Re: FLASH: 3d vector art

[David Gary]

"Erik [gearik] Mattheis" wrote:


> I would agree that tracimg a bitmap would be a pain in the butt, but what's

> so hard about hand shading? It looks to me like the easiest way to create

> those animations would be to make the flat image in a Illustrator, import

> it into Dimensions, export it as Illustrator, import it into flash, break

> the images apart and then replace the shading effect (that will be of

> dozens of shapes of a single color) with a gradient.

>


You can export your vector art or lines from Flash3 directly to Dim3.

Dimensions AI will export directly into Flash3 for sequence. No need for

Illustrator.

Any vector 3D imported into FLash3 looses data, simply importing the lines,

breaking

apart and re-filling in the lines with gradient fill is not quite that simple.


>

> Dimentions is only $128, and sure you can't do anything complex with it,

> but it works great for Flash's needs (exported sequence of vectors).


Actually thats not a bad price, I though paid alot more than that. However

if you've ever imported 3D vector from Dim3 into Flash and then break apart to

clear your fills,

if the object has more than one single extrusion, your in for major clean up and

in some cases its not worth it.

Flash3 is not designed to support 3D so it reads any 3D data as 2D, and it does

all kind of weird things.

I've seen a lot of hype about Dim3 being the "FLash 3D tool", I simply didnt see

that much significance

in using it.


>

> Has anyone tried either of the newer Photoshop vector plug-ins? There's the

> "paths to illustrator" export option in Photoshop; seems like the

> combination of these two things might work to make a rotating sequence ...


Dim3 isnt really the problem, the problem is that Flash cannot properly calculate

the 3D data,

and you lose data It can cause more problem than its worth. It really doesnt

matter all that much, what

program you use to export the vector. (actually Dim3's postscript was the

cleanest) The bottom line is,

if your going to import any vector 3D data into flash(ai) it has to read lines

and the geometry. FLash

simply wasnt designed for that. Simple, single extrusions are about the only

thing you can successfully

use 3D vector for in FLash. Sequenced images(BMP) is the easiest way, but you end

up with uge file

size and bad quality images, not to mention processor strain.


Take it from somone whos been through the trenches.

Flash3D is war and war is hell!!


-DG-



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