I am yet to implement bitmap textures and perspective but the majority of the work has been done. At the moment it can wireframe and render an orthogonal view I plan to make the source available once the first Lads game is released.

Here is a demo.

UPDATE 08/04/2011: I have now added perspective projection and camera support.

So I’m starting to take a look at Flash Player 10′s 3D capabilities. I was initially a little disappointed with what was offered, but at a closer glance, this plane-based 3D engine allows me to create my very own polygon-based rooms.

What I have above is a working example of one such 3D room. This sample is a tech-demo for the evolution of Rotat the Rat’s level tools, a game that has nothing else in common with Rotat the Rat.

NB: This content was lost in the great blog migration of 2009. I am working on an advanced version of it and will be sure to share when it is available

The pen draws shapes, the hand moves shapes and the X deletes shapes. Once you start drawing a shape, you can close it by clicking on the first point again. Also, the canvas (in white) is movable.

This is one of my personal favourite examples of my drawing API usage. This one uses some great trig to automatically curve as you draw.

The Rotat level editor will rely on this for user experience, and I believe it is intuitive. Please offer any recommendations to make it more intuitive.

UPDATE: I have now used this Isometric Engine in a live project. Check it out at getoutthere.qld.gov.au.

I decided to try my hand at isometric 3D. I’m developing a basic API called IsoMetrix. It handles all the movement and trig whilst allowing simple adjustments to all axis’.

The company I work for, Cru Digital, has a use for this – and most of the engines me and my colleague Matt looked at were unnecessarily complex. Hopefully, with a some further tweaking, this can do the job we want.

Click to read the nitty gritty bits

Some features:
- Directly set or get X,Y or Z axis’. It does the trig on the fly.
- Automatic depth control.
- Shadows (to be improved and switched to BitmapData)
- Light and easy event based updating. (enterframes to be globalised)
- Simple gravity (to be improved upon)
- Easily extendable classes that allow the setting of an anchor points.

Contains new types IsoSprite and IsoStage. IsoSprite is a sprite with depth and axis information and translation. IsoStage manages the depths, shadows and gravity.

For the example I also created a randomly coloured grid and a series of randomly generated and controlled balls.

Hopefully I’ll switch the gravity and shadows to do more than just replicate the actions of a ball in the coming weeks.

Here it is…

Overall, I’m very happy with the results… let me know your thoughts.