22 May 2008

Away3d 2.1: demos & docs

by Rob Bateman

Away3d 2.1 bring some welcome assistance to getting starting with the engine - a revamped documentation section (now included in the svn) and a brand new demos download containing code examples which will continue to be updated as more are written. As well as this, there are some updates to the engine that should help with general use, including:

• Simplified events model - listeners can be added using the supplied methods or with the standard addEventListener method of the EventDispatcher.
• Event types listed as static classes.
• Simplified BitmapRenderSession use.
• Object primitives have dynamic property setters that can be adjusted after instantiation.
• Merged AlphaBitmapMaterial class (all bitmapmaterials now support alpha and color properties).
• Dot3 and Enviro materials take the bitmap for shading maps as a required argument.
• Improved material access on individual sides of the cube primitive

plus the usual bug fixes and housekeeping updates. As usual there is a new tag in the googlecode svn, and a new download zip in the downloads section. Something else that is probably worth drawing attention to is the issues section of the googlecode repository. Our mailing list has been very successful at being used for bug reports in the past, but to prevent any future reports from being accidentally overlooked, we would urge everyone to start logging their bugs in this list. Also, for those wanting to find a few more tutorials for Away3d, be sure to have a look at the External Site section of the tutorials page. Enjoy the new release! The Away3d Team