Rotate an image in 3D space?

[Hanna Hildebrandt]

I've asked this question a couple places, and so far no one's been able to give me an answer. Hopefully someone here will be able to help me.

I have an image that I want to rotate in 3D space when you move the mouse. This seems easy enough, and I have it mostly working. The problem is, it seems like Flash's 3D camera isn't oriented towards the image. The image is inside a MovieClip so that the center of the image is at 0,0 in the MovieClip, and the MovieClip is located at stageWidth/2,stageHeight/2 -- so it's in the centre of the stage. But if you move the image backwards in z-space, the image doesn't look like it's scaling down, which is what you'd expect -- since it's moving away from the camera -- but instead, it moves up and to the left as it moves backwards.

This is my code:

package {

import flash.display.*;

import flash.events.*;

import flash.net.*;

import flash.geom.Matrix;

import flash.geom.Point;

import flash.text.TextField;

public class Rotation extends MovieClip {

private var loader:Loader;

private var photo:Sprite;

private var display_txt:TextField;

public function Rotation():void {

stage.align = StageAlign.TOP_LEFT;

stage.scaleMode = StageScaleMode.NO_SCALE;

loader = new Loader();

photo = new Sprite();

display_txt = new TextField();

loader.contentLoaderInfo.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, initListener);

loader.load(new URLRequest("./images/dan.jpg"));

photo.addChild(loader)

addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, loop);

}

private function initListener (e:Event):void {

addChild(photo);

addChild(display_txt);

loader.x = 0 - (loader.width / 2);

loader.y = 0 - (loader.height / 2);

photo.x = (stage.stageWidth / 2);

photo.y = (stage.stageHeight / 2);

photo.z = 800;

}

private function loop(e:Event):void {

     display_txt.text = String(photo.rotationY);

     photo.rotationY = ((mouseX / stage.stageWidth) * 90)  - 45;

}

}

}

I've also uploaded my AS and resulting SWF here, so you can see the problem in action.

Does anyone know why the camera isn't oriented towards stageWidth/2,stageHeight/2? How do I make the image move directly away from the camera in z-space? Or am I just stupid for not giving up and trying to learn PaperVision?

[kglad]

increase its z parameter if you want it to move away from the viewer.

[Hanna Hildebrandt]

As you can see from my code, I do -- I gave it a z position of 800. But that doesn't move it directly away from the viewer -- it moves it up and to the left. You can see the result here: http://andcuriouser.com/sandbox/rotation/Rotation.swf.

When the picture has a z-position of 0, it's in the centre of the window. Here, with a z-position of 800, it's no longer in the centre.

[kglad]

do you see any problem in the flash test environment?

[Hanna Hildebrandt]

I'm not sure what you mean by "Flash test environment". The project is being compiled straight from the ActionScript, and the SWF is the direct output from that.

[kglad]

are you coding in the flash ide?

[Hanna Hildebrandt]

No, I'm compiling it from the ActionScript with MXMLC -- but the results from Flash and Flex should be identical.

[Hanna Hildebrandt]

Sorry, I need to bump. Has really no one ever had success rotating an image in 3D?

[kglad]

i have but i don't use flex so i can't help you with that.