I’ve been tearing my hair out for the last 24 hours trying to work out how the hell to get my precisely drawn design to scale correctly in Papervision. Anyone who’s tried this will know that it’s a frustrating blend of messing around with camera zoom, focus and field of view. But try as I might, I found it absolutely impossible to solve. I had come to the end of my patience and was ready to give up with PV3D and change the design completely…

…and then I came across this.

The thing that crossed my mind first when seeing this demo was “not only is it possible to reproduce a good pixel perfect 2D design in Papervision, but potentially it could be really great”.

After a bit of mooching around I came across the fantastic article that it was produced as a demo for. Rather depressingly, the article explains in very few words that all you need do is apply the following formula to the z axis of your 3D object:

3dobj.z = (camera.zoom * camera.focus) - Math.abs(camera.z)

I’d just like to take this opportunity to thank the author of the post for collating that information and producing such a simple yet thoroughly inspiring demo. You’ve saved me an enormous amount of time and taught me one clear lesson…when in doubt, stop getting frustrated and google it.

So one of the things that I didn’t discuss in my last Flash on the Beach post is that on the Wednesday afternoon, Ralph Hauwert announced that he was leaving the Papervision3D team. This came as quite a shock to everyone other than the team itself. I wasn’t at the session when he made the announcement but apparently he stated the reason for his leaving is purely so that he can spend more time on other projects and had nothing to do with his relationship with the Papervision3D team – this is also backed up in his recent blog post.

Ralph leaving has caused quite a ripple amongst the community and I can completely understand why. Alongside Tim Knip, Ralph designed the majority of the PV3D engine and the release of Papervision X (the next gen ground-up build) was reliant on them completing it together. The following quote from Ralph’s blog backs up my concerns…

One thing I’m not entirely sure of as of yet, is what to do with the PapervisionX code base. Built entirely from scratch by me and Tim Knip, this project really has part of my soul in it. It’s been exclusively me and Tim working on it, with plans to have the rest of the team start on it a while back. Currently, that hasn’t happened yet and the engine is not ready for release and officially not part of the Papervision3D code base. In other words; it’s mine and Tim’s. While I’d love to release it at some point in time, currently it’s not ready for that and with me leaving the team, it’s most likely not going to be released under that name, if released at all. I might decide together with Tim to donate it to the Papervision3D project, but currently I’m not sure on that decision yet; as there would have to be a considerable effort to make it stable for release. As it is unfinished now and publishing source code is somewhat a personal thing when most of it is yours, I’d think this is not what should be done right now. As I am going to pursue my own goals for the time being, this decision might take a while.

I will discuss with the team and Tim closely to see what can be done in the future, but for now, I don’t think it should be released. It might also be better for the team to work on it’s own Flash 10 compatible version of the engine.

Either way this is going to set PV3D back dramatically, which is such a shame. It was just beginning to get a foothold on the industry and many designers like myself are only just getting to grips with it. Not only does it have an impact on the technology, it also has a massive impact on how designers and developers are willing to push the boundaries with their work. I will continue to play with Papervision3D for the time being, but I have to be sceptical about the future of the technology and whether a potentially unsupported engine is the right thing to use for my clients.

Hopefully the Papervision3D team will make an announcement soon to put all our minds at rest…