the future is open {

December 5, 2007 5:53 PM

Papervision3D 2.0 released yesterday. Papervision3D is an open source 3D Engine for flash which provides a lightweight, browser friendly platform for rendering 3d content in your browser window. Papervision (some examples of PV3D in use: 1, 2, 3 (this third one might be awhile to load...), however, is only the tip of the iceberg which is a very committed and talented open source flash community.

for reference, I've not been involved in any way in the development of any of these projects- just a fan...

want deep linking for flash?

want an awesome open source flash remoting solution?

want an awesome tweening engine?

want a flash communication server (usually in the 10's of k's) for free?

want to compile your flash documents without using flash? option 1 (actionscript 2), option 2 (actionscript 3)

want an awesome external flash code editor? (sorry mac users)

want a javascript deally that makes sure your flash documents display correctly across browsers?

check these projects out if you get a chance, and never forget that the future is open {

posted by localhuman (11 comments total)

Nice post.

(I recommend not using haxe to compile AS3 SWfs, because you do not actually write in AS3, you write in haxe, which though very similar to AS3, is most certainly not AS3. instead, just use the free command line compiler included in the Flex SDK. More on that here)
posted by ericost at 6:58 PM on December 5, 2007

apparently, adobe has big news coming for AS3. i hope this post has it right: a reference AMF3 serialization/desierialization reference implementation, in java.

i can't wait.
posted by klanawa at 7:09 PM on December 5, 2007

This post feels like it is saying that there are a host of free tools for creating flash content independently of Adobe's expensive solutions, but I am not geek enough to translate it.
posted by mecran01 at 7:11 PM on December 5, 2007

this post is actually saying that the open source community is creating things for flash that adobe can't (deep linking, cross browser compatibility, sweet 3d engines, a reasonable code editor, etc, etc....)

and that's why things such as swfaddress, swfobject, and, to an extent, papervision, have become industry standards. which is pretty cool.
posted by localhuman at 7:24 PM on December 5, 2007

want a flash communication server (usually in the 10's of k's) for free?

A "communication server"? Like... apache? or any other of the 9 million open source internet servers? I see this one does streaming media, but still.
posted by delmoi at 7:31 PM on December 5, 2007

streaming media, remoting and remote shared objects. plus it runs inside a servlet container or standalone with an internal container.

so yeah, just like apache.
posted by klanawa at 8:06 PM on December 5, 2007

Are there any free tools for Flash development on Linux? I do a lot of web dev, but have never learned Flash, and would like to.
posted by gsteff at 9:14 PM on December 5, 2007

Another entry to your list folks might be interested in:

want an awesome Actionscript based 2D physics engine? (based on the C++ lib Box2D)
posted by gwint at 7:25 AM on December 6, 2007

Are there any free tools for Flash development on Linux? I do a lot of web dev, but have never learned Flash, and would like to.

ericost posted a link to a tutorial on mxmlc (command line compiler). You can get the Flex 2 SDK for free from Adobe and use it with ant and Eclipse.
posted by ryoshu at 9:00 AM on December 6, 2007 [1 favorite]

thanks gwint, i'll have to try that out some time. I've thought about getting into APE, but just haven't had time to learn a physics engine. Do you know anything about APE?
posted by localhuman at 12:03 PM on December 6, 2007

oh, and for those of you of the radiohead persuasion who want to see some more Papervision3D things, try trapping yourself inside this videocube. (DISCLAIMER: COMMENT SELF LINK, REMOVE AS NECESSARY) You might have to wait for a bit to get to the good part of the video, but its well worth it.
posted by localhuman at 12:10 PM on December 6, 2007 [1 favorite]