Flash

Flash doesn't include any native 3D ActionScript commands or 3D hardware support, unlike Macromedia Director (which supports the Shockwave 3D format). However, good design is all about knowing the system, working within its limits, and hackin...

One simple approach is to arrange slices of 2D imagery but offset them to create the illusion of 3D. That is, a stack of flat 2D slices is used to create the illusion of a 3D object with volume. This hack is inspired by a number of sites i...

The image can be rotated, and the technique uses a texture image with distortions to simulate the depth of the surroundings. This technique was popularized with technologies like QuickTime VR (http://www.apple.com/quicktime/qtvr/authoringstudio...

The viewer's brain uses the differences in the two images to calculate the depth of each object in space (so-called stereo vision). For example, 3D movie glasses use red and blue filters (or vertical and horizontal polarizing filters) to ensu...

Some physical effects are hard to get right in scripted animation unless you know the underlying math. Acceleration calculations are easier than they might appear. Like all forces acting on masses, gravity and friction cause acceleration (or ...

This hack looks at a simple way to simulate an object being thrown. When you throw a ball, you define an imaginary force vector. The direction of this vector defines the initial direction in which the ball moves, and the length of the vect...

Flash allows you to perform collision detections between two movie clips with the MovieClip.hitTest( ) method. The method will return true if a collision is detected and false if no collision is detected. The definition of what constit...

Computer animation is different from real life in a number of ways. A computer graphic can move in any direction, whereas, in real life, an object usually has to turn in a particular direction before it can move in that direction. Furthermore...