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Saturday, September 6th, 2008

Previous articles summary :

This article continues investigating the wide range of materials available in Papervision3D and probably represents the last one of this theme. Whereas the previous examples tried to improve the realism of a 3D scene, this article takes a look at the more dynamic materials available with Papervision3D.

First, apologies for the length of this entry : actually, the more you look at what is available in Papervision3D the more you realise how much it offers! The aim here is to look at MovieMaterials. These offer the ability of having interactive and dynamic surfaces on 3D objects either with Flash movies or Flash video streams. Summarizing this to a few lines probably wouldn’t do it justice so I’ve tried to illustrate here some of the more exciting features offered… and even in doing so am probably still missing a lot!

Anyway, this article introduces two new kinds of materials: MovieMaterial and VideoStreamMaterial (which inherits from the former).

The MovieMaterial allows us to create a material using a pre-existing Flash movie (embedded in a Papervision3D movie) or simply from any MovieClip / Sprite inheriting class instance. Papervision3D provides mapping functions that allow us to interact with these Flash movies with mouse clicks and movements even in a 3D environment.

The VideoStreamMaterial, as its name implies, allows us to stream flash video streams (flv files) onto a 3D object.

The example shown in this article includes these three possibilities including: a flash video stream from a given URL, an embedded standard (non-3D) Flash movie and an example showing a Papervision3D scene being animated as a material in another Papervision3D scene… did I mention before that this article might be quite long?!

So, what we essentially have here are three Actionscript classes: the main 3D scene, a non-3D Sprite-inheriting class and another, secondary Papervision3D scene. I’m only going to discuss the first one here but I’ll include the source for the others at the end.

The main source code is shown below. The example shows the three movie materials projected onto a specific face of three projectors (Cube instances), all rotating about the y-axis. The projectors can be double-clicked to enlarge them, stop them from rotating and provide a more simple means of interacting with them. Double-clicking again puts them back with the others. The whole scene can be rotated by clicking on the background and moving the mouse. The code, as warned, is a little longer than hoped for, but we’ll look at each part in more details afterwards and really there’s nothing very complicated there. I’m using the Tweener library again to provide smoother visual effects (see Part 3 - animation - for more details).


package {
 
  import caurina.transitions.Tweener;
 
  import flash.display.MovieClip;
  import flash.events.Event;
  import flash.events.MouseEvent;
  import flash.media.Video;
  import flash.net.NetConnection;
  import flash.net.NetStream;
 
  import org.papervision3d.core.proto.MaterialObject3D;
  import org.papervision3d.events.InteractiveScene3DEvent;
  import org.papervision3d.lights.PointLight3D;
  import org.papervision3d.materials.MovieMaterial;
  import org.papervision3d.materials.VideoStreamMaterial;
  import org.papervision3d.materials.shadematerials.FlatShadeMaterial;
  import org.papervision3d.materials.utils.MaterialsList;
  import org.papervision3d.objects.DisplayObject3D;
  import org.papervision3d.objects.primitives.Cube;
  import org.papervision3d.view.BasicView;

  [SWF(backgroundColor="#222222")]

  public class Example008 extends BasicView {
 
    private static const ORBITAL_RADIUS:Number = 400;

    [Embed(source="/../assets/DrawTool.swf")]
    private var DrawTool:Class;

    private var exampleMovie:MovieClip;

     private var videoURL:String = "http://www.tartiflop.com/pv3d/FirstSteps/Radiohead_HOC.flv";

    private var video:Video;
    private var stream:NetStream;
    private var connection:NetConnection;

    private var objectGroup:DisplayObject3D;
    private var light:PointLight3D;
    private var currentActiveObject:DisplayObject3D = null;
   
    private var projectors:Array = new Array();
   
    private var doRotation:Boolean = false;
    private var canRotate:Boolean = true;
    private var lastMouseX:int;
    private var lastMouseY:int;
    private var cameraPitch:Number = 60;
    private var cameraYaw:Number = -60;
   
    public function Example008() {
      super(0, 0, true, true);

      // Initialise Papervision3D
      init3D();

      // create video stream for VideoStreamMaterial
      createVideoStream();

      // create the 3D Objects
      createScene();

      // Listen to mouse up and down events on the stage
      stage.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_DOWN, onMouseDown);
      stage.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_UP, onMouseUp);

