Fun With Flex 3, Actionscipt 3 and Whirled
For a while I was a regular on Whirled, a social community where environments and avatars are all made in Flash. To play with it I downloaded the 30 day trial of Flex 3 and the 3D Actionscript library Papervision3D. Using these technologies I created some custom avatars which are presented here. These objects are not movies, but are programmatically controlled 3D sprites and their behaviour is not scripted but driven by velocities, forces, timers and random numbers. If you start them over you will not see the same actions, except for the timed events naturally.
The following 5 objects are the results of my labor, click on an image to see the Flash object
The RingThing This was actually a conversion of a JavaScript object I had created for Adobe Atmosphere, a now defunct 3D social MMO with it's own API. I used this to
introduce myself to ActionScript 3 and the Whirled and Papervision3D APIs. Later I used it to test Papervision3D material types, which is why it will change through various styles as you watch. People on Whirled were pretty happy with it, not the least of which because the company making Whirled is called Three Rings, which I hadn't even considered when I chose to convert it, I just like the way it looks.
The Companion Cube Just like slmost every nerd on the planet I loved Portal, so when it came time to try and import a more complex textured 3D object I naturally picked the Companion Cube. While I was
playing with environment mapping I came up with a version I'd like to think the Franklin Mint would call "A bold, unique and stirring tribute to a cherished icon." And it begs the question, can something be too shiny? Wait for it.
Whirldium What's a 3D system without particles? Here I built a particle system in the guise of building a particle avatar.
The Celestial Sphere I love orrerys, so I built myself a big one. I had a whole bunch of other things I wanted to try and do with it, but it was already starting to push the limits of Papervision3D
at this point. This object is a little different than the others on this page because it was used as my rooms background, so it's rather bigger.
The Whirled Ball I was so happy with one of the effects I created for the nucleus of the Whirldium avatar that I decided to make it an avatar in it's own right.
Unfortunately this one was never finished and released into the wild, and thus it's a little rough around the edges