Papervision3D

Last updated
Original author(s) Carlos Ulloa
Initial releaseDecember 2005;18 years ago (2005-12)
Final release
2.1.932 / December 2009;14 years ago (2009-12)
Operating system OS independent
Type Flash 3D engine
License MIT License
Website code.google.com/p/papervision3d/

Papervision3D is an open-source, 3D graphics engine for rendering 3D content within Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR. [1]

Contents

Unlike modern Flash 3D engines such as Away3D and Flare3D, Papervision3D is not built for Stage3D and renders 3D content fully on the CPU without GPU-accelerated rendering.

History

Papervision3D was launched by Carlos Ulloa around December 2005; it was made open source by the end of 2006. Papervision3D was of the first 3D rendering engines built for Adobe Flash Player, and at the time of its launch in 2005, was the most complete and best known 3D engine for Flash. It used drawTriangles() to render 3D content fully on the CPU, within Flash Player.

According to a 2009 book Papervision3D was "without a doubt the best known" 3D engine for Flash. [2] A 2012 book called it the "granddaddy of 3D libraries for Flash" and argued that "There is a simple reason for PaperVision3D's popularity: it is very complete in its execution." [3]

Away3D was forked from Papervision3D, for the purpose of improving performance. [4] Another 2011 book noted in the section on "3D with Flash" that "Away3D and Alternativa3D are currently the preferred solution for performance and features because they have a more active development community". [4]

Papervision3D was popular between its introduction in 2006 and 2009, but development has stopped since 2009 and it has been superseded by Away3D, which has been adopted by Adobe as the sole 3D rendering engine included within the official Adobe Gaming SDK. [5]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adobe Flash</span> Discontinued multimedia platform used to add animation and interactivity to websites

Adobe Flash is a discontinued multimedia software platform used for production of animations, rich internet applications, desktop applications, mobile apps, mobile games, and embedded web browser video players.

SWF is a defunct Adobe Flash file format that was used for multimedia, vector graphics and ActionScript.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adobe Shockwave</span> Multimedia platform

Adobe Shockwave is a discontinued multimedia platform for building interactive multimedia applications and video games. Developers originate content using Adobe Director and publish it on the Internet. Such content could be viewed in a web browser on any computer with the Shockwave Player plug-in installed. MacroMind originated the technology; Macromedia acquired MacroMind and developed it further, releasing Shockwave Player in 1995. Adobe then acquired Shockwave with Macromedia in 2005. Shockwave supports raster graphics, basic vector graphics, 3D graphics, audio, and an embedded scripting language called Lingo.

A Rich Internet Application is a web application that has many of the characteristics of desktop application software. The concept is closely related to a single-page application, and may allow the user interactive features such as drag and drop, background menu, WYSIWYG editing, etc. The concept was first introduced in 2002 by Macromedia to describe Macromedia Flash MX product. Throughout the 2000-s, the term was generalized to describe browser-based applications developed with other competing browser plugin technologies including Java applets, Microsoft Silverlight.

Reality Lab was a 3D computer graphics API created by RenderMorphics to provide a standardized interface for writing games. It was one of the main contenders in the realtime 3D middleware marketplace at the time, alongside Criterion Software's RenderWare and Argonaut Software's BRender.

A shading language is a graphics programming language adapted to programming shader effects. Shading languages usually consist of special data types like "vector", "matrix", "color" and "normal".

Adobe Flash Player is computer software for viewing multimedia content, executing rich Internet applications, and streaming audio and video content created on the Adobe Flash platform. It can run from a web browser as a browser plug-in or independently on supported devices. Originally created by FutureWave under the name FutureSplash Player, it was renamed to Macromedia Flash Player after Macromedia acquired FutureWave in 1996. It was then developed and distributed by Adobe as Flash Player after Adobe acquired Macromedia in 2005. It is currently developed and distributed by Zhongcheng for users in China, and by Harman International for enterprise users outside of China, in collaboration with Adobe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adobe AIR</span> Cross-platform runtime system for building rich web applications

Adobe AIR is a cross-platform runtime system currently developed by Harman International, in collaboration with Adobe Inc., for building desktop applications and mobile applications, programmed using Adobe Animate, ActionScript, and optionally Apache Flex. It was originally released in 2008. The runtime supports installable applications on Windows, macOS, and mobile operating systems, including Android, iOS, and BlackBerry Tablet OS.

