Papervision 3D is an amazing piece of flash 3d rendering software with very high rendering speeds. Version 2.0, code name ‘Great White’, is under development with public SVN releases. This means that it is NOT complete and things may change without notice. This also means that there is no support or documentation on this release. The only resources you have are reading the libraries themselves and viewing the source of highly skilled developers, like mr.doob, who release their source online. (Model all your applications around what these developers release.)
Does this stop me? Nope!
I’m now developing a tank game using this new branch of PaperVision 3D, and it’s coming together nicely. I am taking my time on this game, so don’t expect it released for a few more months, however you can view the work in progress at the index page of e-arcade.ca.
Let me weight the benefits of this new version as it is right now.
Cons:
Pros:
I hope this inspires you to give it a try, or to at least view the examples and be ‘wowed’. There’s a great video on papervision 3D on YouTube.
Adobe has recently announced that flash 10 will have many 3D elements included in version 10, who knows what we are going to get… but I hoped that it would include directX or at least glide support, however it sounds like they are going to provide their own 3D engine that will be much less powerful than papervision. Adobe also released an example of 3D in flash, using papervision.
Right now, the most practical use of this 3D engine is going to be an application based around simple planes, as they are the least resource intensive objects. If you want more examples of the power of papervision 3D, view http://mrdoob.com
EDIT: Documentation is available here: http://lostboys.epologee.net/papervision/greatwhite.doc/html/