I had recently worked through a quick tutorial on FreeSpin3D on the Adobe Edge magazine December 2009 edition. I had noticed this software through an ad on Flex and Flash developer magazine and so I had decided to check out the demo. Of course, using 3D in real-time to design your site is very cool and convenient. The 3D Phone above is simply applying a motion tween on the layer containing the 3D object and using the trackball to change the rotation about the y-axis.
Here are some of my notes during my tutorial experience:
1) CPU resources take a hit during development and during rendering. Would it be preferable to be working off a workstation during the design? Regardless, even on the freespin 3D website, the rotating the IPod was chugging along. I wonder if it is an issue with my computer? (However, it is a year old and runs off a dual core Centrino, it should be responding well.)
2) Behaviors:
- Mouse control doesn’t respond well
- Adding behaviours can be finicky. In some cases, I could not delete the behaviors I worked with.
3) I would have liked to manually enter the x-y-z rotation values in text fields beside the trackball – feature request perhaps?
4) It’s nice that they offer a 20% discount when you download the tutorial. This is fair for those who have really tried out the software.
Update: Flash Magazine.com had an excellent review posted.