3D models in flash

Can you automate symbol creation?

[korkus2000]

I am creating 3D flash movie clips. Right now I am converting each model in every frame to a symbol to import the movie. Since there is only one object in the movie on every frame, is there a way to make flash take that object and create symbols from each frame?

If not, is there an easier way? 100 frames of creating symbols is a huge pain :(. My profile has an example of what I am talking about (warning flash movie 100k).

[Thors Hammer]

Very cool. I am starting to play with flash myself, are you using 5 or the new one (xm isnt it?)?

I am looking forward to what alot of the "guru's" here have to say in reply to your question. I think I am going to like 'playing' with flash alot.........

Thor

[tedster]

I'm just a dabbler with Flash, but I read about it a lot ;)

From what I read, I see that the search for good 3-D in Flash has been around a while, but has not yet born much fruit. There is no native way in Flash to rotate an object around a "third axis", so frame by frame conversions seem to be the only answer for now.

[SmallTime]

If you have the budget the latest Adobe After Effects has some built in, importing, and plug-in support for 3d, and will export swf. But the short answer is not to my knowledge. That is what the hours between 10pm and 4am are for :)

[knighty]

The best tool for this is Swift 3D it is a powerful application but ideally you need to have a 3D program to create the object in the first place.

Then you just import the object and Swift will compress and produce small swf files for easy use in Flash.

[korkus2000]

I am using animorphium pro. The models are exported as a flash movie or swf. I have been doing 3D flash for a while (my art degree is in computer animation). The problem is when you import the flash movie all the sprites are not symbols. This makes the movie huge. To optimize, you have to convert all of your vector sprites to symbols. On a 100 frame animation it is quite redundent. I am using 5 and wondered if maybe Flash 6 could do this.

Swift 3D leaves me in the same situation. I want to import the rendered movie into flash so I can add buttons and actions. Nesting a flash movie in a movie is huge. If swift does allow export into an .fla file let me know.

For anyone who is interested. Here are some tutorials for 3d flash.

[flashkit.com...]

Most 3d programs can render into a swf file. Just remember to make your frame count over 24 frames per second. The movie becomes very choppy under that.

[knighty]

I think Flash MX can convert all your shapes to create symbols.

Its on order at the moment so I'll let you know when I get it.

[Thors Hammer]

Well im an idiot. :( Ulead coold 3d 3.5......... You can create the the template to work from say in an wmf, for example. take into cool 3d, extrude it play with it, and then animate it. Make it do what you want to, and it has an export to flash object option.

I did this the other day, when I first started playing with it, and forgot all about it.

Thor