3D Graphics in Flash (StarTrek)
 

Ok my friend and I are real big StarTrek geeks -- it seems there's this new proggy that will take 3DStudio files (3DS) and make them into Flash animations... I think it's called "Swift" or something like that -- I'm probably going to try playing with it more...

Here's an Enterprise ship he said he threw together in about 2 hours just learning to use the program... http://www.mark2000.org/steve/

I remember when VRML came out and I was so excited to get my 3D models on the web -- but only Netscape supported VRML well and it was still pretty lame... Anyway I think this type of software opens the door to some really cool shit -- he's already got a Klingon warship on the way and his shuttlecraft is already done heehe.... If anyone needs Flash work done I can show you some of his sample work -- it's impressive. I went to drawing school w/ Mark and he's one of the few guys that can draw everything out of his head -- and some damn funny caricatures too...

I watch alot of StarTrek on TV.....

Ya, its called swfit3d, its a decent program, they also have plugins that roll into 3ds and will do the same thing... and you can choose which type of vector ya want, cell, trace, etc.

Pretty cool stuff.

3dsmax plugins that create swf files have been around for about two years.. i've used illustrate! and vecta 3d.. they're ok... but unless they've fixed themselves up in the last year they do a horrible job of compressing the vectors.. treating each polygon in the side of a sphere as a line rather than fewer curved lines.. dirty points where garbage vector info accumulate.. that sort of thing.. often spent longer fixing them up than it took creating it in 3d.. they're not too bad for simple non curvilinear work though.... or the sort of thing where you can grab the whole animation once it's back in flash and just hit "optimize" without it going stupid....

they're pretty cool for single frame 3d "outlines" though.. the sort of thing you may use as a back ground design element..

like anything thats a conveinience theres a trade-off....