A simple 3D tree

slowtiger · Post by **slowtiger** » Sun Jan 06, 2008 5:48 am

In a recent post someone said it's not possible to do a 3D skeleton in AS. Well, it is, but with lesser degrees of freedom (of movement) than in "real" 3D.

I just tinkered with this for some 20 minutes. Instead of moving the camera around the tree, I just tilted the earth layer to let it lie flat so it could be rotated around the axis of the tree layers. To make things easy, I created the first bone/vector layer pair, duplicated and flipped it, then duplicated both again, put them into a group and turned this group layer 90°.

http://www.slowtiger.de/examples/baumtest.swf

Since anything on a layer lacks volume, I can't think of a possible purpose for this trick, at least not within my range of styles.

DK · Post by DK » Sun Jan 06, 2008 3:03 pm

Brilliant effect slowtiger!!!
D.K

heyvern · Post by **heyvern** » Sun Jan 06, 2008 4:30 pm

Great effect!
I love that tree. It reminds me of Dr. Seuss!

-vern

Ovjeh · Post by **Ovjeh** » Mon Jan 07, 2008 6:02 am

Nice...
It would look even better with more random animation of curly branches,
and with moving them a bit from each other.

What about this stretchy ends, that side effect of '3D' rotation in AS.
How can that be fixed, faked. It annoys a lot sometimes.

slowtiger · Post by **slowtiger** » Mon Jan 07, 2008 6:14 am

The "stretchy ends" are a result of the virtual wide angle lens of the camera. As far as I have tested the camera zoom tool (5) changes this, but the effect isn't really satisfying. The default value of 60 seems to indicate a wide angle, smaller values give a kind of tele lens. You have to compensate for this with moving your camera further apart from your objects in order to keep them fully visible.

heyvern · Post by **heyvern** » Mon Jan 07, 2008 6:15 am

What about this stretchy ends, that side effect of '3D' rotation in AS.
How can that be fixed, faked. It annoys a lot sometimes.

Are you talking about the perspective distortion? I think you can "fix" that by changing the distance of the camera and the zoom.

-vern

Ovjeh · Post by **Ovjeh** » Mon Jan 07, 2008 7:12 am

Thanks for info both of you. I'll experiment with that some more.