Flash 3D Cheats Most Wanted

Our eyes can be tricked into seeing three-dimensional perspective even when there is none by the careful scaling and placement of objects on a two-dimensional screen. All the effects in this chapter have used the same few principles that filmmakers have been using and perfecting for over a hundred years (and painters for thousands before) to accentuate the three-dimensional realism of images projected onto a two-dimensional format. Although, for simplicity's sake, we have used basic shapes in our examples, there's no reason why you can't re-create the effects using fancier artwork, such as 3D animations imported from Swift 3D.

We rounded off the chapter by introducing a powerful way of creating scripted animations using a class from the Moose ActionScript Library. In the next chapter, we will add another facet to our faux-3D scaling effects by introducing interactivity and delving further into the benefits of ActionScript.