I understand that PaperVision natively provides a ParticleSystem and there have been other Particle System code snippets lurking around the internet, but for people, who have been following my particle system tutorials, I’m going to tell you how to convert the same particle system into 3D using PaperVision3D. Here’s how it looks in PaperVision3D; you can use the mouse and the arrow keys to move the camera around:

Code rundown:

If you want to understand the code in the sources below, you can go through the tutorial, I posted about setting up projects in PV3D. The biggest change is to remove the particlesystem class and reduce the Parent Child Hierarchy. I have moved the ParticleSystem class into the main section of our project, such that all particles become direct children of the scene. This reduces the need to have a DisplayObject3D Container. It also helps in managing the particles easily.

You can grab the sources below and don’t forget to leave me some feedback .

simpleparticlesystempv3d.zip

The last month went by so fast, I could not get time to update my blog. I have tons of things to post and I have a project exclusively for my website, its a PaperVision3D book. The Flash community is looking for it and I might just deliver it. I lack time and I have no one around to help me out in finishing things faster. I’ll be posting its chapters on this blog as well, because I want to keep the book open source and most likely as NEHE’s OpenGL tutorials. You’ll soon find a WIP Text version of the book in the site’s download section:

You can expect PaperVision3D to show up on my website very soon. I’ll be doing tutorials and open source projects for people to learn PV3D. I’ll be going over Away3D and Sandy3D as well but not too much, since I feel all of these engines share the same core. I’ll be looking into optimization techniques that can help you reduce those very useful CPU cycles. I’ve been away from photography and digital art but I’ll be coming back to that as well. People have complained that I don’t cover news on this blog. Well, honestly, I don’t wanna. Why? well you can find news on many blogs and I don’t see any point in creating a mirror of those news here.

That reminds me, I read a news that was interesting i.e. Flash Player 10 BETA is now live. It has tons of API changes and the one change that can turn things for PaperVision3D is native 3D support. You can grab the update from here.

I will update certain stuff in my portfolio here and there using the feedback, I receive from many people. I’ll be updating the software and visual section soon. In fact, there is already some new stuff in the visual programming section. You can grab the sources for them on this blog. I’ve also thought of making a video tutorial for Mocapsim, which is receiving the most attention these days. People are having problems developing the hardware. If you have any ideas that can help me improve the software or the homepage, do let me know.

I have updated my Vector3D library for AS3. It now includes many more functions that you can use while working in 3D. I have updated the code for my previous tutorials as well, which use the Vector3D library. You can find it here. I also fixed some bugs and optimized the code to use lesser CPU cycles, you’ll instantly know it. I’m going to reiterate over the tutorials to make them more understandable for people, who are not familiar with classes.

Lastly, be sure to look around and you’ll find a lot of good stuff coming up in some days. Meanwhile, if you think you liked any of my tutorials or if you want me to cover a specific subject, do let me know. I like hearing you out…

Regards,
M.H.A.Q.S.

UPDATE: I have released a complete working port of Opensteer for ActionScript 3. Please see this post.

When I was working on the paperwork for this website, I promised that I will share source code and tutorials for people. I have been pretty active working with many projects lately, and I rarely find time to practice my interests. There are so many great examples and pieces of art out there that I take inspirations from. Much of it involves working with Visual Algorithms and I get to have a great time learning them and re implementing them to my pleasure. This serves me education and releasing them in a new form will eventually serve the community.

This time it is the famous Birds Flocking Behavior Algorithm using Boids. I converted it to Action Script 3. This algorithm can be very useful in areas of visual programming and games. Also, I have been busy working with PaperVision 3D for quite some time. I’ll release a PV3D version of this Algorithm soon. So keep an eye out for that too.

The source code is attached below and if you have questions, do ask. Also, if you need to study this algorithm, you may search around the internet and you’ll find many articles about it.

Regards,
M.H.A.Q.S.

flocksimulation.zip