Web3D, also called 3D Web, is a group of technologies to display and navigate websites using 3D computer graphics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">WebGL</span> JavaScript bindings for OpenGL in web browsers

WebGL is a JavaScript API for rendering interactive 2D and 3D graphics within any compatible web browser without the use of plug-ins. WebGL is fully integrated with other web standards, allowing GPU-accelerated usage of physics, image processing, and effects in the HTML canvas. WebGL elements can be mixed with other HTML elements and composited with other parts of the page or page background.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Away3D</span>

Away3D is an open-source platform for developing interactive 3D graphics for video games and applications, in Adobe Flash or HTML5. The platform consists of a 3D world editor, a 3D graphics engine, a 3D physics engine and a compressed 3D model file format (AWD).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Epic Citadel</span> 2010 tech demo

Epic Citadel is a tech demo developed by Epic Games to demonstrate the Unreal Engine 3 running on Apple iOS, within Adobe Flash Player Stage3D and using HTML5 WebGL technologies. It was also released for Android on January 29, 2013.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Starling Framework</span> Open-source game framework

Starling is an open source game framework used to create 2D games that run both on mobile and desktop platforms. It recreates the traditional Flash display list architecture on top of accelerated graphics hardware. Several commercial games have been built with Starling, including Angry Birds Friends and Incredipede.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Flare3D</span>

Flare3D is a framework for developing interactive three-dimensional (3D) graphics within Adobe Flash Player, Adobe Substance and Adobe AIR, written in ActionScript 3. Flare3D includes a 3D object editor and a 3D graphics engine for rendering 3D graphics. Flare3D runs on current web browsers utilizing the Adobe Flash Player, and uses Stage3D for GPU-accelerated rendering. Flare3D has not been under active development since late 2014.

CrossBridge is an open-source toolset developed by Adobe Systems, that cross-compiles C and C++ code to run in Adobe Flash Player or Adobe AIR. Projects compiled with CrossBridge run up to 10 times faster than ActionScript 3 projects. CrossBridge was also known as "Alchemy" and the "Flash Runtime C++ Compiler", or "FlasCC".

Stage3D is an Adobe Flash Player API for rendering interactive 3D graphics with GPU-acceleration, within Flash games and applications. Flash Player or AIR applications written in ActionScript 3 may use Stage3D to render 3D graphics, and such applications run natively on Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Apple iOS and Google Android. Stage3D is similar in purpose and design to WebGL.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scaleform GFx</span> Discontinued game development middleware package

Scaleform GFx is a discontinued game development middleware package, a vector graphics rendering engine used to display Adobe Flash-based user interfaces and HUDs for video games. In March 2011, Autodesk acquired Scaleform Corporation and Scaleform GFx became part of the Autodesk Gameware line of middleware. On July 12, 2018, Autodesk discontinued Scaleform GFx, and it is no longer available for purchase.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adobe Scout</span> Software

Adobe Scout is a visual profiler for Adobe Flash content running on desktop or mobile platforms, and works together with Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR. Scout enables in-depth profiling of ActionScript 3 code execution, 2D graphics and text rendering, and 3D graphics rendered via the Stage3D application programming interface (API).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">OpenFL</span> Software framework for video games

OpenFL is a free and open-source software framework and platform for the creation of multi-platform applications and video games. OpenFL applications can be written in Haxe, JavaScript, or TypeScript, and may be published as standalone applications for several targets including iOS, Android, HTML5, Windows, macOS, Linux, WebAssembly, Flash, AIR, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, Xbox One, Wii U, TiVo, Raspberry Pi, and Node.js.

References

  1. Doug McCune; Deepa Subramaniam (2009). Adobe Flex 3.0 For Dummies. John Wiley & Sons. pp. 388–389. ISBN   978-0-470-40789-9.
  2. Cheridan Kerr; Jonathan Keats (2009). The Essential Guide to Flash CS4. Apress. p. 286. ISBN   978-1-4302-2353-5.
  3. Matthew David (2012). Flash Mobile: Developing Android and IOS Applications. CRC Press. p. 199. ISBN   978-1-136-02250-0.
  4. 1 2 Remi Arnaud (2011). "3D in a Web Browser". In Eric Lengyel (ed.). Game Engine Gems 2. CRC Press. pp. 207–212. ISBN   978-1-56881-437-7.
  5. Adobe Gaming SDK, Adobe

Further reading