So you've decided to get started with 3D in Flash for the first time and don't know how to get started? This tutorial will help you set up Away3D for either Flash, Flex or Flashdevelop.

Away3D is a very capable 3D engine that is in active development, has good community support and well structured documentation that improves every day. It's a great way to get started with 3D in Flash using your favorite development tool. The process described here does not only apply to Away3D, but to any kind of source code so if you want to use MinimalComps by Keith Peters or other Open Source code, just follow the description in this tutorial.

Tutorial by Jens C Brynildsen (August 08th 2008)

This article is for those new to 3D computer graphics. It will introduce you to the lingo used and will explain what is required to make 3D in Flash. If you don't know what a mesh, texture or shader is, this tutorial will prepare you for working with Flash 3D engines such as Papervision3D, Away3D and Sandy. This tutorial does not require programming knowledge as it only covers the basics of 3D on computers in general.

The tutorial is for the very beginners, but it also hold something for others. All the examples are done in Away3D and the source code for each example is available for download. Exploring source code is often the best way to learn, so if you wonder how any of the examples are created, download the code and have a look at it. Read more about using the example files at the end of this article. One more thing - all the examples require that you move your mouse over them. If all the Flash files on this page started playing at once, your browser would just crash. You'll soon learn why.

Let's get started. 3D is simple. It's something you're very used to as you see it all the time with your own eyes. Because of that, your brain know a lot about how 3D works. 3D in computers are very much like 3D in real life. The difference is that on the computer, everything you see is created by someone and that it is displayed in only 2 dimensions.

Here are some comments for the popular 3D engines: Away3D, Sandy, Alternativa and Papervision 3D.

Carlos Pinho have created a page of this list at the blog so you can easly track any new information on 3D.

Tnx Jensa for your great support, by helping me to get this list more complete.

In the last months everyone noticed that everyday, new components and frameworks on 3D have been developed and released to the Flash community. I’m writing this article, because even me that check everyday lots of posts and articles in the Internet, start to be lost in the middle of lot’s of information and new resources available. So, i decide to make a list with all the available 3D tools for Flash. If I’ve missed some of them, i would be glad to add them to this list, just drop me a comment.

Drupal is really powerful CMS. I like it. I just took 2 hours to configured the multi-language system. Now all visitors can switch between 2 languages for each article. This feature is one of basic functions that required for this flash-3d website in my plan. Setting up a linux webserver, installing drupal and enable the multi-language support. Now the foundation is ready. Whenever I get enough free time, I will begin my research of flash 3D and post my experiences here.