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can I so semi-3d without flash?

W

winterquilt

Suspended
Original poster
Feb 18, 2008
223
29
I have a bit of a challenge, I would like to create a website that flash could do, that I know how to do in flash, but I hate the idea of a flash requirement. I just want people to go to the site and it would load and work.

Essentially the site would have a 3d looking disc in the centre of it, of which, upon mouse over event, would rotate to bring from behind to the front the program to download. That's it.

Here is a mock up of the site:

http://flickr.com/photos/8-8/2962150678/sizes/o/

And here is a little bit more detail:

http://flickr.com/photos/8-8/2961305193/

Is there a way to do this without a user having to have to download flash or any kind of plug-in, basically as HTML as possible.

Many thanks.
 
winterquilt said:
I have a bit of a challenge, I would like to create a website that flash could do, that I know how to do in flash, but I hate the idea of a flash requirement. I just want people to go to the site and it would load and work.
Click to expand...

How awesome are your javascript skills? You could use javascript to animate your objects, moving and scaling them at the same time to give the feel of the object "flying out" in 3d. Having an object rotate in 3d is a bit tougher, you would need to cycle through an array of images to simulate the object turning in space.

If you want to go all out, there are a few 3d engines for Javascript. Many of them had demos that I could not get running however.

I have not seen too much of this type of 3d work with javascript. Most javascript motion is movement on a 2-dimensional plane.

Now, if you do create this site in flash, it would most likely just "load and work". As of this summer, Flash Player 9 was installed on 97.7% of computers across the "mature markets" (US, Europe and Japan). You are more likely to run into someone with their javascript turned off than someone who does not have some version of the flash plug-in currently installed. However, if you want SEO and deep linking, you will need to do a bit more legwork to get such things working in flash.
 
reply

I thought about an ainmated gif, but its a bit naff.

I can't program in Javascript. The problem with flash is that I don't own it and I don't do pirate, plus every time I go to a site and it requests me to download a yet newer version of flash I just don't look at the site. I hate that!

The javascript option sounds like a lot of difficult work, I'll look into the 3d engine and scaling.
 
winterquilt said:
The javascript option sounds like a lot of difficult work, I'll look into the 3d engine and scaling.
Click to expand...

It is a lot of work. I was not able to find an example of the type of motion you are looking for written in javascript in my quick search (not to say that it does not exist). It is not so much in the programming, but in the mathematics. Even some of the 3d engines require you to be able to mathematically describe how an object moves in 3d space.

winterquilt said:
The problem with flash is that I don't own it and I don't do pirate
Click to expand...

If you are willing to move away from the flash timeline and create your SWF files through actionscript there are a few open source tools that allow you to compile SWF files. Owning flash not required!

Or, write your site in the open-source Processing programming language, which has amazing 3d capabilities.
 
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