      // Start rendering the scene
      startRendering();
    }
   
    private function init3D():void {
      // position the camera
      camera.z = -1000;
      camera.fov = 60;
      camera.orbit(cameraPitch, cameraYaw);
    }

    private function createVideoStream():void {
      // Create a NetConnection. 2-way connection not necessary: connect to null
      connection = new NetConnection();
      connection.connect(null);

      // Create a new NetStream to obtain the flv stream. Ignore client messages so use a simple Object
      stream = new NetStream(connection);
      stream.client = new Object();
     
      // create a new video player
      video = new Video();
     
      // start streaming the video from the given URL and play it on the video player
      stream.play(videoURL);
      video.attachNetStream(stream);
    }

    private function createScene():void {
      // Specify a point light source and its location
      light = new PointLight3D();
      light.x = 400;
      light.y = 1000;
      light.z = -400;

      // Create a 3D object to group the projectors
      objectGroup = new DisplayObject3D();

      // Create a new video stream material with precise rendering.
      var videoMaterial:VideoStreamMaterial = new VideoStreamMaterial(video, stream, true);
      addProjector(videoMaterial);
         
      // Create a new flash movie material from an actionscript class (not transparent, animated and precise rendering)
      var movieMaterial1:MovieMaterial = new MovieMaterial(new Example006b(), false, true, true);
      addProjector(movieMaterial1);

      // Create a new flash movie material from an embedded flash movie (not transparent, animated and precise rendering)
      var movieMaterial2:MovieMaterial = new MovieMaterial(new DrawTool(), false, true, true);
      addProjector(movieMaterial2);
   
      // add the object group and light
      scene.addChild(objectGroup);
      scene.addChild(light);

      // set up the projector positions in the scene
      organiseProjectors();
    }
   
    private function addProjector(material:MovieMaterial):void {
      // materials are smooth rendred, interactive and resize to the 3D object.
      material.smooth = true;
      material.interactive = true;
      material.allowAutoResize = true;

      // simple flat shaded material as default for the projector
      var flatShadedMaterial:MaterialObject3D = new FlatShadeMaterial(light, 0x554D33, 0x1A120C);
      flatShadedMaterial.interactive = true;
     
      // Material list with MovieMaterial used on the front, the rest being flat shaded
      var materialList:MaterialsList = new MaterialsList({"all":flatShadedMaterial, "front":material});

      // create a new interactive projector
      var projector:Cube = new Cube(materialList, 320, 10, 240);
      projector.addEventListener(InteractiveScene3DEvent.OBJECT_DOUBLE_CLICK, onMouseDoubleClickOnObject);
      projector.addEventListener(InteractiveScene3DEvent.OBJECT_OVER, onMouseOverObject);
      projector.addEventListener(InteractiveScene3DEvent.OBJECT_OUT, onMouseOutObject);

      // add the projector to the scene, being part of the object group
      objectGroup.addChild(projector);
     
      // store projector in an array
      projectors.push(projector);
    }
   
    private function organiseProjectors():void {
      // calculate angle between projectors
      var theta:Number = 360 / projectors.length;
     
      // set up each projector so that they are distributed in a circle and facing outwards
      for (var i:int = 0; i < projectors.length; i++) {
        var projector:Cube = projectors[i];
       
        // specifc angle for projector
        var angle:Number = i * theta - 180;
        var angleRadians:Number = angle * 2 * Math.PI / 360.;

        // position of projector
        var x:Number = Math.sin(angleRadians) * ORBITAL_RADIUS;
        var z:Number = Math.cos(angleRadians) * ORBITAL_RADIUS;

        // create tween to position, rotate and scale projector smoothly over 1 second
        Tweener.addTween(projector, {x:x, y:-150, z:z, rotationY:angle, scale:0.8, time:1, transition:"linear" });
      }
    }
   
    override protected function onRenderTick(event:Event=null):void {
      // rotate the object group: angle kept between 0 and 360 degrees
      objectGroup.rotationY += 1;
      if (objectGroup.rotationY > 360) {
        objectGroup.rotationY -= 360;
      }
     
      // if an object is active (double clicked) rotate it in the opposite direction
      // to the group so that it is stationary
      if (currentActiveObject != null) {
        currentActiveObject.rotationY -=1;
        if (currentActiveObject.rotationY < 0) {
          currentActiveObject.rotationY += 360;
        }
      }
     
