Adobe Flash 11 Stage3D (Molehill) Game Programming Beginner’s Guide

eBook Details:

• Paperback: 412 pages
• Publisher: WOW! eBook (November 25, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1849691681
• ISBN-13: 978-1849691680

eBook Description:

A step-by-step guide for creating stunning 3D games in Flash 11 Stage3D (Molehill) using AS3 and AGAL with Adobe Flash 11 Stage3D (Molehill) Game Programming Beginner’s Guide

• The first book on Adobe’s Flash 11 Stage3D, previously codenamed Molehill
• Build hardware-accelerated 3D games with a blazingly fast frame rate.
• Full of screenshots and ActionScript 3 source code, each chapter builds upon a real-world example game project step-by-step.
• Light-hearted and informal, this book is your trusty sidekick on an epic quest to create your very own 3D Flash game.
• This is the game you will create after you are done with the book: Adobe Demo

Adobe Flash 11 Stage3D (Molehill) Game Programming Beginner’s Guide

Adobe’s Stage3D (Molehill) is a set of 3D APIs that has brought 3D to the Flash platform. Being a completely new technology, there were almost no resources to get you acquainted with this revolutionary platform, until now.

This book will show you how to make your very own next-gen 3D games in Flash. If you have ever dreamed of writing your own console-style 3d game in Flash, get ready to be blown away by the hardware accelerated power of Stage3D. This book will lead you step-by-step through the process of programming a 3D game in Actionscript 3 using this exciting new technology. Filled with examples, pictures and source code, this is a practical and fun-to-read guide that will benefit both 3D programming beginners and expert game developers alike.

Starting with simple tasks like setting up Flash to render a simple 3d shape, each chapter presents a deeper and more complete videogame as an example project. Right from a simple tech demo, your game will grow to become a finished product – your very own playable 3d game filled with animation, special effects, sounds, and tons of action. The goal of this book is to teach you how to program a complete game in Molehill that has a beginning, middle, and game over.

As you progress further into your epic quest, you will learn all sorts of useful tricks such as ways to create eye-catching special effects using textures, special blend modes for transparent particle systems, fantastic vertex and fragment programs that are used to craft beautiful shaders and much more. You will learn how to upload the geometry of your 3D models to video RAM for ultra-fast rendering. You will dive into the magical art of AGAL shader programming. You will learn optimization tricks to achieve blazingly fast frame rate even at full screen resolutions. With each chapter, you will “level up” your game programming skills, earning the title of Molehill Master – you will be able to honestly call yourself a 3D game programmer.

This book is written for beginners by a veteran game developer. It will become your trusty companion filled with the knowledge you need to make your very own 3D games in Flash.

What you will learn from this book :

• Animate complex 3d scenes in Flash.
• Initialize the Molehill graphics engine enabling hardware 3d acceleration.
• Overlay 2D Flash on top of your 3d scenes for beautiful user interfaces.
• Render splendid textures for eye-catching visuals.
• Upload 3D model geometry for in-game items, enemies, terrain and levels.
• Program incredible looking shaders in AGAL that run incredibly fast.
• Make your own special effects like explosions, sparks, and magic.
• Write event handlers and timers that control the action.
• Track player movements, health and the game state.
• Trigger game events, detect collisions, and control the game.
• Compile your project to a .SWF that you can put on a web page.

Approach

Written in an informal and friendly manner, the style and approach of this book will take you on an exciting adventure. Piece by piece, detailed examples help you along the way by providing real-world game code required to make a complete 3D video game. Each chapter builds upon the experience and achievements earned in the last, culminating in the ultimate prize – your game!

Who this book is written for

If you ever wanted to make your own 3D game in Flash, then this book is for you. This book is a perfect introduction to 3D game programming in Adobe Molehill for complete beginners. You do not need to know anything about Stage3D/Molehill or Flash 11 in order to take advantage of the examples in this book. This book assumes that you have programming experience in AS3 (Actionscript 3).

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