3D is one of the many cool things made possible with Flash Player 9 and the super fast Virtual Machine. This tutorial will show you how to create a realistic looking interactive earth, complete with a sun and a starlit sky. Scared? Don't be - it's easy with Away3D!

3D is all the rage in the Flash community these days. There are several engines available and each has strengths and weaknesses. Carlos Pinho has compiled a nice list of what's available. For this tutorial, we'll use the engine called Away3D that can produce some really beautiful results.

This is how the finished result of this tutorial will be. Click and drag with the mouse to orbit the earth.