      // If the mouse button has been clicked then update the camera position     
      if (doRotation && canRotate) {
        // convert the change in mouse position into a change in camera angle
        var dPitch:Number = (mouseY - lastMouseY) / 2;
        var dYaw:Number = (mouseX - lastMouseX) / 2;
       
        // update the camera angles
        cameraPitch -= dPitch;
        cameraYaw -= dYaw;
        // limit the pitch of the camera
        if (cameraPitch <= 0) {
          cameraPitch = 0.1;
        } else if (cameraPitch >= 180) {
          cameraPitch = 179.9;
        }
     
        // reset the last mouse position
        lastMouseX = mouseX;
        lastMouseY = mouseY;
       
        // reposition the camera
        camera.orbit(cameraPitch, cameraYaw);
      }
     
      // call the renderer
      super.onRenderTick(event);
    }

    // called when mouse down on stage
    private function onMouseDown(event:MouseEvent):void {
      doRotation = true;
      lastMouseX = event.stageX;
      lastMouseY = event.stageY;
    }

    // called when mouse up on stage
    private function onMouseUp(event:MouseEvent):void {
      doRotation = false;
    }
   
    // called when mouse double clicked on a projector
    private function onMouseDoubleClickOnObject(event:InteractiveScene3DEvent):void {
      var object:DisplayObject3D = event.displayObject3D;
     
      // determine if the object is to be activated (placed in center) or deactivated
      if (object == currentActiveObject) {
        deactivate(object);
      } else {
        activate(object);
      }
    }
   
    // disable camera rotation when mouse is over a projector
    private function onMouseOverObject(event:InteractiveScene3DEvent):void {
      canRotate = false;
    }
   
    // re-enable camera rotation when mouse is out of a projector
    private function onMouseOutObject(event:InteractiveScene3DEvent):void {
      canRotate = true;
    }
   
    // places a projector in the center
    private function activate(object:DisplayObject3D):void {
      // remove projector from rotating projectors array
      projectors.splice(projectors.indexOf(object), 1);
     
      // if a projector is active already, put it back in the array of rotating projectors
      if (currentActiveObject != null) {
        projectors.push(currentActiveObject);
      }
     
      // create a tween to place selected projector in the center
      Tweener.addTween(object, {y:100, x:0, z:0, rotationY:-objectGroup.rotationY, scale:2, time:1, transition:"linear" });
      currentActiveObject = object;

      // re-organise the other projectors
      organiseProjectors();     
    }
   
    // puts an activated projector back into the main pack of rotating projectors
    private function deactivate(object:DisplayObject3D):void {
      // put the projector back into the rotating projectors array
      projectors.push(currentActiveObject);
      currentActiveObject = null; 
   
      // re-organise all projectors
      organiseProjectors();     
    }
   
  }
}

All of this provides the following Flash movie. As mentioned above, double-click on an object to activate it (this actually just means that the object is magnified and stops spinning - it doesn’t change any of the object characteristics). Double-click on an activated one to deactivate it (put it back with the others). Two projectors allow for user interactions at any point in time: you can draw on one and rotate the 3D scene on the other. The final projector streams House Of Cards by Radiohead (another Paperivision3D example?!). The whole scene can be rotated by clicking on the background and moving the mouse. Click on the image below to see it all in action.

So, as with the other articles in this series lets take a look at how the scene is constructed step-by-step. As usual, the code is organised in more of less the same way as previous examples. The main difference comes from creating and attaching a video stream and modifying the animation and object interaction.

Let’s start with the constructor. The only difference here is the initialisation of the video stream. If you take a look at the source code for the VideoStreamMaterial you’ll see that it takes two objects: a Video and a NetStream. These are pure Actionscript objects necessary for streaming the data and displaying it. The Flex language reference for NetConnection came in handy here to see what these objects do and how to create them. A slightly cut-down method is used here but it remains in principal the same.


    private function createVideoStream():void {
      // Create a NetConnection. 2-way connection not necessary: connect to null
      connection = new NetConnection();
      connection.connect(null);

      // Create a new NetStream to obtain the flv stream. Ignore client messages so use a simple Object
      stream = new NetStream(connection);
      stream.client = new Object();
     
      // create a new video player
      video = new Video();
     
      // start streaming the video from the given URL and play it on the video player
      stream.play(localVideoURL);
      video.attachNetStream(stream);
    }

As you can see in the example shown in the Flex livedocs, there are ways to listen to events occurring during the streaming but for this example I’ve just done a minimum to restrict the length of the code a bit.

