There were a few people impressed and interested in the 3D engine, currently it is not high on my to do-list since there are many better and more efficient offerings out there like Papervision 3D, Away 3D and Sandy. But as soon as I release Ponstructor and the physics engine I might find time to revisit the 3D engine since there is room for a lot of improvement and rewriting.

P.S. I liked to see some of my code being used in some really cool projects; check out: MyXmasTweet and FlashTerm

Constraint based bridge simulator

Some of you might remember a game called pontifex or bridge builder if you don’t; it’s a game in which you construct a bridge with beams and than let a train or car drive over it to see whether it holds. It is really fun and quite educational at the same time (equals morally appropriate right?). After some more research into rigid body constraints I found out that pontifex probably used the same stuff like I used in the 2D constraint based rope. So with some minor modifications it was easy to create a bridge simulator and with a littlebit more code even a bridge builder. It is still far from a game suitable for release and profit but it is definatly a playable minigame. Take a look at the working example by clicking the  ‘Continue Reading’ link.

You can build beams by first selecting a particle and than clicking somewhere else (within the ‘build length’) to place a particle to connect it with. To connect two particles with each other select one, and than hover over the other to make it blue and click. To simulate the whether the bridge will hold you need to click the ‘Simulate’ button. Press ‘Stop’ to stop the simulation and return to the old state. In the simulation you can remove beams by clicking on them.

Constraint based rope simulation

So I was looking into some cool stuff to do with my 3D engine when I came across this. I’ve always been a fan of physics simulation based realism so I began to work this out in 2D. The first demo was using elastic constraints between particles but that made a very instable system. It can be improved with better integrators like RK4 but that still didn’t result in the desired result. I might have other plans for these elastic constraints later though. You can read more about elastic constraints here [Gaffer's tutorial on spring physics] and here [Gamasutra's "Exploring spring models"]. So I went on with inelastic infinitely ’stiff’ constraints which were mentioned in this ["Advanced Character Physics" by Thomas Jakobsen] great resource on computer physics simulation. The result worked out pretty well and will be easy to port to 3D. Which will happen when I’m done with a little (very interesting) side project using the same code. More about that later… Check out the working demo after the ‘Continue Reading’ link.

Below is the working simulation, use your mouse to move the rope. The simulation uses quite a lightweight rope with little friction. Combinations of elastic and inelastic constraints can be used to simulate a lot of different interesting stuff like pudding, crashing cars, stresses on buildings and cloth. Expect more examples soon.

Download source code

Waves from a Perlin Noise wavemap

The inspiration came from Flash 3D’s article on perlin noise and it took me quite some time to figure out that flash had a proprietary perlin noise method (BitmapData.perlinNoise()). Below is the example, it includes a floating box which is hacked to be drawn on top of everything because the carving is not working yet. But the effect is very convincing.

The engine is coming closer and closer to it’s first release, more practical examples will follow soon. And for more information on perlin noise you can look here.

1. Fly a MiG-25 to space
   What would be better than being in space or flying a jet? Doing both at the same time! There are multiple companies willing to bring you that delight with the Mikoyan-Gurevich 25, which packs 100.1 kN to thrust you right to the edge of space (~25.000 m up). All you have to do now is fork over $31,995. [link]
2. (Accidentally) Drive a Caterpillar 797B over a car
   The Caterpillar 797B is the biggest truck in the world. Hauling around 623,700 kg with 3550 horsepower is fun. And since a rally with these trucks will unlikely ever happen I’ll settle with driving over a car (accidentally). Check out the video here.
3. Be 007
   Everybody dreams of being 007! Driving your top of the line Aston Martin to the most luxurious and beautiful locations while saving the world from another villain with lots of tricked out gadgetry.
4. Be a Mythbuster for a day
   The mythbusters have the best job in the whole world. Finding out all the cool stuf in the name of science. But since they are not to eager to hire anymore people on their team which I completely understand… it ought to be fun for just one day. (Please? )
5. Set foot on Mars
   Don’t we miss those days of explorers pioneering new land? What about being the first person to set foot on Mars!
6. Laugh to death
   Obviously this should be the very last thing to do on our list… But is there anyone who could think of a better way to die?
7. Do a monster truck rally/destruction derby with some friends
   Pretty self explanatory…
8. Drag a top fuel dragster
   I bet most of your friends won’t top the experience of a nitromethane powered 8000 horsepower rocket that will blast you to 450 km/h in just 200 meters.
9. Have some fun with a mini gun
   Again this video probably says enough: [link]
10. Think of your own! Tell us in the comments…

One variable graph in 3D

Two variable graph in 3D

The first graph is a one variable parameterized function, displaying the following formula;

The second graph is a two variable surface graph of a modified sinc function. Two realtime examples below, move your mouse over them to rotate around the graph.

Having multiple tabs open in your browser will significantly impact performance, so view in one tab before criticizing the frame rate! Once I get the dynamic text at points done there can be scales and titles for the axisses as well. And prepare for a few more very interesting demos soon…

A demo of the AS3 3D Engine doing shadows, realtime demo after the read link.

Bugfixes:

• Changed the frame loop to accept non-polygonal 3D objects (like lines and dots) in a better way.

Known bugs:

• Not all rotation and translation functions for objects, rotate the vector normals and/or translate the object midpoints yet.
• Sometimes undefined shadow faces are added to mShadowFaces, the error is now catched but still visible from time to time.
• Some polygons are still incorrectly culled, have discovered the issue though.
• Problem in the Z-buffering effecting relatively big differences in face sizes.
• Cone shadows are incorrect.

New features:

• Line primitive
• Dot primitive (currently the size is not effected by distance)
• Cull parameter for faces that should not be culled (planes for example)
• Added object rotation, surface normals not yet rotating perfectly.
• View frustum culling (very basic, still some work to be done)
• Shadows

Upcoming features:

• Textfields at 3D points
• Performance increase
• Object/face glow
• Directional light and light with different colours
• Roll camera movement
• Texture perspective correction
• Multiple cameras
• Reflections!
• 2D primitives; planes, circles, etc.

But before the next big changes I will probably upload a few nice examples of the 3D engine at work (games and graphing!). And if someone can help me understand the FLARtoolkit, we might see some augmented reality with this 3D engine in flash as well! The source will be released when I feel the engine is stable enough to be released, check out earlier posts for credits to classes used with the 3D engine.