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Getting the trial for AS3 was great for my progress in flash. Ages ago, I was experimenting with 3D in AS2. I wanted to make a 3D engine from scratch, to be used for retro FPS games (think Wolfenstein 3D, and that generation).
The way I thought to do it, was split the display into many columns, each with a part of a wall texture. Each column would change height according to the perspective of a wall it would be part of. This was obviously a very inefficient way of doing it, and it ran extremely slowly.
But with AS3, I wanted to try again. Instead of using many textured movie clips, though, I would use a single BitmapData, and draw each column of pixels individually. It worked.
Here is my latest test, my next goal is to texture walls, which is easily possible with the system it uses, but may affect the frame rate.
The 3D view is a class, that can have its dimensions set to anything, and quality (size of pixels) changed.
This was made completely on my own, except for when I asked here about the new classes in AS3 (thanks again). What do you think of it so far? Any ideas for a game to make out of it?
http://spamtheweb.com/ul/upload/270109/7 8554_main.php

Damn, forgot the controls:
WASD movement,
LEFT, RIGHT ARROWS turn.
You don't clip with walls yet.

Since I don't have cs4, I don't know the full capabilities of 3d, but that looks good.

Pretty nice, man. Looks good and lag-less. I say keep working on it and then think of what you want to do with it. Have a solid foundation first. :)

(textures, objects, collisions, etc)

That looks great, except that you can go through walls.

At 1/27/09 05:25 PM, 14hourlunchbreak wrote: That looks great, except that you can go through walls.

Yeah, but what would you do for that ability?
Thanks for the comments, I'll be doing textures and then collision, then maybe entity types.
Also, the NG GUI changed when I clicked to post. I'll miss the winter one.

That does look, and feel very nice. Good job! :D

Lol, its fun to run through walls... The 3D engine looks great! I hope to see more later.

That was amazing! Make movement a tad faster, though. And the walls looked badly textured...
But in terms of engine, that was amazing! You can make a great FPS!

I feel stupid for asking... does this utilize the 3D animation thing in CS4? If so, I had no idea it could cross w/ actionscript. If not, is it possible in AS2?

At 1/27/09 08:02 PM, Super-Yombario wrote: I feel stupid for asking... does this utilize the 3D animation thing in CS4? If so, I had no idea it could cross w/ actionscript. If not, is it possible in AS2?

Nope it does not use the 3D effects introduced in CS4, and yes the CS4 3D effects can be used with actionscript.

And the last question, I am using Flash 8 atm, I plan to buy CS4 around my birthday. Can I make this in Flash 8?

At 1/27/09 05:30 PM, StaliN98 wrote:

At 1/27/09 05:25 PM, 14hourlunchbreak wrote: That looks great, except that you can go through walls.

Yeah, but what would you do for that ability?
Thanks for the comments, I'll be doing textures and then collision, then maybe entity types.
Also, the NG GUI changed when I clicked to post. I'll miss the winter one.

I would reference a boundary map for hit testing. Make an above-view 2D map that corresponds to the 3D map and place the checking on that.

Wow, I would've never thought to use 2D hitTests in a 3D engine... that's an excellent idea.

At 1/27/09 08:08 PM, Super-Yombario wrote: And the last question, I am using Flash 8 atm, I plan to buy CS4 around my birthday. Can I make this in Flash 8?

Yes you can make this in AS2. Also, to use the built-in 3D effects in CS4, AS3 must be used.

Yeah, I know. I got the CS4 trial. I was actually pretty disappointed, I wanted to utilize that for some cutscenes, but I can't. Although, I guess I can always just make an SWF in AS3 with the 3D motions, and add the SWF to the AS2 FLA?

holy crap, thats some of the best 3D engine in flash Ive seen yet.

I hope you can make a cool game with it.

Looks awesome. Seems like there are going to be more and more 3D as the days go by. I already know of 2 completed 3d engines ( + this one) being used for games right now.

Outstanding!

I would concentrate on collisions before textures, as textures could potentially drag it down, while collisions are fundamental to playability. You could make a game without complex textures, but you cant without collisions. Functionality before graphics.

I would say the map overlay technique described above would be the best method for the collisions. Mini-maps are extrememly handy, to the player and the maker =P

At 1/27/09 05:00 PM, StaliN98 wrote: http://spamtheweb.com/ul/upload/270109/7 8554_main.php

awesome guy, runs very fast, i got 48fps and average 47,48
now you all you need is boundaries

Nice raycaster. Smooth as silk. Naturally there are a billion improvements and features you've got to add, but this is as good start on a 3d engine.

God dammit. I stop doing flash for like, two years and now everyone's a billion lightyears ahead of me and I can't even remember how to do for loops.

>:(

Seriously, though. That's a pretty amazing job. I am jealous.

CS4 has made 3D much easier and much more useful. However one thing you should know is that this method of 3D is not very efficient. Sure it seems lagless when there are only a few objects, but in a real game, there would be a hell load of more objects to render. How high did you set the max FPS?

At 1/28/09 06:52 AM, AnalogStick wrote: CS4 has made 3D much easier and much more useful. However one thing you should know is that this method of 3D is not very efficient. Sure it seems lagless when there are only a few objects, but in a real game, there would be a hell load of more objects to render. How high did you set the max FPS?

A reminder people. Raycasters have been done well since Flash 8 (and Mode 6 engines were a process a lot of people tried before then). This has nothing to do with CS4 and more to do with the increased speed of AVM2. Nothing to do with CS4 at all - you can all pull off this effect yourself with a copy of Flash 8 and some complex mathmatics

The future goal of course is to make something as fast moving as Andre Michelle's constant forays into actionscript - but an actual game :)

I started work on texturing the walls, but can't get the maths right. I have a 128*128 BitmapData, that is what the wall will be textured with. Each column of pixels finds the desired colour of each pixel by retrieving it from the bitmap with getPixel(x, y). The y is fine, just I can't work out how to find x accurately. Anyway, here it is so far. I tested the engine on a huge detailed map before, and it ran quite quickly. I thought it would slow down alot, but there was hardly any frame rate drop.

No, that was a link to the uploader. Whoops.
Here it is.

its awsome...but walking around with that texture makes me feel a bit dizzy..that would give you a headache after 5 mins.

Dude, I'm with the guy above. Textures aren't really priority right now. Work on collisions first. Then maybe textures, I'd still work on entities first, though.

I think I'll try and work out a way to do collisions without using hitTests, that just feels like cheating to me. I'll try and work out a way to check if the player has crossed (or will cross) a line

Woah, these textures are tripy. Your gonna fix that later on right?