Next we come to the scene creation. This again is based on previous examples so we have a light source, an object group to simplify the rotation of a number of objects and then the individual 3D objects, each one with a different MovieMaterial. 


    private function createScene():void {
      // Specify a point light source and its location
      light = new PointLight3D();
      light.x = 400;
      light.y = 1000;
      light.z = -400;

      // Create a 3D object to group the projectors
      objectGroup = new DisplayObject3D();

      // Create a new video stream material with precise rendering.
      var videoMaterial:VideoStreamMaterial = new VideoStreamMaterial(video, stream, true);
      addProjector(videoMaterial);
         
      // Create a new flash movie material from an actionscript class (not transparent, animated and precise rendering)
      var movieMaterial1:MovieMaterial = new MovieMaterial(new Example006b(), false, true, true);
      addProjector(movieMaterial1);

      // Create a new flash movie material from an embedded flash movie (not transparent, animated and precise rendering)
      var movieMaterial2:MovieMaterial = new MovieMaterial(new DrawTool(), false, true, true);
      addProjector(movieMaterial2);
   
      // add the object group and light
      scene.addChild(objectGroup);
      scene.addChild(light);

      // set up the projector positions in the scene
      organiseProjectors();
    }

As you can see the three MovieMaterials (VideoStreamMaterial inherits from this) are simple to create. Firstly the VideoStreamMaterial takes the Video and NetStream we created just before and I’ve chosen precise rendering to minimise perspective distortions. The other two MovieMaterials take in one case a Actionscript object and an embedded Flash movie in the other (see the start of the class definition to see the embedding, which is identical to how we embedded images in previous examples). The three boolean values are associated with transparent, animated and precise rendering arguments. So since the Flash movie objects are animated we need to specify true for the animated argument to ensure that the scenes are updated.

The scene is then populated with the object group (containing the 3D objects) and the light. The positioning of the 3D objects is delegated to the organiseProjectors function which we’ll come to shortly.

In this example I’m using the Cube primitive. Each one has a specific face (the “front”) showing the MovieMaterial and since each one has essentially the same characteristics I’ve factorised the code to initialise each one identically.


    private function addProjector(material:MovieMaterial):void {
      // materials are smooth rendred, interactive and resize to the 3D object.
      material.smooth = true;
      material.interactive = true;
      material.allowAutoResize = true;

      // simple flat shaded material as default for the projector
      var flatShadedMaterial:MaterialObject3D = new FlatShadeMaterial(light, 0x554D33, 0x1A120C);
      flatShadedMaterial.interactive = true;
     
      // Material list with MovieMaterial used on the front, the rest being flat shaded
      var materialList:MaterialsList = new MaterialsList({"all":flatShadedMaterial, "front":material});

      // create a new interactive projector
      var projector:Cube = new Cube(materialList, 320, 10, 240);
      projector.addEventListener(InteractiveScene3DEvent.OBJECT_DOUBLE_CLICK, onMouseDoubleClickOnObject);
      projector.addEventListener(InteractiveScene3DEvent.OBJECT_OVER, onMouseOverObject);
      projector.addEventListener(InteractiveScene3DEvent.OBJECT_OUT, onMouseOutObject);

      // add the projector to the scene, being part of the object group
      objectGroup.addChild(projector);
     
      // store projector in an array
      projectors.push(projector);
    }

Each MovieMaterial is smoothed (to appear less pixelated), made interactive (so that the 3D object responds to mouse events) and auto-resized so that they resize automatically to the cube dimensions. The other five faces of the cube are covered in a simple flat-shaded material (as seen in Part 4) which is also interactive. The cube is then constructed with a MaterialList containing these two different materials. Event listeners are then added to the cube so that it responds to double-click events (to activate and deactivate it) and mouse over and out events which, as we’ll see later, are used to restrict the stage mouse listeners for rotating the scene (essentially they stop the scene from rotating when a user is interacting with one of the 3D objets).

The new cube is then added to the object group (so that it is rendered) and stored in an Array to allow us to access it later.

