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So one of the questions that I get the most regarding this new 3D support in
Flash Player 10 is if people can forget about using open-source engines like
Papervision3D now and that's definitely not the case.
As I mentioned earlier this new 3D support is for simple effects and transitions.
Now you're welcome to push the limits of this native 3D, but for doing certain
types of projects you're still going to want to use a full-blown 3D engine like Papervision.
So here is one of my favorite Papervision sites, the Whitevoid site, their portfolio.
And here it's got really great navigation. If I click Open, all the sections
of the site kind of pop out. I can click Open to go into other sections.
It has a really nice clean 3D feel to it. So something like this, you could probably
accomplish using the new native 3D support. So there are situations like this where it's
kind of an edge case, where you could do it in Papervision and you could probably
also do it using the native 3D. So some sites though are unquestionably better
suited for using something like Papervision. So the Big & Small site, which is the BBC
show, this is created by Plugin Media. This is actually a full- blown immersive environment.
So if I click to enter this and this actually was created using 3D models.
So I can come here and zoom into this and do this little finger painting thing.
I can basically go all around this house and explore this house.
Now something like this, you would never want to actually do this using the native 3D.
It's just not in-depth enough. So if you want to do kind of these real, real
3D environments, where you are going to be importing 3D models, adding shaders
and lights, you're still going to want to use things like Papervision for
those things. So it's really a matter of what type of content
do you have. And again one of the main purposes of this
native 3D is that it's easy for designers to use, inside of Flash CS4.
If you ask a designer to go and download Papervision and start using it,
it's basically not going to happen. You pretty much have to be an ActionScript
developer in order to use that library. So again, you definitely going to want to
know how to use things like Papervision, if you want to create these full,
immersive 3D environments.