UPDATE: This release has been superseded by a new release. Please see this post.

Update:  I found a memory leak in the AS3Steer branch and uploaded a quick fix. The branch also contains an example now.  If anyone wants to have a visual look into it, please check out the google repository. This will also show how differently Opensteer handles Flocking compared to other flocking algorithms.

I had to no idea what to name this post . Yes, I’ve been away again. My job has really taken me away from my personal interests. Nevertheless, there are people on the web that motivate me to get back into my work and update it. I have so much to write and I don’t know what to write first about…

Well to start off, I missed to write about some wonderful news on the web and that was the release of Processing getting out to BETA. I believe, I always loved processing even before Flash or Action script came into my consideration. If you do not know what processing is, I recommend you read Daniel Shiffman’s newly published book about Processing. It is worth the time and your hard earned money (highly recommended).

Further up, I have had many of my personal projects begging to be shared and uploaded. I am highly endowed to the people on the internet helping the community with their precious time. Thank you everyone…

I have uploaded a working copy of PaperSteer to the Google Repository. The core of library has been checked a million times by me, so it shoudl work without any issues. I have branched PaperSteer:

AS3Steer
This version is no nonsense heart of the OpenSteer library. This version is purely actionscript. It is optimized and not a direct port of its ancestor. I have removed the annotation, the plugins, and drawing classes as well as many amounts of non understandable code, just so that anyone who picks up OpenSteer for Actionscript can work with it. People have been asking me for an example of how to use the library with ActionScript. Well, I did not think it was that difficult, but here it is anyway.

PaperSteer
Now this version is a direct port of its ancestor. I am kind of happy that I managed to port the (not so much easy to understand) opensteer library in its originality. Here are the updates in big points:

- Flash Player 10 support.
- There are heavy optimizations there that WILL speed it up. These optimizations include:

Type casting
Function reductions
Typed Arrays and what not…

- Plugins are there now for anyone’s reference and YES they are working
- The drawing routine has been re written entirely, but is buggy and I am working on it. You’ll immediately notice it.
I call this revision a BETA. If you have not gone through the papersteer repository yet, I recommend you may give it a try.

So, that’s about it for PaperSteer. I have some more goodies to share .

I have had an enormous response for my R4 – Music Visualizer. People have been searching and asking for its sources. I remember, I promised to share the sources once I was finished with it. But frankly I left it midway as I had other things to do. Even then, below is the current shape of how it looks like. And here are the sources . Go make crazy stuff.

I made a 3D version of the Boids algorithm for Papervision3D as well. This is only to help people who may want to program this behavior in PV3D. You can replace those cones with actual Bird DAE’s and it’ll be more than you expect it to be. The sources here.

Next up are my naughty friends from nowhere. I just love them. You will too. Sources here…

Am I forgetting something? Oh yeah, I have a download section now. People keep asking me where they can download certain stuff or libs that were posted earlier on the blog. For a hint, I have fixed:

Vector3D class
Why use it when Adobe has a Vector3D class built into Flash 10? Well, go see for yourself. I have spent too much a time to make this the ultimate Vector3D class there can be .

The Colors Class
I missed the XNA and AS2 Colors class so much that I created this nifty class to help out in my color cycles. It has many colors to choose from and it helps you convert between RGB, Vector and Hex values.

There are other utility classes in the Tabinda.net utils package. Pretty useful stuff if you ask me. Go check all of it out. Whew! I think that’d to for today.

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.