As you see in the example, the non-activated projectors are spaced evenly in a circle, facing outwards (the rotation comes simply from a rotation of the object group, handled separately). The function organiseProjectors performs the necessary calculations and animation.


    private function organiseProjectors():void {
      // calculate angle between projectors
      var theta:Number = 360 / projectors.length;
     
      // set up each projector so that they are distributed in a circle and facing outwards
      for (var i:int = 0; i < projectors.length; i++) {
        var projector:Cube = projectors[i];
       
        // specifc angle for projector
        var angle:Number = i * theta - 180;
        var angleRadians:Number = angle * 2 * Math.PI / 360.;

        // position of projector
        var x:Number = Math.sin(angleRadians) * ORBITAL_RADIUS;
        var z:Number = Math.cos(angleRadians) * ORBITAL_RADIUS;

        // create tween to position, rotate and scale projector smoothly over 1 second
        Tweener.addTween(projector, {x:x, y:-150, z:z, rotationY:angle, scale:0.8, time:1, transition:"linear" });
      }
    }

This function quite simply calculates the angle between each projector (Cube instance) and positions them in the x-z plane accordingly. To smoothly position each of them I’ve used a linear tween to modify the x, y, z, rotationY and scale properties of each of them, taking one second to animate. Thanks to Tweener this is very simple to perform!

Next we come to the onRenderTick function which updates the scene at every movie frame. This is essentially the same as for previous examples in the series


    override protected function onRenderTick(event:Event=null):void {
      // rotate the object group: angle kept between 0 and 360 degrees
      objectGroup.rotationY += 1;
      if (objectGroup.rotationY > 360) {
        objectGroup.rotationY -= 360;
      }
     
      // if an object is active (double clicked) rotate it in the opposite direction
      // to the group so that it is stationary
      if (currentActiveObject != null) {
        currentActiveObject.rotationY -=1;
        if (currentActiveObject.rotationY < 0) {
          currentActiveObject.rotationY += 360;
        }
      }
     
      // If the mouse button has been clicked then update the camera position     
      if (doRotation && canRotate) {
        // convert the change in mouse position into a change in camera angle
        var dPitch:Number = (mouseY - lastMouseY) / 2;
        var dYaw:Number = (mouseX - lastMouseX) / 2;
       
        // update the camera angles
        cameraPitch -= dPitch;
        cameraYaw -= dYaw;
        // limit the pitch of the camera
        if (cameraPitch <= 0) {
          cameraPitch = 0.1;
        } else if (cameraPitch >= 180) {
          cameraPitch = 179.9;
        }
     
        // reset the last mouse position
        lastMouseX = mouseX;
        lastMouseY = mouseY;
       
        // reposition the camera
        camera.orbit(cameraPitch, cameraYaw);
      }
     
      // call the renderer
      super.onRenderTick(event);
    }

The object group is rotated as in previous examples. This time I’m using the rotationY property rather than the function yaw to have a better control of the angle of rotation. The activated object is spun in the opposite direction at the same time so that it is effectively stationary.

The camera rotation is essentially the same as before except that we use the canRotate boolean value to restrict the rotation when the mouse is over a 3D object.

The rest of the code is essentially to handle the mouse events. The onMouseDown, onMouseUp are the same as before to initiate and stop the scene rotation. onMouseOverObject and onMouseOutObject add to this by limiting the rotation when the user is interacting with a 3D object.

To activate and deactivate a projector the double-click event on a 3D object is used.


    // called when mouse double clicked on a projector
    private function onMouseDoubleClickOnObject(event:InteractiveScene3DEvent):void {
      var object:DisplayObject3D = event.displayObject3D;
     
      // determine if the object is to be activated (placed in center) or deactivated
      if (object == currentActiveObject) {
        deactivate(object);
      } else {
        activate(object);
      }
    }

Simply, if the object clicked is the current active object then we deactivate it. If not we activate it. 


    // places a projector in the center
    private function activate(object:DisplayObject3D):void {
      // remove projector from rotating projectors array
      projectors.splice(projectors.indexOf(object), 1);
     
      // if a projector is active already, put it back in the array of rotating projectors
      if (currentActiveObject != null) {
        projectors.push(currentActiveObject);
      }
     
      // create a tween to place selected projector in the center
      Tweener.addTween(object, {y:100, x:0, z:0, rotationY:-objectGroup.rotationY, scale:2, time:1, transition:"linear" });
      currentActiveObject = object;

      // re-organise the other projectors
      organiseProjectors();     
    }

When activating a projector, it is removed from the Array of spinning projectors. If another projector is already activated then we put it back into this group. A simple linear tween is then used to reposition the newly activated projector in the center and to rescale it so that it is bigger than the others. We then recall organiseProjectors to reposition the remaining projectors around a circle.

