Hello. I started to learn Away 3d. I have read everything at http://www.flashmagazine.com/Tutorials/category/away3d/ and http://blog.tartiflop.com/2008/11/first-steps-in-away3d-part-1-getting-started/ as good introduction and now I dive in..
I am planing to know AWAY 3d from inside out. So my learning curve is different from others, It takes much more time, but makes me a better specialist. (this is an example of what I mean : http://www.mindscriptact.com/src/away3d/A3dPrimitives.as) While learning I want to know... not only what stuff is.. but also why it is.. and how it is. In most cases with class members it is clear and even trivial. But in some cases I found documentation not clear... or.. I simply fail to understand because of lack of knowledge... I have a deal for you... :) help me clear my knowledge gaps... and i will write in-depth documentation on classes. Also... learning from live docs makes me a tester of it.. I will note on stuff that I will find not clear, incomplete or plain wrong. Little background. I am new to 3d. And I am also new to AWAY 3d framework. So some of my questions may.. and probably will be result of my lack of knowledge. So I ask patience.. and if you point me to info source or hints on that to look for - I will be more then grateful. I also don't rush to read ... for an instance Mesh tempts to ehamine Geometry class. But it seams for me that you should get the point of the class.. by reading it.. without knowing rest of the framework.. so aether a am too dumb to understand it.. or livedocs is not clear, and I am more then wiling to fix both these problems... Also ... maybe you can suggest learning path. Currently I am picking classes by common sense, classes that looks most important to go with. I will numerate my questions, so it will be easer for you(and me) to refer to it. Thanks for your time: ### Object3d class : 1 :parameter center : ... what for? (debugging?) I have failed to get something not (0,0,0) ... even after moving object in various ways... and even creating face that alters bounding box... this.turtle.moveTo(200, -500, 0); this.turtle.applyPosition(100, -200, 0); this.turtle.addFace(new Face(new Vertex(1000, -1000, 1000), new Vertex ( -1000, 1000, 1000), new Vertex(1000, 1000, -1000))); trace('center:'+this.turtle.center) 2 : applyRotations() , applyPosition() it works 'without altering the appearance of child objects' ... but what 'appearance' means, is it saves some render time? don;t perform .. I don't know.. meshing?.. or other task?... 3: translate , rotate : it works with vector, to perform move and rotation.. but its not clear what kind of vector... Common sense(and testing..) tells me vector is drawn from object center to axis: (Number3D). I suggest to write it in live docs... something like.. "vector is defined by drawing line from objects center to axis parameter" 4: ownCanvas : if I understand correctly... 'true' forces to calculate object triangles separately.. and most likely create a dedicated sprite.. (for effects like glow .. and stuff) is object put in it? because if it is... it most likely will affect Z sorting.. 5: animationLibrary,geometryLibrary,materialLibrary if I understand corectly.. these 3 are generated with 3d importers.. and is not meant to be created otherwise? 6: inverseSceneTransform : well... I remember math.. and what it means to inverse a matrix in theory.. but fail to grasp there it is useful in practice.. any hints? 7: tick(time:int), traverse(traverser:Traverser):void : these I dont understand because I have no knowledge about traversing... 8: updateObject(), udateSession() ; no documentation on these two... ### Mesh class : by looking to class diagram(http://www.mindscriptact.com/swf/away3d/ Away3ddiagram.html)... I decided that Mesh is next important class.. but here I found myself confused about animation stuff.. i feel like I lack some kind of info here... 11: fps, loop, smooth: some parameters of anim is write only : why? 12: transitionValue, smooth, frame, hasCycleEvent : trying to do something with these properties returns : "TypeError: Error #1009: Cannot access a property or method of a null object reference." althow hasCycleEvent, isRunning works fine. 13: gotoAndPlay(), gotoAndStop(), play(<AnimationSequence>), setPlaySequences() - doesn't make much sense ... it appears that for an instance.. turtle is a MESH.. its not animation.. and I still have these functions.. what for ? Error #1009 here too... 14: invertFaces() - has no effect on turtle.. : this.turtle.bothsides = true; this.turtle.back = new ColorMaterial(0x000000); : isn't helping. 15: clone() , cloneAll() : how these differ : Goametry containis face and segment elements it seams clone() clones it too... trace((this.turtle.clone() as Mesh).asXML() == (this.turtle.cloneAll () as Mesh).asXML()); returns true... 16: Mesh has methods to draw triangles and segment.. and make your own Mesh.. but how to code animations? how to set frames? this class is very odd to me.. it has animation functions. But no means to define your own.. also.. most of proprieties IMHO should return defaults even if no animation is present.. or.. at least I would like a way to check.. Mesh has animation or not... I kinda stuck in here.. help!
