I’ve reached the conclusion that I really need to know everything. I actually tried to talk my mother into allowing me to drop out of school at age sixteen, giving her examples of actresses, writers and musicians who had been high-school drop-outs. I finished high school and then college, but I never took more math than I had to take. I used to ask my mother why I needed to know algebra. I would have prefered not to take it at all, in high school. Oh, how I now regret than I never took a geometry or a trigonometry class. Not only is trig heavily used in cool and innovative Flash generative art like that you can find in books like Flash Math Creativity or on sites like Levitated. It’s also difficult to begin to understand the basics of 3D rotation coding constructs, without learning trig.

Therefore, I was very happy recently to find a trigonometry tutorial by a Flash scripter and for Flash scripters. It took me less than an hour to go through this tutorial, and when I was finished with it, I felt ready to use trigonometry for 3D rotations in Flash. I realize that there are other, more sophisticated ways of coding rotations, using matrix math and quaternions. For what I’m currently doing, though, the trigonometry integrates more easily and immediately into the rest of the code. I would have to do a lot of rewriting in order to use either matrix math or quaternions.

Other Posts Categorized as 3D Programming:

• Aegia Physics Code Samples in Director 11 - April 5th, 2008
• WOW 3D Physics Engine for Flash - January 30th, 2008
• Creating a Simple Hinge in Shockwave 3D Using the Havok Xtra - April 11th, 2007
• Director, I Missed You - February 9th, 2007
• Going Around in Circles - Back to Shockwave 3D Now - February 4th, 2007
• I've Been Martened, Tarted and Torqued - November 18th, 2006
• Sandy 1.0 Beta Released - June 24th, 2006
• Stuck on Rotation with Verlet Integration - June 17th, 2006
• A Good Tutorial on Basic 3D Math - June 7th, 2006
• 3D Models of Seemingly Impossible M.C. Escher Drawings - May 2nd, 2006

Other Posts Categorized as Flash:

• WOW 3D Physics Engine for Flash - January 30th, 2008
• Flash Player 9 for Linux in the Works - July 13th, 2006
• Flash 9 for Linux - July 1st, 2006
• Sandy 1.0 Beta Released - June 24th, 2006
• Verlet Integration in Flash with Flade Open Source Flash Dynamics Engine - June 4th, 2006
• Flash BabyCam - See the World Like Babies Do - May 21st, 2006
• Jim's Flash Bestiary - March 29th, 2006
• Spam in Art and Poetry - March 24th, 2006
• Page Flipping Script for Flash - March 18th, 2006
• Tarquin Engine for Flash Webcomics - March 18th, 2006