Deactivating a projector simply involves putting it back into the Array and repositioning all of them around a circle.


    // puts an activated projector back into the main pack of rotating projectors
    private function deactivate(object:DisplayObject3D):void {
      // put the projector back into the rotating projectors array
      projectors.push(currentActiveObject);
      currentActiveObject = null; 
   
      // re-organise all projectors
      organiseProjectors();     
    }

So that’s all there is to it! Really Papervision3D and Tweener do all the complicated work to display and animated the 3D scene: all that’s new here is the creation of the movie materials. Once again I hope this shows that Papervision3D is really very simple to use. Looking at the Papervision3D source code really helps a lot to understand how the materials are created and you’ll see that I haven’t covered everything but hopefully this gives a good starting point in creating your own 3D scenes with movie materials!

Just for completeness I’ve included below the source code for the animated movies used for the MovieMaterials. One is a simple 2D, standard Flash animation that reacts to mouse events. The other is based on a previous Papervision3D example shown in this series (from Part 6) but without the InteractiveScene3DEvent handlers. I found it really amazing that one 3D scene can be used as a material in another 3D scene - good work Papervision3D!

Here’s drawTool.as…


package {
  import flash.display.Sprite;
  import flash.events.MouseEvent;
  import flash.text.TextField;
  import flash.text.TextFieldAutoSize;
  import flash.text.TextFormat;
  

  public class DrawTool extends Sprite {

    private var isDrawing:Boolean = false;

    public function DrawTool() {

      // create a drawing surface
      graphics.beginFill(0xEEEEEE);
      graphics.moveTo(0, 0);
      graphics.lineTo(320, 0);
      graphics.lineTo(320, 240);
      graphics.lineTo(0, 240);
      graphics.endFill();
     
      // create text and format
      var textFormat:TextFormat = new TextFormat();
      textFormat.size = 30;
      textFormat.font = "Arial";
     
      var text:TextField = new TextField();
      text.x = 50;
      text.y = 100;
      text.textColor = 0x222222;
      text.text = "click to draw!";
      text.setTextFormat(textFormat);
      text.autoSize = TextFieldAutoSize.LEFT;
      text.selectable = false;
      addChild(text);
     
      // listen to mouse events
      this.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_DOWN, onMouseDown);
      this.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_UP, onMouseUp);
      this.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_MOVE, onMouseMove);
     
    }
   
    // start drawing circles
    private function onMouseDown(event:MouseEvent):void {
      isDrawing = true;
      drawCircle(event.stageX, event.stageY);
    }
   
    // stop drawing circles
    private function onMouseUp(event:MouseEvent):void {
      isDrawing = false;
    }
   
    // draw a circle
    private function onMouseMove(event:MouseEvent):void {
      if (isDrawing) {
        drawCircle(event.stageX, event.stageY);
      }
    }

    // circle drawing function
    private function drawCircle(x:int, y:int):void {
      graphics.beginFill(Math.random() * 0xFFFFFF, 0.5);
      graphics.drawCircle(x, y, 5);
      graphics.endFill();
    }
   
  }
}

… and finally Example006b.as :


package {
 
  import flash.display.Bitmap;
  import flash.display.Sprite;
  import flash.events.Event;
  import flash.events.MouseEvent;
 
  import org.papervision3d.materials.BitmapMaterial;
  import org.papervision3d.materials.utils.MaterialsList;
  import org.papervision3d.objects.DisplayObject3D;
  import org.papervision3d.objects.primitives.Cube;
  import org.papervision3d.objects.primitives.Sphere;
  import org.papervision3d.view.BasicView;

  [SWF(backgroundColor="#FFFFFF")]

  public class Example006b extends BasicView {
 
    [Embed(source="/../assets/pv3d.png")] private var PV3D:Class;

    private static const ORBITAL_RADIUS:Number = 100;
 
    private var bitmap:Bitmap = new PV3D();

    private var cube1:Cube;
    private var cube2:Cube;
    private var sphere1:Sphere;
    private var sphere2:Sphere;
    private var objectGroup:DisplayObject3D;
   
    private var doRotation:Boolean = false;
    private var lastMouseX:int;
    private var lastMouseY:int;
    private var cameraPitch:Number = 60;
    private var cameraYaw:Number = -60;
   
    public function Example006b() {
      var background:Sprite = new Sprite();
      background.graphics.beginFill(0x000000);
      background.graphics.moveTo(0, 0);
      background.graphics.lineTo(320, 0);
      background.graphics.lineTo(320, 240);
      background.graphics.lineTo(0, 240);
      background.graphics.endFill();
      addChild(background);
     
      super(320, 240, true, false);

