The ActionScript 3.0 language brought a lot more power and flexibility to Flash, enabling developers to build powerful applications that hadn’t been possible before. One usage of this increased power is in processing 3D graphics, and many Open Source 3D engines sprang up. This scene has matured now, and there are a few clear winners in the 3D engine space – such as Away3D, Papervision3D and Sandy.

With the release of Flash CS4, Adobe added some basic 3D support into the main Flash IDE, increasing the public’s awareness of what’s possible. At the same time, the support they added was very basic, meaning that to perform any impressive functions developers still had to use a dedicated 3D engine, so the interest in these engines has grown and grown.

This is the first book to deal with the popular Away3D engine, and one of the first up-to-date books on 3D in Flash. It is written by the Away3D development team.