in Graphi Design at the University of Utah. I live in Utah in the USA.

Why did you name it Matt Maxwell 3D Engine?

I'm busy and I thought it was pretty clever, don't you?

Where can I get the files?

Patient, my son. I just need time to zip them and post a few more examples.