      // Initialise Papervision3D
      init3D();
     
      // Create the 3D objects
      createScene();

      // Listen to mouse up and down events on the stage
      background.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_DOWN, onMouseDown);
      background.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_MOVE, onMouseMove);
      background.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_UP, onMouseUp);

      // Start rendering the scene
      startRendering();
    }
   
    private function init3D():void {
      // position the camera
      camera.z = -500;
      camera.orbit(cameraPitch, cameraYaw);
    }

    private function createScene():void {

      // create interactive bitmap material
      var bitmapMaterial:BitmapMaterial = new BitmapMaterial(bitmap.bitmapData, false);

      // create an interactive tiled bitmap material (bitmap tiled as 2 x 2)
      var tiledBitmapMaterial:BitmapMaterial = new BitmapMaterial(bitmap.bitmapData, false);
      tiledBitmapMaterial.tiled = true;
      tiledBitmapMaterial.maxU = 2;
      tiledBitmapMaterial.maxV = 2;
     
      // create cube with simple bitmap material
      cube1 = new Cube(getBitmapMaterials(bitmapMaterial), 50, 50, 50);
      cube1.x =  ORBITAL_RADIUS;

      // create cube with tiled bitmap material
      cube2 = new Cube(getBitmapMaterials(tiledBitmapMaterial), 50, 50, 50);
      cube2.x = -ORBITAL_RADIUS;
 
      // create sphere with simple bitmap material
      sphere1 = new Sphere(bitmapMaterial, 25, 10, 10);
      sphere1.z =  ORBITAL_RADIUS;

      // create sphere with tiled bitmap material
      sphere2 = new Sphere(tiledBitmapMaterial, 25, 10, 10);
      sphere2.z = -ORBITAL_RADIUS;

      // Create a 3D object to group the spheres
      objectGroup = new DisplayObject3D();
      objectGroup.addChild(cube1);
      objectGroup.addChild(cube2);
      objectGroup.addChild(sphere1);
      objectGroup.addChild(sphere2);

      // Add the light and spheres to the scene
      scene.addChild(objectGroup);
    }
   
    private function getBitmapMaterials(bitmapMaterial:BitmapMaterial):MaterialsList {
      // create list of materials for all faces of the cube,
      //    all with the same bitmap material
      var materials:MaterialsList = new MaterialsList();
      materials.addMaterial(bitmapMaterial, "all");
     
      return materials;
    }
   
    override protected function onRenderTick(event:Event=null):void {

      // rotate the objects
      cube1.yaw(-3);
      cube2.yaw(-3);
      sphere1.yaw(-3);
      sphere2.yaw(-3);
     
      // rotate the group of objects
      objectGroup.yaw(1);

      // call the renderer
      super.onRenderTick(event);
    }

    // called when mouse down on stage
    public function onMouseDown(event:MouseEvent):void {
      doRotation = true;
      lastMouseX = event.stageX;
      lastMouseY = event.stageY;
    }

    // called when mouse up on stage
    public function onMouseUp(event:MouseEvent):void {
      doRotation = false;
    }
   
    // called when the mouse moves over the stage
    public function onMouseMove(event:MouseEvent):void {
      // If the mouse button has been clicked then update the camera position     
      if (doRotation) {
       
        // convert the change in mouse position into a change in camera angle
        var dPitch:Number = (event.stageY - lastMouseY) / 2;
        var dYaw:Number = (event.stageX - lastMouseX) / 2;
       
        // update the camera angles
        cameraPitch -= dPitch;
        cameraYaw -= dYaw;
        // limit the pitch of the camera
        if (cameraPitch <= 0) {
          cameraPitch = 0.1;
        } else if (cameraPitch >= 180) {
          cameraPitch = 179.9;
        }
     
        // reset the last mouse position
        lastMouseX = event.stageX;
        lastMouseY = event.stageY;
       
        // reposition the camera
        camera.orbit(cameraPitch, cameraYaw);
      }
     
    }
   
  }
}

Next article:

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11 Responses to “First steps in Papervision3D : Part 8 - Movie materials”

Anonymous said...

Your tutorials are great, thanks.
I’m using Flash develop and it does not like init3D - “call to a possibly undefined method” I’ve commented it out and put the camera in the createScene.

tartiflop said...

Thanks for your comment - its good to know they’re of some use!

That’s strange behaviour - I can’t see any reason why it shouldn’t like init3D but thanks for the pointer anyway… I’m sure it’ll come in useful for others.

K D Ready said...

First off, thanks a heap for your time investment on the blog. It’s hard to find info in the moving target world we live in (esp. 2.0!)

I didn’t have the success I wanted on this one, but I found a few things of interest:

1. camera should be _camera
2. where you use orbit and fov, use
cameraAsFrustumCamera3D.fov and
cameraAsFrustumCamera3D.orbit(…

3. for orbit, you need a display3D object for the first arg.

Like I said, on this one, I didn’t get exactly where I was headed, but I really appreciate what you contribute to the body that is the Web.

:-)

tartiflop said...

Sorry you didn’t have the success you wanted with this one but thanks for the compliments!

With regards the camera, I prefer to pass by the accessor for the _camera member of AbstractView (from which BasicView is derived) which is performed by simply writing camera. You’ll see in the AbstractView class of Papervision3D that this corresponds to :

public function get camera():CameraObject3D {
return _camera;
}

As for the FrustrumCamera3D, as far as I can tell this no longer exists in the Papervision3D v2.0 source… but I could be wrong. So, since the type of camera that is being created is a Camera3D instance (see the BasicView class) its normal to call directly camera.fov = 60 for example.

Finally, for the orbit, you can specify a DisplayObject3D but it is optional. If you look in the orbit function of Camera3D you’ll see that it checks for this and defaults to a DisplayObject3D situated at the origin, which is what I wanted for this example.

Hope this has cleared up a few elements of the code. Thanks again for your comments and your support!

Ben Sumner said...

Hey, I have been having some problems with running many of your codes and many other examples I have found online. When I installed PV3D the only files I could find in the svn were the cs4 ones. I assume this is my issue. I need some help finding the proper files and installing them. None of the guides or videos I have found work for the current svn.

I get the following error on example 9a and many other examples.

if (cameraPitch < = 0) {

1083: Syntax error: assign is unexpected.
1084: Syntax error: expecting rightparen before leftbrace.

tartiflop said...

Thanks for the heads-up on the mistake in the code (a strange copy from eclipse into html in the blog…). Its fixed now and reads

if (cameraPitch <= 0) {
…

For the installation of Papervision3D from SVN, check out my post on downloading and compiling Papervision3D, but note that the repository has changed since this post. You can check out the current version of Papervision3D from svn->trunk->as3->trunk.

.pm said...

great tutorials man. very good for papervision beginners.

yukimi said...

Hi, thanks for all the great tutorials! I’m using Flash (not Flex) and I need to embed a swf as the material for a cube. I used the code in your example:

[Embed(source="DrawTool.swf")]
private var DrawTool:Class;
var movieMaterial:MovieMaterial = new MovieMaterial(new DrawTool(), false, true, true);

Upon pressing Ctrl+Enter, I saw error:
INFO: Viewport autoScaleToStage : Papervision has changed the Stage scale mode.
TypeError: Error #1007: Instantiation attempted on a non-constructor.
at TestMc2/::createScene()
at TestMc2$iinit()

What does that mean? Do Flash support [Embed] syntax? Please help.
Thanks.

tartiflop said...

Hi Yukimi and thanks for the comment! No, I don’t think Flash supports [Embed]… others have commented on this too - check out the comments on texture mapping to see how to use textures (or other embedded elements) within Flash…. hope this helps.

yukimi said...

Hi tartiflop, thank you very much for your reply. I used a movieclip as the texture of a sphere instead of swf. Now, I need to upon clicking this movieclip, a series of Plane objects appear and each Plane will get its texture from xml file (of which the url points to an image). Do you have any tutorial that can give me some hints on how to do this? Your help is highly appreciated.

Thanks a lot!

gina said...

thank you so much for offering this thorough explanation and code source. you have illuminated so many seemingly inaccessible concepts.

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